Historian Charles Mallet details the state of the Feuillant Club in the new Assembly, and explores the characteristics and politics of the Brissotins.
Jacques Guillaume Thouret and Madame de Staël recall the King’s acceptance of the Constitution of 1791, and the false sense of hope it inspired.
Historian Henry Packwood Adams details an alternative framework in which to analyse the constitution. Rejecting the mainstream approach, Adams instead focuses on another revolutionary actor as he argues that the Constitution of 1791 makes perfect...
Explore the anti-royalist and pro-republican sentiment produced by the revolutionary press after the King’s failed escape. Jacques René Hébert viciously denounces Louis XVI and foreshadows his future fate.
Examine King Louis’ official deposition justifying his attempted escape from Paris (not France….. supposedly).
Could Louis have talked himself out of his capture in Varennes? We also discuss a ground-breaking “world first” connected to Leopold II.
Examine two passionate defences of French nobility. Two members of the Third Estate, Jean-Sifrein Maury and Jacques Necker, argue against the abolition of nobility and proclaim the National Assembly’s decision as unwise and unnecessary.
Explore Dom Gerle and Abbé Grégoire in David’s Tennis Court Oath and the latter’s invention of the word ‘vandalism’.