Flight to Varennes
A failed attempt at escaping to Austria, the flight to Varennes symbolizes how weak the monarchy has recently become. After the “march to Versailles,” King Louis XVI and his beautiful wife Marie Antoinette, were forced to move into the Tuileries palace in the heart of radical Paris, France. Promised safety, they lived there for two years as prisoners of their own country. King Louis wished to escape the horrors of this injustice for a variety of reasons. One was the fact that he was being kept against his will in Paris. Forced to live in the palace, he had limited communication with the outside world. This forced him to communicate through secret letters. Despite what the radicals will say about these letters, he was merely doing what he had to.
Catholicism was another reason he wished to leave. He felt oppressed religiously by the guards assigned to him. On Easter, he simply asked to take his communion outside of Paris in a small village and was refused! The outrageousness of denying a religious request is unfathomable! No matter what the radicals believed, religious oppression has no place in the old regime or the new one.
Easter, he simply asked to take his communion outside of Paris in a small village and was refused! The outrageousness of denying a religious request is unfathomable! No matter what the radicals believed, religious oppression has no place in the old regime or the new one.
With his wife, he wrote and mailed letters through secret correspondents to Queen Marie Antoinette’s family in Austria. The letters flew back and forth between the two countries completely unnoticed by the guards or radicals of Paris. The emperor of Austria agreed to conceal and protect the royal family if they could make it to the Austrian borders. Within these letters lay another secret convention. King Louis was asking the emperor to send in his forces to bring down the Constituent Assembly. He could see from a first hand perspective the terrors of the revolutionary ideas. The murders, accusations, and lies whirled constantly around his very own family. This move would have greatly benefitted France in restoring the country’s peace and history. As Edmund Burke says, “Good order is the foundation of all things.” Clearly not representing this idea, the radical Constituent Assembly deserved the king’s revolt in order to restore a foundation for this nation.