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Fear
> The Flight to Varennes
> A
Summary of what happened...
On
the 20 June 1791, Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, their children and closest
servants fled Paris in secret, hoping to reach the Luxembourg border
and to join the Austrian troops there.
Unfortunately
for the King, the royal party made it only as far as the small town
of Varennes. A man called Drouet, who was a local postmaster, recognized
them. Louis was brought back to Paris on June 22. Surrounded by the
National Guard as they passed through the streets of the capital, the
people watched the royal family with silence and hostility. The King
had left a proclamation behind explaining his rejection of the Revolution's
"complete anarchy": many thought he had renounced the right
to lead the French nation.
Despite
this treachery, the King was not punished. The Assembly, wanting neither
a Regency nor to redraft their brand new Constitution, declared that
he had been kidnapped; his unacceptance of the Revolution, they claimed,
had been manufactured by his advisors. The Constitution of 1791, which
passed in August, confirmed the King's position. His use of the royal
veto to block the Legislative Assembly's measures against priests and
emigrés, however, continued to undermine his standing.
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