Attempt To Flee Paris
Louis XVI's indecision on how to deal with revolutionary demands was one of the causes of the forcible transfer of the royal family from the Palace of Versailles to the Tuileries in Paris on October 6, 1789 after Versailles had been attacked by an angry mob. Henceforth the king seems to have become emotionally paralyzed, leaving most important decisions to the politically untrained queen. Prodded by the queen, Louis committed himself and his family to a disastrous attempt to escape from the capital to the eastern frontier on June 21, 1791. With the dauphin's governess, the Marquise de Tourzel taking on the role of a Russian baroness, the queen and the king's sister Madame Élisabeth playing her maids, the king her butler, and the royal children her daughters, the royal family made their escape. The escape was largely planned by Count Axel von Fersen and the Baron de Breteuil. Due to the cumulative effect of a host of errors which in and of themselves would not have condemned the mission to failure, the royal family was thwarted in its escape when the king was recognized in the town of Sainte-Menehould, by a postmaster named Jean-Baptiste Drouet. The king and his family were eventually arrested in the revolutionary town of Varennes, 50 km from their ultimate destination, the heavily fortified royalist citadel of Montmédy. One rumor suggests that the king was recognized because his face appeared on French assignats, though this story's validity is contested.
Read more about this topic: Flight To Varennes
Famous quotes containing the words attempt to, attempt, flee and/or paris:
“Much of the ill-tempered railing against women that has characterized the popular writing of the last two years is a half-hearted attempt to find a way back to a more balanced relationship between our biological selves and the world we have built. So women are scolded both for being mothers and for not being mothers, for wanting to eat their cake and have it too, and for not wanting to eat their cake and have it too.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“Working women today are trying to achieve in the work world what men have achieved all along—but men have always had the help of a woman at home who took care of all the other details of living! Today the working woman is also that woman at home, and without support services in the workplace and a respect for the work women do within and outside the home, the attempt to do both is taking its toll—on women, on men, and on our children.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)
“The discipline of the Old Testament may be summed up as a discipline teaching us to abhor and flee from sin; the discipline of the New Testament, as a discipline teaching us to die to it.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“The production of obscurity in Paris compares to the production of motor cars in Detroit in the great period of American industry.”
—Ernest Gellner (b. 1925)