Government
THE QUEEN’S DEFENSE (14 OCTOBER 1793)
Seven months after the execution of the King, shortly after the declaration of "Revolutionary Government," the Convention turned to the rest of the royal family.
THE QUEEN AT THE OPERA (JULY 1792)
Since the seventeenth century, French monarchs had been great patrons of the theater and opera, which they regularly attended in Versailles and Paris. Such performances had been occasions to appear before their subjects, aristocratic and common, and to receive public acclaim.
DESMOULINS ATTACKS THE QUEEN (JUNE 1791)
This article appeared in the newspaper Revolutions of France and Brabant, under the headline: "Horrible maneuvers of the Austrians at the Tuileries Palace to bring civil war to France . .
EXECUTION OF THE KING (21 JANUARY 1793)
After voting unanimously to find the King guilty, the deputies held a separate vote on his punishment. By a single vote, Louis was sentenced to death, "within twenty–four hours." Thus, on 21 January 1793, Louis Capet, formerly King of France was beheaded by the guillotine.
CONDORCET (3 DECEMBER 1792)
Jean–Antoine Nicolas Condorcet, formerly a marquis, circulated a pamphlet that was a Girondin response to Saint–Just.
PAINE (21 NOVEMBER 1792)
An Englishman acclaimed as a hero of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine had been elected to the Convention by radicals in Paris.
SAINT–JUST’S SPEECH ON THE KING’S FATE (27 DECEMBER 1792)
By late December, the Convention was in the process of trying the King. Louis agreed to testify in his own defense. He justified the decisions of 1789–91 by pointing out that he had still been King and that he had consistently tried to rule within the parameters of the constitution.
Robespierre (3 December 1792)
Maximillien Robespierre, a leading Jacobin deputy in the Convention, had originally opposed the trial, believing that to try the King was to imply the possibility of his innocence.
Marat (3 December 1792)
As a journalist, Marat had for the first few years of the Revolution supported the monarchy as an institution.
Saint–Just (13 November 1792)
The first debate over the fate of Louis XVI concerned whether the Convention could try the King at all, and if so, for what crimes. The Constitution of 1791 had promised Louis "inviolability," meaning immunity from prosecution.