Short History Of... - The French Revolution, Part 1 of 2

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

During the late 18th Century, a series of political, social, cultural, and economic issues reached breaking point, exploding in what is now known as the French Revolution. This unprecedented event affected not just France, but the rest of the world - reinventing centuries-old approaches to society, and introducing Europe to brand new ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity. But how did France reach the tipping point that triggered the Revolution? Is it the most important event in Western history? And how did a movement founded on such noble principles, descend into one of the bloodiest periods in history? This is Part 1 of a special two-part Short History Of the French Revolution. Written by Nicola Rayner. With thanks to Professor Marisa Linton, historian and author of ‘Choosing Terror; Virtue, Friendship, and Authenticity in the French Revolution’. Get every episode of Short History Of a week early with Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening, bonus material, and early access to shows across the Noiser network. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. It is the dead of night on June the 21st, 1791. The wheels of a large coach drawn by six horses rattle through the small town of Varennes in northeastern France. It is a tiny place, scarcely a hundred houses or so, not far from the border with the Austrian Netherlands where the

carriage is headed. Inside the coach is comfortable with leather seats, wine racks, and even a leather-covered chamber pot. A six-year-old boy wakes from dozing and lifts his head from the lap of his governess. But she doesn't look like his governess tonight. She is elaborately clothed as a Russian baroness. Everyone looks different from normal. His beautiful mother is in plain black, like a servant, while his father is dressed as a valet. The boy himself is in girls' clothing.

He and his older sister have been told to be as quiet as mice. There's a shout from outside, a call for them to stop. The horses slow down, and the vehicle grinds to a halt. As the boy's parents exchange worried glances, his governess squeezes his hand tightly. Now they've stopped, they can hear more people outside. A crowd gathering. At the door of the coach, a man appears carrying a lantern. He asks who they are. The boy waits for his father to answer, that's the usual way of things, but instead his governess replies that she is the Baroness de Corfe, traveling with her family.

Ignoring her, the man holds the lantern close to the face of the boy's father. He takes in his large nose and double chin, muttering to the man beside him how much these features resemble those on the assignat, the new paper currency. He demands their passports and there is a wait while he examines them. Then he orders them out of the carriage. The sleepy child rubs his eyes and clings to his governess's petticoats. The crowd looks frightening. Some of the men are holding muskets. Eventually a local judge arrives, a man who is said to have visited the palace of Versailles.

He takes one look at the boy's father and drops to his knee, stammering a greeting. The crowd holds its breath as the boy's father makes his decision. Then, finally, he speaks. Yes, he admits, I am your king. The family are taken to the home of a local prosecutor, where the children are put to bed. The boy, the dauphin or prince, tries to sleep, but can't stop listening to his parents arguing for their freedom downstairs. Then, despite the late hour, the church bell begins to peal and there's the sound of a swelling throng of people outside the house. the house. At dawn, alerted by the clatter of hooves, the boy creeps to the casement and peeks through a gap in the curtains. Two men, couriers from Paris, push their way through the crowd. The Dauphin tiptoes downstairs to hear what the new arrivals have to say.

Standing in the shadows, he goes unnoticed by the adults in the room. Standing in the shadows, he goes unnoticed by the adults in the room. The message is a decree from the National Constituent Assembly, an order that the king and his family should be returned to the capital. His mother, always quick-tempered, throws the decree to the ground. But his father, Louis XVI, looks very tired and sad. He says, there is no longer a king in France. The royal family's attempted escape, known as the Flight to Varennes, was a turning point in the French Revolution, a crucial link in a chain of events that would see the king and queen dead in less than three years. An unprecedented explosion of political, social, cultural, and economic change, the French Revolution affected not just France, but the rest of the world.

affected not just France, but the rest of the world. It tore up the rulebook, reinventing centuries-old approaches to monarchy, aristocracy, even the church. But how did France reach the tipping point that triggered the revolution? Is it, as some claim, the most important event in Western history? And how did a movement with such noble principles as liberty, equality, and fraternity introduce to the world the killing machine known as the guillotine? I'm John Hopkins. From Neuyser, this is part one of a special two-part short history of the French Revolution. It is 1756. After three centuries of animosity, France and Austria are finally allies, united against Great Britain in the battle for global dominance

that will become known as the Seven Years' War. To cement their reconciliation, the French King Louis XV and Empress Maria Teresa of Habsburg decide to join their royal descendants in marriage. But it is not until 1770 that the much-anticipated union takes place. After a proxy wedding in Vienna, the bride, Marie Antoinette, the youngest daughter of the Habsburg empress, begins the long journey to France. Near Strasbourg, on a small island on the Rhine, the young archduchess is disrobed of her Austrian clothing in a symbolic handover to France. She bids farewell to her attendants from home, and even has to temporarily relinquish her

Austrian dog, Mops. On May 16, the 14-year-old arrives at the opulent palace of Versailles, the royal residence near Paris. She is shown to the Queen's state apartments, where she prepares for the wedding. Elsewhere in the palace, the 15-year-old Dauphin is being dressed in the gold and diamond-covered habit of the Order of the Holy Spirit. A shy and introverted young man, Louis is not a natural leader and only became the heir apparent after the deaths of his two older brothers. He is happiest indulging in his hobbies, hunting or tinkering as a locksmith.

He met his pretty young bride for the first time just two days ago. They're still strangers to each other. At one o'clock in the afternoon, Marie Antoinette enters the king's cabinet, where the waiting Dauphin takes her hand, and the pair make their way through the palace's famous hall of mirrors on the way to the royal chapel. Diamonds glint at the bride's neck and in her hair, which towers high in the elaborate fashion of the day. Her enormous dress is shaped by panniers, side-hoops that widen women's skirts.

But the bodice, constructed before her arrival in France, is far too small. The superstitious might say the ill-fitting dress is a bad omen. And then there is a storm that night. Later, fireworks marking the royal wedding in the Place de la Concorde kill 132 people. All in all, it is an inauspicious start to the Union. In 1774, the Dauphin succeeds his grandfather as King of France, and the following year is crowned Louis XVI in a lavish coronation at Reims Cathedral. He is anointed with holy oil as the earthly ruler of France, consecrated by God. But the new king lacks the confidence of his predecessors.

Professor Marisa Linton is a historian and author of Choosing Terror, Virtue, Friendship and Authenticity in the French Revolution. Louis XVI was never cut out to be king, and he was always very conscious that he was the descendant of superior kings, that his ancestor Louis XIV had been the great king, the man who made absolute monarchy work. Louis XVI comes to the throne at the age of 19, and he's conscious that he's too young and he's not sure what to do. He's the kind of man who can't think outside the box. So he's conscientious, but he can't adapt to change.

Worst sort of person to have. He vacillates. He has favorites. He's shy. He's awkward. He's not very good at dealing with factions at the court. He's always agreeing with the last person who spoke to him and always changing his mind. Really bad qualities in an absolute monarch. The country that the young Louis XVI inherits is restless. The 1770s are a time of growing social discontent, with crop failures, high taxes, and food shortages contributing to the dissatisfaction of the people. And the economic and financial crises are exacerbated by wars. France is still smarting from the humiliation of the recent Seven Years' War in which Canada

and most of the French territory in India was lost to Great Britain. So when Louis has the opportunity for revenge on Britain in the American War of Independence, he jumps at the chance. He commits to that cause 2,000 million livres, a sum that could feed and house 7 million French citizens for a year. It's enough to bankrupt his country. Meanwhile, in the cafes of Paris, new ideas are being debated among France's intellectuals, such as Voltaire and Rousseau. Because this is the time of the Enlightenment, which stresses individual rights and equality,

alongside a mistrust of traditional figures of authority. Beyond the capital's cafes, the poorest in society bear the worst brunt of taxation. France is a very rural society. Many of the peasants pay feudal dues, seniorial dues to their overlords who are predominantly noble. So it's very backward in some senses. It's also a very hierarchical society. It's divided into orders or estates who have particular privileges. The clergy is the first estate because they're close to God. That's how they think. The second estate is the nobles, and anyone who is a noble is superior to anyone who is a commoner, members of the third estate.

What is known as France's old regime, comprising the three estates, is a highly rigid social structure. It comes with a system of privileges that benefits the nobility and clergy who constitute a mere 3% of the population. The apex of that society is the absolute monarchy. An absolute monarch, in theory, controls all politics. Everything is about him. It's always a him in France. He makes all the decisions on behalf of his people, and ordinary people and even people higher up have no say. And while questions are being raised about the system as a whole,

the monarchs themselves are falling out of favor too. The queen presides over Versailles, a world of elaborate ceremonies and outrageous hairstyles. But as time passes, the adulation she enjoyed as a teenager gives way to disapproval. She was initially popular, but various things happened which made people fall out of love with her. It took seven years for she and her husband to consummate the marriage. And the consequence of that was that it was a very long time before royal heir was produced. And the principal job of a queen is to produce a legitimate male child to inherit the throne. So she did produce children, but by the time that she did so, her reputation was already

tarnished. And she had a reputation as someone who was flighty and liked fun and liked spending money. Her first child, Marie-Thérèse, is born in 1778, followed by the dauphin, Louis-Joseph Xavier-François, a few years later. A third child arrives, then a fourth baby is born prematurely and lives for only a few months. Then a fourth baby is born prematurely and lives for only a few months. But although she is an affectionate mother, the Queen struggles to win back the approval of her people, who now start to spread scurrilous rumors about her. What isn't true is that she was hugely sexually promiscuous.

That was fabricated, mostly fabricated. And her reputation became very poor, especially from 1786 onwards. This was the time of the diamond necklace affair, where it's a very complicated, scandalous story, but basically the public believed that a cardinal, Cardinal Ron, had bought a necklace for the queen on her behalf to give it to her because she loved very expensive diamonds. And this was a fabulously expensive diamond necklace. She hadn't been involved, but people thought she had been. And so her reputation was very much damaged.

July the 13th, 1788, is an ominously hot day in Paris, the sky darkened by clouds but finally break into a thunderstorm. But it's no ordinary downpour. Hailstones the size of chicken eggs rain down, and outside the city the storm tears through vineyards and destroys fields of wheat. The Duke of Dorset, the British ambassador to france sends a report to the british foreign secretary it is impossible to give expression to the damage that has been done he writes explaining that trees have been torn up by the roots and corn and vines entirely destroyed

a harsh winter follows that summer storm. The failed crops mean bread prices double. As the food shortage intensifies, riots break out and bakeries are raided. Meanwhile, Marie Antoinette, now nicknamed Madame Deficit, is spending on her wardrobe alone about a thousand times the annual average wage of a Parisian worker. It leads to a sense that she is completely oblivious to the suffering of the poor, something that will in time come to define her. The one thing that everybody thinks they know about Marie Antoinette is that she said, let them eat cake, being told that the people did not have enough bread. As far as we know,

there is no truth in this. In fact, the story that a princess comes up with this dizzy idea that the people could eat more cake if they don't have enough bread, that's actually an old story. Jean-Jacques Rousseau repeats that story before Marie Antoinette ever came to the throne. However, having said that, I don't think she knew very much at all about how poor people lived or what it meant to be hungry. Better Man, now playing in select theaters. Jacques Necker, a popular finance minister, is appointed to manage the economic crisis. He advises the king to call a meeting of the Estates General,

a gathering of representatives from all three estates. It will be the first time such a meeting has been held since 1614. During the meeting at Versailles in May 1789, the king's eldest son falls ill and dies. Understandably, the king's mind is elsewhere, but while he's distracted, the challenges faced by the estate's general intensify. Bread prices continue to rise and public order deteriorates. The deputies of the third estate decide to take matters into their own hands. What the Third Estate deputies increasingly want is political change, a political revolution. And in the absence of leadership from the monarchy,

And in the absence of leadership from the monarchy, the third estate deputies constitute themselves into a national assembly. And they say that effectively they are a body that represents the nation. And the third estate leaves out the nobles of the second estate and the clergy of the first estate, who were also within the Estates General. The third estate deputies say, we are the nation in ourselves. On June 20, 1789, the members of the new assembly find themselves locked out of their usual meeting place on the orders of the king. A very clumsy attempt, I think, to diffuse the situation. They adjourned to a nearby tennis court. It was the nearest big space that they could find. It's only sort of a few yards away from Versailles. The tennis court still exists, by the way, you can visit it. They go into this tennis court and they take an oath never to separate until they have given France a constitution. And it's a big moment. They know

they are taking a huge risk in doing this because the king could order their arrest. Now the foundation stone has been laid for the revolution. After all, if the assembly is in charge, the king is not. In the days after the swearing of what becomes known as the Tennis Court Oath, the king tries to regain control over matters. On June 23, he instructs the three estates to reconvene separately. But the new assembly refuses this request, asserting that the nation does not take orders. Some members of the nobility and aristocracy have already thrown in their lot with the assembly,

but now more and more join the new political body. In the end, Louis is forced to accept this seismic political change. He tells any remaining allies among the clergy and nobility to join the others. But some still have their doubts about the king's support for the new order not least because his troops have started assembling at versailles and in paris and they don't look friendly and when louis fires the popular jacques nica fury and panic soon It is just before ten in the morning, on July the 14th, 1789. A wine cellar from Saint-Antoine, a poor neighborhood on the eastern edge of Paris, makes his way through the narrow, crowded streets.

Many of his friends and neighbors are hurrying in the same direction. There's the sense that something big is happening. He's headed for a familiar landmark, the enormous prison that overshadows his neighborhood, the Bastille. The rumors are that the prison's governor is pointing its cannons out of the neighborhood. The wine seller has even heard, though there's no way of knowing if it's true, that the prison's governor is pointing its cannons out of the neighborhood. The wine cellar has even heard, but there's no way of knowing if it's true, that the deputies of the assembly have been locked in the Bastille's infamous dungeons. As people stream past a bakery, there's the sound of a commotion.

It's another raid, enacted by a gang of hungry, angry people just like him. The wine cellar recognizes one of the men running from the scene of the crime and grabs his sleeve. The man, a friend, gives him a piece of dry bread and confirms a story for him too. City folk have seized rifles and cannons from the armory of the veterans' hospital, but all of the gunpowder has been moved to the Bastille. The man rushes away, and the wine cellar nods and continues on with the crowd.

Soon he's in the shadow of the fortress itself. It's a massive, hulking rectangle of a building, with high stone walls, eight round towers, and a deep, waterless moat. But it's not just its physical presence that's threatening. In the minds of the families who live in Saint-Antoine, it is an enduring symbol of fear and oppression. They've heard the terrifying accounts of its famous prisoners, Voltaire, the Marquis de Sade, and even the mysterious man in the Iron Mask. The king can throw whoever he wishes in there. The crowd swells, swarming around the prison space, a sense of feverish purpose in the air.

But though the people are angry, the demands are peaceful at first. The disheveled crowd parts to let a delegation through. Smartly dressed men in coat tails and knee-length breeches, intent on negotiating with the governor. By lunchtime, the crowd is enormous. Thousands of people, perhaps. Working men and women. Tradespeople, merchants and artisans, too. Shoemakers, locksmiths, and cabinetmakers.

Dressed in shirt sleeves in the July heat, they clutch axes and knives. Some even have muskets, and someone passes the wine cellar a pike. Time drags on. With no word from inside, the crowd becomes increasingly restless. Perhaps the delegation has been taken hostage. Then, with an ominous creaking and a flash of the red and blue coats of the guards, the cannons are withdrawn from the castellated edges of the walls. It can mean only one thing. They're being loaded. Panic flies through the crowd. Several men climb on the roof of a perfume shop that's built right up to an outer rampart.

From there, they can reach the prison's courtyard. A couple of them hack down the chains that support the drawbridge to the fortress. It falls with a resounding crash, trapping one poor man beneath it. The crowd wastes no time. As everyone around him pours over the drawbridge, the wine cellar moves with them, clutching his pipe. The soldiers guarding the Bastille begin to shoot, but those in the crowd with muskets fire back. This is no longer a negotiation.

It's a battle. And it might even be a battle they can win. During this critical moment in the history of his country, Louis is out in the countryside with his courtiers, enjoying a hunting trip. Returning to Versailles later that day, an aide informs him what has happened. He listens in horror, then asks, Was it a rebellion? No, sire, he is told.

It is a revolution. This is a colossal moment. You can't overestimate the importance of this, because this is ordinary people entering onto the stage of history, taking matters into their own hands and asserting the right of the National Assembly, their assembly, to exist. But there were awful things that happened as a sort of side consequence of the storming of the Bastille. The governor surrendered and was murdered by the crowd rather horribly.

It was an example of people being out on the streets and fighting and what that means, the good and the bad. By the time the Bastille is stormed, the prison's darkest days are on the wane. The rumors about the imprisonment of the assembly deputies turn out to be unfounded. Just seven prisoners are liberated, but they are paraded by the crowds nonetheless. It was a symbol to show that the days of absolute monarchy were over, the days in which people could be arrested on the seise of the king under a lettre de cachet, and the Bastille had been used for that purpose many times, that those days were ended. So it's hugely symbolically important.

It becomes, of course, a national holiday in France. important. It becomes, of course, a national holiday in France. On July the 15th, a building contractor arrives at the Bastille with 800 men and begins to demolish the fortress stone by stone. They carve the rubble into trinkets and souvenirs, including medals and small replicas of the Bastille. Ink pots and snuff boxes are made from the Bastille's iron chains. These symbols of liberty are distributed as souvenirs to towns and cities across the country. A key from the Bastille even finds its way to the first President of the United States, George Washington, a gift from his friend, the Marquis de Lafayette. A French aristocrat and military officer, Lafayette played a key role in the American

Revolutionary War, helping to capture Yorktown in 1781. Now, back in France, Lafayette is committed to bringing the same principles of liberty and equality which he fought for in America, principles of liberty and equality, which he fought for in America, to the country of his birth. A lean, athletic man, the 32-year-old soldier is known for his intelligence and charm. Now it is he who proposes the creation of a citizen's militia to help maintain order. After the storming of the Bastille, the king withdraws his own troops and reinstates Jacques Necker as finance minister. He offers a further gesture of conciliation by making a trip to Paris. There he meets the new militia, soon to become known as the National Guard. Its members each sport a rosette of blue and red, the ancient colors of Paris,

to which Lafayette, as the commander of the guard, has added the royal white. The Tricolore is born. Yet victory at the Bastille, and the apparent truce between the rebels and the king in the capital, does not bring peace throughout France. Riots erupt across the countryside, where rumors circulate that the nobles are planning to suppress the revolution. What becomes known as the Great Fear begins to spread through rural France. The great majority of people in France are peasants. Many of them rise up against their

overlords and invade their chateau and burn the records of the seigneurial dues because they think that by doing that they will no longer have to pay them. So it's a very revolutionary act. The response by the assembly on August the 4th, 1789, is to abolish these dues, other feudal privileges, and so-called venality of office, whereby people can buy their way into important jobs. Free justice for all is proclaimed, alongside equality of taxation, and the church is deprived of its tithes. The old order is being torn up, and yet France still has a king. What the revolutionary leaders seek to establish is a constitutional monarchy,

where the sovereign has reduced powers. It is a role that will be limited by France's first written constitution, which they are in the process of drawing up. But Louis XVI has been brought up to believe in the divine right of kings, meaning that a monarch's authority is directly conferred by God. Can such a person, even a well-intentioned one, who has been promised absolute monarchy from childhood, learn how to share his powers? Time will tell as the Assembly returns to constitution making. The revolutionaries in the new assembly, the National Assembly, decided that they would give France a written constitution that would set out the laws by which

the state and society would be managed. A huge undertaking. It took until 1791. But they decided, first of all, to set out a preamble, a kind of statement of principles, a statement of intent that would guide the Constitution. The statement is called the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The idea is one of universal equality and liberty, but the reality is rather different. And in practice, they limit the categories of people who can have access to some of these liberties. There's a sizable minority of Jews in France at this time.

They argued a long time over whether Jews should be given civic rights as citizens. Eventually they are, but it takes many months of debate. And the other thing that is a real huge problem, does equality of rights, does liberty extend to the slaves in the French colonies? In Saint-Domingue, which is now Haiti, in Guadeloupe, Martinique principally. This is a huge, huge issue. Later, the enslaved people of Saint-Domingue will take matters into their own hands.

And before long, so will another group. Women are not included in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. As so-called passive citizens, it will take a long time for them to get the vote in France. But that does not mean they are completely without power, even if they have to take it for themselves. While the men are working on their great constitution, the women have more immediate worries, how to feed their families. In the markets, where women are the main buyers and sellers, wives and mothers gather to complain about food prices. Traditionally, the market women of Paris have a special relationship with the king and queen. Each year, on August 25, St. Louis Day, the female market traders make a trip to Versailles

to pay tribute to the royal family. Every time the queen gives birth, the market women visit, bringing her flowers, while she, in turn, holds a banquet for them. But during the autumn of 1789, the women are dissatisfied with their old bosses. Despite a better harvest, the price of bread is on the rise again. What's more, the king continues to live in luxury at Versailles, seemingly unmoved by their plight. And he's not exactly ingratiating himself by embracing the revolution's radical new measures either. Now it is the Assembly that makes the laws, the King only has the power of suspensive

veto over them. But his reluctance to collaborate has won him and the Queen new nicknames, Monsieur and Madame Vito. The King hasn't signed the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, so questions are raised about his trustworthiness. Would it be a better idea for him and the royal family to move to Paris, where their actions can be observed more closely? With the lifting of censorship, pamphlets and newspapers proliferate.

Jean-Paul Marat, a former doctor, begins to make a name for himself with the publication of his newspaper, The Friend of the People. He is a distinctive figure, dressed in filthy clothes with a yellow bandana soaked in vinegar to hold back his wild hair. Through his paper, he starts rumors about ministers hoarding grain while the people grow hungry. And in early October, when news reaches his desk of a lavish royal banquet, his fury boils over. The event welcomed the arrival of a new regiment to Versailles, summoned by the king for his own protection. But their invitation

to the palace and the celebrations that they enjoyed there are an enormous faux pas on the part of the king. At the banquet, the royalist soldiers are reported to have toasted the monarch and his wife, who made a brief appearance. Even worse, any man wearing the tricolour rosette is said to have been compelled to replace it with a white royalist one. As stories of the lavish banquet reach Paris on October 3rd, they are embellished by Marat and other rumourmongers. In some versions, the royalist soldiers are said to have thrown the tricolour to the floor, trampling it underfoot and even urinating on it. trampling it underfoot and even urinating on it. Unsurprisingly, these stories are not received well by the anxious, hungry populace.

Two days later, crowds of Parisian market women begin to gather in the capital outside the city hall in the pouring rain. One woman, a young mother who works as a fishmonger or poissard, has today left her children with her mother. She's standing at the edge of the group with her sister, who has brought along a drum and is striking a marching beat. Armed with brooms and kitchen implements, the women around them call out to Paris's councillors for bread to feed their families. But soon the women are joined by armed men. The fishmonger is pressed forward, away from a scuffle. There are angry shouts from elsewhere in the crowd. The women want to deal with the situation themselves.

They don't need the men's help. But soon it becomes apparent that the city's councillors aren't going to act. So a cry goes up that it's time to take it to the top. The woman's sister bangs her drum more loudly, and as the autumn rain falls, the women march on Versailles. Alongside several thousand women in bonnets and aprons, accompanied by some male accomplices, the sisters embark on the five-hour journey out of town. Most still clutch their improvised weapons, but some are dragging cannons looted from the city hall's armory through the mud as well.

The ominous procession reaches Versailles at about three in the afternoon. Now, alongside a smaller delegation of twenty or so women in sodden clothes and muddy boots, the fishmonger storms into the assembly alongside a man who has appointed himself their spokesperson. Inside the chamber, the all-male delegates are taken by surprise. Straight away, chaos breaks out. The demand for bread is repeated amid shouting and arguments. One young girl is invited to sit on a delegate's knee. The fishmonger spreads her cloak out to dry on the assembly seats.

Taking charge, the assembly's president, Jean-Joseph Meunier, gives the order for food and drink to be offered to the women. for food and drink to be offered to the women. He explains that the king is out hunting, but offers to accompany a smaller group of the protesters to the palace, where they can make their case. The fishmonger volunteers, and soon they're back outside in the rain-swept streets of Versailles. The unrest is palpable, but the deputation of five or six market women enters the palace peacefully.

The young mother has never seen such opulence. Her footsteps echo through halls stretching out impossibly far, their walls adorned with endless artwork, scores of chandeliers bigger than cartwheels, and more gold than she's ever imagined existed. Doors of chandeliers bigger than cartwheels, and more gold than she's ever imagined existed. And when the enormous doors are opened to the grand room where the king now awaits, it's more than some of them can manage. One young woman of just 17 simply faints away.

But the fishmonger is a daughter of the revolution, and she is determined to show no fear. Louis listens to the delegation. He signs the assembly's promise of food aid and gives orders for wagons of bread to be sent to Paris. Sensing a golden opportunity, Meunier asks the king to also sign the draft constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man. But almost fatally, the king hesitates. He holds a long meeting with his advisers, during which they discuss the possibility of the royal family's escape to the garrison town of Metz in northeastern France. Though he is terrified, Louis refuses to become what he calls a fugitive king. But he is shaken by the reports he hears that some of the women want to return to Paris with his wife's head on

a pike. In the end, the king agrees to sign the declaration, but his hesitation costs him. Outside, tension has been building. Some women seek refuge for the night in churches, others are offered shelter by the townspeople. But a restless contingent remains just beyond the palace gates. The National Guard, several thousand men in total led by Lafayette, arrives at Versailles from Paris at almost midnight. After advising Louis to consider moving to the capital where the National Guard can keep him safe, Lafayette believes it is calm enough for him to turn in and get some rest for the night. In this he will prove to be wrong. At four in the morning, the situation outside the palace tips over into violence. Storming into the grounds, the dissatisfied crowd kills two of the king's guards, beheading

one directly below Louis' bedroom window. The market women and their allies flood up the main staircase towards the queen's bedchamber. A terrified Marie Antoinette flees with her two children to the king's apartment via a hidden staircase, while the mob tears apart her lavish quarters with their pikes. At the final hour, Lafayette and his National Guardsmen enter the scene to restore order, emptying the palace of intruders and punishing the ringleaders. But there is still the crowd outside to deal with.

Lafayette persuades the king and queen to make an appearance from the balcony of the palace. Pale and shaken, Louis and Marie Antoinette agree. But when they do, their people cry out that they want their king to come with them to Paris. their people cry out that they want their king to come with them to Paris. Faced with the intimidating mob, as well as the promise from Lafayette of greater security in the capital, the king does not have much choice but to agree. At 12.30 p.m., a remarkable procession sets out on the road to Paris. With 50 or 60 wagons of bread and flour, the triumphant market women accompany the king's family on the journey.

Once there, the royal family moves into the dilapidated Tuileries Palace. Within days, the assembly moves to Paris too. A truce seems to have been reached. But the heads of the royal guards on pikes on the road to the capital are an ominous reminder of how nasty things can turn. The people are beginning to realize the power they hold in their hands. Now, the royal family resides in the gilded cage of the Tuileries Palace, under the watchful eye of their people. It is like living in a goldfish bowl. The king's sister, Elizabeth, has to move from her rooms on the ground floor because

of people staring in. The queen is goaded into a debate by a group of women on the terrace outside her apartment. Their lifestyle is more restrained than in Versailles. The queen's hairdresser is permitted on the staff, but the styles are now considerably toned down. In the months that follow, some of the royal properties are confiscated, while others, Versailles and the Tuileries among them, remain in the monarch's possession. The assembly moves into the former indoor riding school near the palace, a large rectangular space with a high ceiling.

There it continues working on its reforms, which the king appears to accept. The changes include the controversial nationalization of Catholic church property to pay off the country's debt, and, in June 1790, the abolition of hereditary aristocracy. Whatever Louis thinks, privately, he signs the assembly's decrees. On July 14, 1790, the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, he takes part in the celebrations at the Champs-de-Mars, a large public park where the Eiffel Tower now stands. There he vows to protect the new constitution, affirming his role as a constitutional monarch to the elated crowds.

to the elated crowds. But the story of France's transformation is far from over. French royalists who have escaped abroad, including the king's own brothers and cousins, begin to plot against the revolutionary government in France. Collectively known as the émigrés, they seek foreign aid and support in their mission. Other European monarchies listen with concern to their warnings. It's not inconceivable, after all, that similar

revolutionary ideas could infect their own countries. In November 1790, Louis sends a letter to a trusted statesman who has fled to Switzerland, giving him the authority to deal with foreign courts in the king's name. He is instructed to propose measures to re-establish royal authority in France. This letter, and others like it, from the king and queen to royalists abroad, reveal the dangerous double game they are playing. By Easter 1791, the relationship between Louis and his people has become so fraught that the king and his family are prevented from leaving the Tuileries for a chateau just out of town. The French people are increasingly distrustful about the royal family's intentions. As it turns out, they have every reason to be suspicious.

In the dead of night on June 20, 1791, the royal family leaves Paris in a specially commissioned six-seater carriage. Louis and Marie Antoinette take with them Louis' sister, the couple's two children, and their governess, who is dressed as a Russian baroness. But the disguise is not perfect. Three servants riding on top of the coach as bodyguards wear a garish bright yellow, a shade associated with royalty.

And thanks to his image on the country's banknotes, the king is the owner of the most recognizable face in the country. The carriage is heading for a meeting place close to the border, where the party will join with a royalist general and his troops. Behind him, at the Tuileries, the king leaves a handwritten document on his bed, criticizing the revolution. But the royal family never reaches its destination. It becomes known as the flight to Varennes. Louis is intercepted at Varennes

and brought back. And after that, people don't trust him anymore. They think he was going over to the Austrians. The royal family are returned to Paris, where the mood is ominous. Lafayette has promised a beating to anyone who applauds the king, a hanging to anyone who insults him. Despite the worsening relationship between the king and the revolutionaries, the Constitution of 1791 is officially published on September 3rd, cementing the constitutional monarchy in France. While the king retains his title, his powers are now limited. The real power rests with the elected representatives of what is now the Legislative Assembly. But it's far from an easy alliance.

The constitutional monarchy comes under huge stresses. First with the Flight de Varennes, the actions of the Émigrés, but also the very reckless decision of some of the leading revolutionaries in the new assembly, the Legislative Assembly, to declare war on Austria and Prussia. They're really upping the stakes, and they do this because they think that they will flush out France's internal conspirators, by which they mean the court, the king and the queen. It's a very volatile situation and people become more and more hostile to the monarchy. On April the 20th, 1792, France declares

war on Austria, the birthplace of Marie Antoinette, a country now led by the queen's own nephew, Franz II. In June of the same year, Austria's ally Prussia declares war on France. Back in Paris, the king and queen are now considered by many as the enemies within. Though France is unrecognizable from the country it was just a few years previously, it is still at a tipping point. And for no one is the situation more perilous than those who had been at the very top. So can the new constitutional monarchy survive this precarious situation? Or is it time for the blade to fall on France's centuries-long royal tradition?

Next time on Short History Of we'll bring you the second installment of this special two-part Short History of the French Revolution