Charles-Francois Dumouriez and the Revolutionizing of French Foreign Affairs in 1792

Abstract

Although the National Constituent Assembly, during 1789-91, subjected French internal institutions to a thorough revolutionary reorganization, it intended to leave the formulation and administration of foreign policy to the king. Nevertheless, external events obliged that Assembly to take cognizance of international relations and foreign policy. By May 1790 the Nootka Sound controversy raised the question of whether the family compact with Spain, which reflected the interests and goals of the Bourbon dynasty, was consistent with the interests and goals of the sovereign people of France. In August 1791 the petitions of the people of Avignon and the Comtat-Venaissin for annexation to France led the Assembly to decide that the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people required that these territories be annexed to France, even though under the international law of the Old Regime they belonged to the pope. Finally, the suspected collusion between Louis XVI and a European counterrevolutionary movement provoked a growing conviction among the deputies of the Left that the foreign policy of the French crown and the aims of the representative assembly of the French people were in direct conflict. Thus, the idea that the formulation and conduct of foreign policy could remain in the hands of the king alone became increasingly incompatible with the revolutionary idea that the interests and will of the people, or the nation, were primary.