The Legislative Assembly and The Fall of The French Monarchy - The King Exercises His Veto

The King Exercises His Veto

From the first, relations between the king and the Legislative Assembly were less than friendly. The king refused to meet the Assembly's initial delegation in person; the Assembly voted to deprive the ceremony of the king's visit to their hall of almost all customary pomp (although the vote was rescinded the following day, and the king's address was generally well received).

On 9 November 1791 the Assembly decreed that the émigrés assembled on the frontiers should be liable to the penalties of death and confiscation if they remained so assembled on 1 January following. (The legislation was clearly directed against those who had taken up arms or engaged in diplomacy: it was reasonably indulgent towards those who simply felt safer abroad.) Louis did not love his brothers, and he detested their policy, which without rendering him any service made his liberty and even his life precarious; yet, loath to condemn them to death, he vetoed the decree. He did, however, sign a decree of 30 October, stating that his eldest brother Louis-Stanislaus-Xavier was required to return to France in two months, or at the expiration of that period he would be considered to have forfeited his rights as regent.

On 29 November 1791 the Assembly decreed that every non-juring clergyman must take within eight days the civic oath, substantially the same as the oath previously administered, on pain of losing his pension and, if any troubles broke out, of being deported. This decree Louis vetoed as a matter of conscience. In either case his resistance only served to give a weapon to his enemies in the Assembly. But foreign affairs were at this time the most critical.

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