When the King Took FlightOn a June night in 1791, King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette fled Paris in disguise, hoping to escape the mounting turmoil of the French Revolution. They were arrested by a small group of citizens a few miles from the Belgian border and forced to return to Paris. Two years later they would both die at the guillotine. It is this extraordinary story, and the events leading up to and away from it, that Timothy Tackett recounts in gripping novelistic style. The king’s flight opens a window to the whole of French society during the Revolution. Each dramatic chapter spotlights a different segment of the population, from the king and queen as they plotted and executed their flight, to the people of Varennes who apprehended the royal family, to the radicals of Paris who urged an end to monarchy, to the leaders of the National Assembly struggling to control a spiraling crisis, to the ordinary citizens stunned by their king’s desertion. Tackett shows how Louis’s flight reshaped popular attitudes toward kingship, intensified fears of invasion and conspiracy, and helped pave the way for the Reign of Terror. Tackett brings to life an array of unique characters as they struggle to confront the monumental transformations set in motion in 1789. In so doing, he offers an important new interpretation of the Revolution. By emphasizing the unpredictable and contingent character of this story, he underscores the power of a single event to change irrevocably the course of the French Revolution, and consequently the history of the world. |
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User Review - KamGeb - LibraryThingI read this book for a college course. Definitely was not a book I would ever just pick up and read for the fun of it because the topic doesn't interest me that much. But I must say that the book was ... Read full review
LibraryThing Review
User Review - bakabaka84 - LibraryThingTells the story of the kings Flight to Varennes and the consequences of the event. Tackett starts off with the end of the flight when the king reached Varennes and his stopped by the local citizens ... Read full review
Contents
| v | |
1 Sire You May Not Pass | 3 |
2 The King of the French | 26 |
3 The King Takes Flight | 57 |
4 Our Good City of Paris | 88 |
5 The Fathers of the Nation | 119 |
6 Fear and Repression in the Provinces | 151 |
7 To Judge a King | 179 |
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Common terms and phrases
acobins Aimond aristocratic arms army arrived Assembly’s Austrian Bailly Barnave Bimbenet Bouillé Bouillé fils carriage cavalry Champ de Mars Choiseul-Stainville citizens CITY OF PARIS clubs conspiracy constitution Cordeliers crisis crowds Damas decrees deputies difficult Drouet Enigme Enigrne escape Faulcon FEAR AND REPRESSION Fersen Feuillant fields final first five foreign France French frontier Goguelat Guittard de Floriban Histoire de Varennes influence Jacobin clubs July June 21 KING TAKES FLIGHT KING TOOK FLIGHT king’s flight Lacroix Lafayette leaders letter Lindet Louis XVI Mathiez Meuse monarch Montmédy Moustier municipal National Assembly national guard national guardsmen nobles oath officers officials Paris PARIS JL Parisian patriots Pétion political popular print version provinces queen radical relay Revolution Revolutionary Roland royal family Ruault rumors Saint-Priest Sainte-Menehould sans-culottes Sauce seemed sembly Somme-Vesle soon street Thibaudeau throughout tion Tourzel town troops Tuileries palace Valory Varennes view this image village women wrote XXIX bis 36
Bibliographic information
| Title | When the King Took Flight |
| Author | Timothy Tackett |
| Edition | reprint |
| Publisher | Harvard University Press, 2004 |
| ISBN | 0674044207, 9780674044203 |
| Length | 288 pages |
| Subjects | › › History / Europe / France History / Europe / General History / Revolutionary |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |