Book Review: When the King Took Flight (King Louis XVI and Marie Antionette)

            Through his book When the King Took Flight, Tackett focuses his argument on the premise that the flight of King Louis XVI and the royal family sparked a chain of events that greatly motivated and spread the effects of the Great Terror during revolutionary France (2).  Tackett proposes that the ultimate failure of the royal family to escape from France, his return to Paris and his following actions impacted the way that the people viewed the king, the government and the revolution itself.  In order to support his claims, Tackett takes the reader through a step-by-step account of what happened the night the king escaped, as well as a detailed analysis of the responses and effects of the escape. 

            On June 21, 1971 King Louis, his wife and children, their nannies and a few friends and servants slipped away into the night, leaving their fortressed prison behind.  After weeks of planning and waiting, they had finally escaped.  However, things did not go as smoothly as everyone had anticipated.  Tackett places special emphasis on the various delays and changes, arguing that any one of these could be the reason why the escape attempt failed.  To begin with Louis waited for a while before finally conceding that escape was prudent, despite advice telling him to leave immediately.  Then, the escape date changed three different times due to various circumstances.  Additionally, too many people planned to escape with the royal family, and Marie and Louis demanded that everyone ride together in one carriage.  The carriage happened to be painted a bright yellow, which drew the villagers’ attention and reminded them of the army.  The army which was supposed to meet the escape party fell behind schedule and so did the actual prisoners.  To top everything off, Louis insisted on walking outside, next to the carriage, leading to his eventual recognition by Drouet. 

            All of these and any one of these led to the recapture of the fleeing family on the night of June 21.  After identifying the king, Drouet gathered support from the national guard.  Upon confronting and stopping the king, they took them to the local inn at Varennes, which was run by a patriotic man of the revolution.  The king and his family spent the night at the inn, while the town leaders and Drouet discussed what should be done with them.  Tackett notes that while these men held the king and his family, they did not bare him any ill will.  They might have been patriots and friends of the revolution, but they still respected and honored the king.  This made their decision difficult, but they knew that they had to preserve the revolution by returning the king to Paris.  Their resolve was strengthened by a letter from the National Assembly who had heard of their “guests.”

            The trip back to Paris proved even longer and more difficult than the trip to Varennes.  During the day and night of the 21^st, news had spread throughout the country about the escape of the king.  Some citizens, viewing it as treachery and deceit, lined the road home, waiting for a sight of the royal family.  Violent mobs attacked the carriage.  One of the events that sparked the great outburst of emotion was the feeling of betrayal of the people by the king.  Up to this point they had seen him as a faithful ally in the fight for rights and freedom.  However, upon his departure he left a note, criticizing the measures taken by the National Assembly, and claiming that he was forced into signing the documents that granted them power, while limiting his. 

            While some of the citizens thought to blame his actions upon his advisers, things continued to worsen for the fate of the royal family upon their return to Paris.  The sans-culottes began rioting and inciting violence in the streets.  The political climate of the revolution was tense, and began to split into multiple factions including the Cordeliers Club and the Jacobins.  The revolution at the Champ de Mars resulted in a petition for the king’s removal.  Although the National Assembly officially exonerated the king, feelings for him continued to remain split.  As a result of the mixed feelings for the king, his fate and the fate of the monarchy continued to teeter-totter for the next two years.  As republican sympathies spread, the fate of the king grew dimmer. 

            Louis continued to believe that he could save the monarchy and resumed playing his double game by acting the part of the Convention’s puppet while sending secret notes to Austria. Fourteen months after the king’s flight and return (August 10), a second revolution led to the storming of the prison-palace and led the Convention to place the king on trial, which ended the monarchy and created the Republic of France on September 21, 1792.  On January 21, 1793 he was executed (215-216).  His wife died in October of the same year.  The monarchy had officially lost all hopes of rejuvenation. 

            Tackett provides a stimulating and cohesive argument to prove that the flight did lie at the heart of the Terror and ultimately shaped the direction of the French Revolution.  If the king’s escape had not failed, a bloody revolution and the Great Terror may have never happened.  Likewise, if the king had remained in Paris, a more peaceful settlement could have been arranged.  Essentially, everything hinged on the faulty escape-plan and the failure of a king to follow advice.