Insurrection of 10 August 1792

Conflict between King Louis XVI and the country's new revolutionary Legislative Assembly increased through the spring and summer of 1792 as Louis vetoed radical measures voted upon by the Assembly. Tensions accelerated dramatically on 1 August when news reached Paris that the commander of the allied Prussian and Austrian armies had issued the Brunswick Manifesto, threatening "unforgettable vengeance" on Paris should harm be done to the French monarchy. On 10 August, the National Guard of the Paris Commune and fédérés from Marseille and Brittany stormed the King's residence in the Tuileries Palace in Paris, which was defended by the Swiss Guards. Hundreds of Swiss guardsmen and 400 revolutionaries were killed in the battle,^[1] and Louis and the royal family took shelter with the Legislative Assembly. The formal end of the monarchy occurred six weeks later on 21 September as one of the first acts of the new National Convention, which established a republic on the next day.^[2]


The insurrection and its outcomes are most commonly referred to by historians of the Revolution simply as "the 10 August"; other common designations include "the day of the 10 August" (French: journée du 10 août) or "the Second Revolution".

Toward crisis[edit]

On 3 July Pierre Vergniaud gave a wider scope to the debate by uttering a threat against the King's person: "It is in the King's name that the French princes have tried to rouse all the courts of Europe against the nation, it is to avenge the dignity of the King that the treaty of Pillnitz was concluded and the monstrous alliance formed between the Courts of Vienna and Berlin; it is to defend the King that we have seen what were formerly companies of the Gardes du Corps hurrying to join the standard of rebellion in Germany; it is to come to the assistance of the King that the émigrés are soliciting and obtaining employment in the Austrian army and preparing to stab their fatherland to the heart... it is in the name of the King that liberty is being attacked... yet I read in the Constitution, chapter II, section i, article 6: If the king place himself at the head of an army and turn its forces against the nation, or if he do not explicitly manifest his opposition to any such enterprise carried out in his name, he shall be considered to have abdicated his royal office." Vergniaud recalled the royal veto, the disorders it had caused in the provinces, and the deliberate inaction of the generals who had opened the way to invasion; and he implied it to the Assembly that Louis XVI came within the scope of this article of the Constitution. By this means he put the idea of deposing the King into the minds of the public. His speech was circulated by the Assembly through all the departments.^[13]


Evading the royal veto on an armed camp, the Assembly had invited National Guards from the provinces, on their way to the front, to come to Paris, ostensibly for 14 July celebrations. By mid-July the Fédérés were petitioning the Assembly to dethrone the king. The Fédérés were reluctant to leave Paris before a decisive blow had been struck, and the arrival on 25 July of 300 from Brest and five days later of 500 Marseillais, who made the streets of Paris echo with the song to which they gave their name, provided the revolutionaries with a formidable force.^[14]


The Fédérés set up a central committee and a secret directory that included some of the Parisian leaders and to assure direct contact with the sections. A coordinating committee had been formed of one federal from each department. Within this body soon appeared a secret committee of five members. Vaugeois of Blois, Debesse of The Drome, Guillaume of Caen, and Simon of Strasbourg were names nearly unknown to history: but they were the creators of a movement that shook France. They met at Maurice Duplay's house in the Rue Saint-Honoré, where Robespierre had his lodgings, in a room occupied by their fifth member, Antoine, the mayor of Metz. They conferred with a group of section leaders hardly better known than themselves—the journalists Carra and Gorsas, Alexandre and Lazowski of the Faubourg Saint-Marceau, Fournier "the American", Westermann (the only soldier among them), the baker Garin, Anaxagoras Chaumette and Santerre of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.^[15] Daily meetings were held by the individual sections, and on 25 July the assembly authorized continuous sessions for them. On the 27th Pétion, who had been reinstated as Paris mayor by the Assembly on 13 July, permitted a "correspondence office" to be set up in the Hôtel de Ville. Not all sections opposed the King, but passive citizens joined them, and on the 30th the section of the Théâtre Français gave all its members the right to vote. At the section meetings, Jacobins and sans-culottes clashed with moderates and gradually gained the upper hand. On 30 July a decree admitted passive citizens to the National Guard.^[16]


On 1 August came news of a manifesto signed by the Duke of Brunswick, threatening as it did summary justice on the people of Paris if Louis and his family were harmed: "they will wreak an exemplary and forever memorable vengeance, by giving up the city of Paris to a military execution, and total destruction, and the rebels guilty of assassinations, to the execution that they have merited."^[17] This Brunswick Manifesto became known in Paris on 1 August and heated the republican spirit to revolutionary fury.^[16]


Insurrection threatened to break out on the 26 July, again on the 30 July. It was postponed both times through the efforts of Pétion, who was to present the section petitions to the Assembly on 3 August. On 4 August, the section of the Quinze-Vingts, the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, gave the Legislative assembly an ultimatum: until 9 August to prove itself.^[18] Of the forty-eight sections of Paris, all but one concurred. Pétion informed the Legislative Assembly that the sections had "resumed their sovereignty" and that he had no power over the people other than that of persuasion. On the 9th the Assembly refused to indict Lafayette. That night the tocsin rang.^[19]