The Enquiry Frame

This row covers four connected developments:

• attempts to create a constitution, 1789-91
• the political environment, 1789-93
• the breakdown of relations with the king, 1791-92
• the radicalisation of the revolution, 1792-93

The lesson should be read as an enquiry into why constitutional monarchy failed. Do not treat the events as a loose list. Ask what each development did to the same central problem: could France combine popular sovereignty, representative government, social reform, religious conflict, royal authority and war without breaking the monarchy?

For Paper 2, the same knowledge supports two skills. In AO1 essays, use these events to explain change, causation and consequence. In AO2 source questions, judge what a source can reveal about political trust, popular pressure, royal intentions or revolutionary fear, and then test that against precise own knowledge.

Constitutional Revolution, 1789-91

The first phase of this row was not simply "anti-king". It was a constitutional revolution. The National Assembly tried to replace absolutism, privilege and corporate rights with a new order based on law and the nation. The problem was that this new order was born in crisis. The Assembly was repeatedly pushed by popular action outside the debating chamber.

The Great Fear in July and August 1789 showed the connection between rural society and national politics. Rumours spread that nobles, brigands or royal troops were about to attack villages or destroy the harvest. Peasants armed themselves, attacked chateaux, burned seigneurial records and refused old dues. The Assembly did not abolish feudalism calmly from above; it responded to a countryside already challenging the old order. On the night of 4 August 1789, deputies renounced privileges, tithes, venal offices and many feudal rights. The August decrees were revolutionary because they attacked legal inequality, but they were also limited: some dues were to be redeemed with compensation, so peasants did not immediately experience complete economic liberation.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, adopted on 26 August 1789, gave the revolution its principles. It declared that sovereignty resided in the nation, not in the king personally. It presented law as the expression of the general will. It asserted liberty, property, security, resistance to oppression, equality before the law and equal taxation. This language mattered because it changed what political legitimacy sounded like. A ruler or institution now had to justify itself against rights and national sovereignty. However, the Declaration also revealed boundaries. It did not create democracy for all adults, did not grant women political rights, did not abolish slavery in the colonies, and strongly protected property. It was universal in language but restricted in application.

The October Days on 5-6 October 1789 showed that Parisian popular protest could control the pace of constitutional change. Bread shortages and anger at court resistance drove thousands of market women and National Guardsmen to Versailles. The king was forced to accept the August decrees and the Declaration, and the royal family was brought to the Tuileries Palace in Paris. The National Assembly followed soon after. This mattered enormously. The king remained king, but he was no longer physically insulated at Versailles. Paris, the National Guard, newspapers, clubs and crowds now watched him closely.

The National Assembly then remade France through reform. It divided the country into 83 departments, replacing older provincial privileges with a more uniform administrative map. It introduced elected local government and elected judges. It abolished noble titles and corporate privilege. It nationalised Church lands in November 1789 to ease the financial crisis and backed paper money, the assignats, on those lands. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy in July 1790 made bishops and priests salaried public officials, elected locally, and later required them to swear an oath to the constitution. This created a deep religious split between oath-taking clergy and refractory clergy who refused. Many devout Catholics who might have accepted political reform now saw the revolution as an attack on the Church.

The Constitution of 1791 tried to settle the revolution into a constitutional monarchy. It created a unicameral Legislative Assembly, retained the king as hereditary head of state, and gave him a suspensive veto that could delay legislation. Political participation was limited through the distinction between "active" citizens, who met tax qualifications, and "passive" citizens, who had civil rights but not full political rights. This was a liberal constitution, not a democratic republic.

The constitution's deepest weakness was that it needed cooperation between forces that no longer trusted each other. The king had to accept a revolution that had stripped away much royal authority, noble privilege and Church independence. The Assembly had to believe that the king would loyally defend the constitution. Parisian activists had to accept that sovereignty could be channelled through a property-qualified representative system. By 1791 that balance was already fragile.

Political Environment, 1789-93

The political environment of 1789-93 was unstable because there were few settled rules about legitimate opposition. France was inventing representative politics while also experiencing economic pressure, religious division, foreign threat and street mobilisation. Parties in the modern sense did not yet exist. Instead, politics moved through clubs, newspapers, salons, factions in assemblies, Paris sections, provincial networks, popular demonstrations and personal reputations.

Several groups mattered. The Feuillants defended constitutional monarchy after the split in the Jacobin movement in 1791. They wanted the revolution stabilised around the Constitution of 1791 and feared further popular radicalism. The Jacobins began as a broad patriotic club but became a powerful national network for revolutionary debate and surveillance. By 1792-93 the Jacobin club was increasingly associated with suspicion of the court, defence of the revolution and the politics of Robespierre and the Mountain. The Cordeliers were more openly linked to popular activism, direct democracy and figures such as Danton, Marat and Desmoulins. The Girondins, often associated with Brissot, were a loose group of deputies who favoured revolutionary war and later republicanism, but they distrusted the dominance of Parisian militants. In the Convention, the Montagnards, or Mountain, sat on the higher benches and were more willing to work with Parisian popular pressure; the Plain or Marsh was the large centre whose votes could decide outcomes.

Individuals mattered because the institutions were new and fluid. Mirabeau was one of the most gifted speakers of the early revolution. He supported constitutional monarchy and tried to bridge the gap between king and Assembly, while secretly advising the court. His death in April 1791 removed a politician who might have helped sell compromise, although his secret royal links later damaged his reputation. Brissot pushed the case for war in 1791-92, arguing that conflict would expose traitors and spread revolutionary principles. Robespierre took the opposite line before war began: he warned that war would strengthen generals, flatter the court and endanger liberty. Danton, rooted in Cordelier and Parisian politics, became important as a forceful popular speaker and then as minister of justice after 10 August 1792. These individuals did not control events alone, but they gave arguments a public voice.

The sans-culottes were crucial to the revolution's radicalisation. They were not one single class, but they were commonly urban artisans, shopkeepers, wage earners and small masters who presented themselves as ordinary patriots rather than aristocratic or bourgeois elites. Their name contrasted their long trousers with the knee-breeches associated with elites. They demanded bread, punishment of hoarders and traitors, price controls, direct political participation through sections, and equality expressed in everyday civic culture. Sans-culotte pressure did not simply add noise to politics. It changed what assemblies could safely ignore.

Royalist support also mattered. The king still had loyalists at court, among some nobles, in sections of the officer corps, among emigres abroad, and among Catholics alienated by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Queen Marie Antoinette's Austrian birth made suspicion especially easy to inflame once war began. Royalism was not a single organised machine, but it gave revolutionaries enough evidence to believe that counter-revolution was real. The existence of emigre armies and foreign sympathy for Louis XVI made that fear more than fantasy.

Revolutionary culture spread the revolution beyond formal politics. Cockades, liberty caps, civic oaths, festivals, patriotic songs, newspapers, political clubs and the language of "citizen" taught people to imagine themselves as part of a sovereign nation. The Festival of Federation on 14 July 1790 tried to present unity between king, nation and revolution. By 1792, songs such as La Marseillaise and slogans about liberty and equality gave the revolution a more militant emotional language. Culture did not merely decorate politics. It trained people to judge loyalty, expose enemies and perform citizenship in public.

The political environment therefore made compromise harder over time. Moderates wanted legality and property. Popular militants wanted bread, vigilance and direct action. Royalists wanted reversal or at least protection for monarchy and Church. Girondins wanted war to clarify loyalty. Robespierre feared war would corrupt the revolution. These disagreements were dangerous because every crisis could be interpreted as evidence of treason.

Varennes, War and Distrust, 1791-92

The breakdown of relations with the king was not caused by one event alone, but the flight to Varennes was the decisive collapse of trust. On the night of 20-21 June 1791, Louis XVI and his family attempted to escape Paris, probably hoping to reach loyal forces near Montmedy and negotiate from a position of strength. They were recognised, arrested at Varennes and returned to Paris under guard. The journey back was politically devastating. The king who was supposed to be the constitutional monarch now looked like a prisoner, a conspirator or both.

The Assembly tried to save the constitution by claiming, in effect, that the king had been abducted or misled. That fiction reveals the problem. Deputies knew that a constitution with a visibly disloyal king might collapse before it began. Republicanism now gained a public platform. On 17 July 1791, a republican petition at the Champ de Mars was dispersed by the National Guard under Lafayette; soldiers fired on the crowd. The shooting split revolutionaries further. For Feuillants, order had to be defended against dangerous popular radicalism. For republicans and sans-culottes, the event proved that constitutional monarchists would use force to protect a compromised king.

Counter-revolutionary activity deepened the crisis. Emigres gathered beyond France's borders, especially in the Rhineland, and tried to win support for restoring royal authority. Louis XVI's brothers were prominent among them. The Declaration of Pillnitz in August 1791, issued by Emperor Leopold II and King Frederick William II of Prussia, did not immediately create a united European invasion plan, but it sounded like a warning that foreign monarchs might act for Louis. Inside France, refractory clergy and royalist networks helped sustain suspicion that enemies of the revolution were working with the court and foreign powers.

The Legislative Assembly, which first met on 1 October 1791, was badly placed to manage this. Because the Constituent Assembly had barred its own members from election to the new body, the Legislative Assembly lacked experienced national deputies. It was divided among Feuillants who wanted to preserve constitutional monarchy, a broad centre, and radical deputies including Brissotins or Girondins who increasingly believed that war could expose treason and strengthen the revolution. The king's veto made these divisions sharper. Louis vetoed measures against emigres and refractory priests, convincing many revolutionaries that he was protecting the revolution's enemies. From the royal point of view, the veto was a legal constitutional power. From the radicals' point of view, it looked like sabotage.

War turned distrust into emergency. France declared war on Austria on 20 April 1792; Prussia soon joined Austria. Different groups wanted war for different reasons. Brissot and his allies argued that war would test loyalty and carry revolutionary principles beyond France. Some Feuillants hoped a successful war would stabilise the constitution. Louis and Marie Antoinette seem to have hoped that French defeat might restore royal authority. Robespierre warned that war would produce military dictatorship or strengthen the court. The early course of the war made his fears plausible to many revolutionaries: French armies performed poorly, officers deserted, and rumours of treachery multiplied.

By summer 1792, constitutional monarchy faced a double accusation. The left accused the king of betraying the nation in wartime. Royalists accused revolutionaries of destroying religion, property and order. The constitution had created a legal framework, but war and counter-revolution made politics feel existential. Once people believed that defeat would mean massacre, invasion or restoration of absolutism, normal constitutional compromise became much harder to defend.

Radicalisation and the Fall of Monarchy, 1792-93

The revolution radicalised in 1792 because war, popular mobilisation and fear of treason converged. The invasion of the Tuileries on 20 June 1792 was an early warning. A crowd entered the royal palace, demanding that Louis withdraw his vetoes and recall radical ministers. The king put on the liberty cap and remained outwardly calm, but he refused to give way. The monarchy survived the day, yet the symbolism was disastrous. The palace had been penetrated by popular politics, and the king's authority looked theatrical rather than real.

The state of national emergency then escalated the crisis. On 11 July 1792, the Legislative Assembly declared la patrie en danger - the fatherland in danger. Volunteers and federes came to Paris. The Brunswick Manifesto, issued in July and known in Paris by early August, threatened severe punishment if the royal family were harmed. It was meant to intimidate revolutionaries; it had the opposite effect. To many Parisians, it seemed to prove that the king and foreign armies were linked.

The journee of 10 August 1792 destroyed constitutional monarchy. Paris sections, federes, sans-culottes and an insurrectionary Paris Commune moved against the Tuileries. The royal family took refuge in the Legislative Assembly. Fighting at the palace was bloody, especially for the Swiss Guards defending it. The Assembly suspended the king, ordered elections to a new National Convention and placed the royal family in the Temple prison. This was not yet a completed republic, but it was the end of the 1791 constitution. The king no longer functioned as constitutional monarch.

Revolutionary government after 10 August was improvised and coercive. Power was shared uneasily between the Legislative Assembly, the provisional executive council, the Paris Commune, local sections, surveillance committees and emergency courts. Danton became minister of justice. The normal distinction between legal justice and revolutionary self-defence became blurred. In wartime, with enemy armies advancing and royalist prisoners held in Paris, many activists argued that the nation had to act before traitors acted against it.

The September Massacres of 2-6 September 1792 showed the danger of that logic. As news came that Verdun was threatened or had fallen, crowds attacked Paris prisons and killed prisoners, including refractory priests, nobles, guards and ordinary criminal prisoners. The killings were not a controlled policy of the future Terror, but they were not random either. They came from a belief that internal enemies would join foreign invaders if volunteers left Paris for the front. The authorities failed to prevent them; some revolutionary leaders excused or minimised them. The massacres damaged the revolution's reputation and widened the gap between Girondins and Montagnards.

The National Convention met in September 1792 after elections based on wider male suffrage than the 1791 constitution had allowed, though turnout was limited and political pressure was intense. On 21 September 1792 it abolished monarchy. On 22 September the republic was proclaimed. The Convention inherited war, popular pressure and the question of what to do with the former king. The Girondins feared that executing Louis would deepen violence and isolate France. The Montagnards argued that the king's crimes and the survival of the republic could not be separated.

The trial of Louis XVI turned the failure of constitutional monarchy into a legal and moral judgement. Documents found in the Tuileries, including material from the so-called iron chest, strengthened the case that Louis had secretly corresponded with counter-revolutionary forces and had tried to undermine the revolution. In December 1792 and January 1793, deputies voted that Louis was guilty of conspiracy against liberty and security of the state. The vote on punishment was close, but a majority supported death without delay. On 21 January 1793, Louis XVI was executed by guillotine.

The execution matters because it closed the main route back to constitutional monarchy. Before Varennes, many revolutionaries could imagine a king under law. Before 10 August, some could still imagine suspending or correcting monarchy. After 21 January 1793, the revolution had chosen regicide and republic. The failure of constitutional monarchy was now irreversible.

Argument, Source Value and Judgement

A strong answer on this row should avoid two simple claims. It should not say that constitutional monarchy was doomed from the start: in 1789-90 many deputies, National Guardsmen and citizens genuinely wanted a limited monarchy. It should also not say that the king alone destroyed it: Louis XVI's choices mattered deeply, but the revolution's political environment, religious conflict, popular pressure and war made trust increasingly difficult to rebuild.

The best judgement is cumulative. The constitutional settlement created a fragile structure because it kept a king with a veto while claiming national sovereignty and limiting political participation. Varennes was the crucial trust-breaking event because it made Louis look like an enemy of the constitution. War was the accelerator because military defeat, emigre activity and the Brunswick Manifesto made betrayal seem immediate. Popular pressure was the force that made formal politics give way: October 1789 moved the king to Paris, 20 June 1792 humiliated him in the Tuileries, and 10 August 1792 removed him from power.

For AO1 essays, rank causes by function:

For AO2 source utility, always connect content and provenance. A royal declaration after Varennes might be useful for the king's public justification, but limited because Louis had strong reasons to hide his intentions. A Jacobin speech might be useful for revolutionary suspicion, but limited because it may exaggerate conspiracy to mobilise support. A foreign manifesto might reveal the fears of European monarchs, but also explain why French radicals believed invasion and royal treason were connected. A sans-culotte petition might reveal popular demands over bread and treason, but not necessarily the views of rural France or moderate constitutionalists.

Overall, constitutional monarchy failed because it depended on trust at the very moment when the revolution was teaching people to suspect hidden enemies. The 1791 constitution might have survived routine disagreement. It could not survive a king discredited by Varennes, a Church split by oath-taking, politicians divided over war, foreign armies on the frontier, and a Parisian popular movement ready to enforce its version of national sovereignty.