Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The people of Paris and their historians
- 2 Aristocrats, priests and brigands: January–February 1791
- 3 Guards, spies and commissaires: policing the capital
- 4 Plots, pamphlets and crowds: February–April 1791
- 5 The Saint-Cloud affair and the wages movement
- 6 Before and after Varennes: the rise in popular hostility
- 7 The Constitution in the balance: events after the king's return
- 8 17 July 1791: massacre and consternation
- 9 After the bloody field: commentaries, narratives and dissent
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Before and after Varennes: the rise in popular hostility
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The people of Paris and their historians
- 2 Aristocrats, priests and brigands: January–February 1791
- 3 Guards, spies and commissaires: policing the capital
- 4 Plots, pamphlets and crowds: February–April 1791
- 5 The Saint-Cloud affair and the wages movement
- 6 Before and after Varennes: the rise in popular hostility
- 7 The Constitution in the balance: events after the king's return
- 8 17 July 1791: massacre and consternation
- 9 After the bloody field: commentaries, narratives and dissent
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Popular disorder and political challenges, May--June 1791
The situation in the capital after Easter was one of constantly aggravating social and political confrontation. Tensions created by the perception of the aristocratic and brigand threat, and exacerbated by the clerical challenge of the spring, now began to impinge, as we have seen, on all aspects of social relations – repression of disorder was swift and violent, and economic grievances provoked bitter rhetoric. A continued undercurrent of confrontation with aristocratie heightened the atmosphere of instability. On 2 May, for example, Clermont-Tonnerre made a speech to the National Assembly in which he condemned the idea of annexing Avignon, and two days later a mob hounded him from outside the Tuileries back to his home, where it lingered abusively all afternoon, not dispersing until Lafayette and Bailly had been called to the scene with reinforcements. The actions of the clergy similarly continued to provoke unrest – we have already noted the alarming events in the Bonne-Nouvelle parish, and the complex response to the Ascension Day service at the Théatins.
Through all this, the police responded according to their predetermined model of the roots of disorder, but their interpretations of events and motivations were constantly threatened by the actions of the people. On 16 May a gauze-maker, ‘for want of work labouring on the demolition of the quai d'Orsay’, was arrested ‘for having for no reason [sans aucun sujet] insulted and mistreated a cleric… whom he had firstly challenged to tell him if he was an aristocrat’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Massacre at the Champ de MarsPopular Dissent and Political Culture in the French Revolution, pp. 136 - 156Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2000