Making sense of the king’s flight to Varennes

Abstract

Abstract This article attempts to show that at the time of Louis XVI’s flight to Varennes, most people made sense of the event within a horizon of meaning constituted by traditional narratives of kingship. The first section sets out some of the main features of these traditional narratives to show how they framed interpretations of the king’s political behaviour before and after his unsuccessful attempt to reach Montmédy. The second section shows how these traditional narratives of kingship also conditioned interpretations of Louis XVI’s public declarations once he was brought back to Paris. The third section highlights the persistence of public confidence in his person until July 1792. Finally, the fourth section shows how it was only after the abolition of the monarchy that the now dominant narrative of the Varennes episode was fixed as such, as part of a strategy to delegitimize kingship in the public sphere and thus help to stabilize the Republic in France.