The allied threat that turned Paris against its king
Issued at Koblenz on 25 July 1792 in the name of the Emperor and the King of Prussia, and signed by the commander of their armies, the Duke of Brunswick, the manifesto told the French that the allied armies were coming to free Louis XVI and restore his authority. If the Tuileries were forced or the royal family harmed, Paris would suffer an exemplary vengeance, never to be forgotten. Meant to protect the king, it did the opposite: known in Paris from the first days of August, it made him look like the enemy’s ally and helped bring on the storming of the Tuileries on 10 August.
25 Jul1792
Adopted
25 July 1792
A Wednesday; known in Paris from about 1 August
In the glossary's timeline: marker
Ring: a step along the way
In the glossary's timeline: tone
Accent: the main story
Place
Koblenz
the allied headquarters, in the Electorate of Trier
Their Majesties the Emperor and the King of Prussia having entrusted me with the command of the combined armies which they have assembled on the frontiers of France, I have wished to announce to the inhabitants of this kingdom the motives which have determined the measures of the two sovereigns and the intentions which guide them. […] to put an end to the anarchy within France, to halt the attacks made upon the throne and the altar, to restore the lawful power, to give back to the King the security and the liberty of which he is deprived, and to put him in a position to exercise the legitimate authority that is his due.
The war is presented as a rescue: the enemy is not France but those who hold its king captive.
Art. 1
That, drawn into the present war by irresistible circumstances, the two allied courts propose to themselves no other aim than the happiness of France, without claiming to enrich themselves by conquests.
A promise of no conquest, meant to tell the French that the war was not against France.
Art. 2
That they do not intend to meddle in the internal government of France, but that they wish only to deliver the King, the Queen and the royal family from their captivity […].
It promised no interference while treating the constitutional king as a prisoner of his own subjects.
Art. 4
That the national guards […] who have fought against the troops of the two allied courts, and who are taken with arms in their hands, shall be treated as enemies and punished as rebels against their King and as disturbers of the public peace.
Citizen soldiers were denied the standing of enemy soldiers and threatened as rebels.
Art. 7
That the inhabitants of the towns, boroughs and villages who dare to defend themselves against the troops of Their Imperial and Royal Majesties and to fire upon them, whether in the open field or from the windows, doors and openings of their houses, shall be punished on the spot according to the rigour of the law of war, and their houses demolished or burned.
Civilians who resisted were promised summary punishment and the burning of their homes.
Art. 8
The city of Paris and all its inhabitants without distinction shall be bound to submit at once and without delay to the King […]. Their Imperial and Royal Majesties […] declare, on their faith and word as Emperor and King, that if the palace of the Tuileries is forced or insulted, if the least violence, the least outrage is done to Their Majesties the King, the Queen and the royal family, if their safety, their preservation and their liberty are not immediately provided for, they will take an exemplary vengeance, never to be forgotten, by delivering the city of Paris to military execution and to total overthrow, and the rebels guilty of outrages to the punishments they will have deserved.
The threat Paris remembered: it named the Tuileries, and sixteen days later the Tuileries were stormed.
Conclusion
[…] Their Majesties, being unable to recognise as laws in France any but those which emanate from the King enjoying perfect liberty, protest in advance against the authenticity of all declarations which may be made in the name of His Most Christian Majesty, so long as his sacred person, that of the Queen and of the whole royal family are not truly in safety […].
Nothing the king said or signed in Paris would count: his own word was set aside in advance.
Timeline
20 Apr 1792
France declares war on the King of Bohemia and Hungary
20 Jun
A crowd invades the Tuileries; the king puts on the red cap but keeps his vetoes
11 Jul
The Assembly declares the country in danger
25 Jul
Signed — Brunswick signs the manifesto at his headquarters in Koblenz
30 Jul
The fédérés from Marseille reach Paris
c. 1 Aug
The manifesto becomes known in Paris
3 Aug
The king disowns it; 47 of the 48 sections demand his deposition
10 Aug
The Tuileries stormed — The palace falls and the Assembly suspends the king
The manifesto spoke in Brunswick’s name, but how much of it he wanted is still debated; its drafting passed through several hands.
A manifesto from Koblenz
Who asked for it, and who wrote it
France had been at war since 20 April 1792, when the Legislative Assembly, urged on by Brissot and his friends, later called the GirondinsGroup: Girondins. The deputies who took France to war and lost Paris to the Mountain, declared war on the King of Bohemia and Hungary, the young Francis II of Austria. Prussia, allied to Austria since February, joined him. The first French offensive, into the Austrian Netherlands, fell apart within days, and in Paris defeat was blamed on treason at court. After a crowd invaded the TuileriesPlace: Tuileries Palace. The palace where the monarchy was held captive and fell on 20 June, the Assembly declared the country in danger on 11 July.
The allies gathered their armies on the Rhine under Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, a nephew of Frederick the Great and thought by many the best general in Europe. Early in 1792 there had even been talk in Paris of offering him command of the French army. His headquarters were at Koblenz, in the Electorate of Trier, the town where the émigrés, the nobles who had left France, had gathered around the king’s brothers in the hope of coming home behind foreign troops.
At the Tuileries, the royal couple wanted a declaration from the allies, but not the same one. Louis XVIFigure: Louis XVI. The king who called a meeting and lost a monarchy sent the Genevan journalist Jacques Mallet du Pan to the sovereigns to ask for a measured text, one that would separate the nation from the factions and reassure the French. Marie AntoinetteFigure: Marie Antoinette. The queen France loved to hate, writing to her confidant Axel von Fersen, asked for one that would make the Assembly and Paris answerable for the royal family’s safety. The text that Brunswick signed at Koblenz on 25 July, written mainly by an émigré, the Marquis de Limon, went much further.
What it threatened
Rescue for the king, punishment for Paris
The manifesto spoke in Brunswick’s name, for the Emperor and the King of Prussia. The allies, it said, sought neither conquests nor any part in the government of France; they came to end the anarchy, to stop the attacks on the throne and the altar and to give the king back his freedom. Then came the threats. National guards taken with weapons in hand would be punished as rebels against their king. Members of the departments, districts and municipalities would answer with their heads and their property for any disorder they allowed. The inhabitants of any town or village who dared to defend themselves would be punished on the spot under the laws of war, and their houses demolished or burned.
The heaviest threat was kept for Paris. Every member of the National Assembly, of the department, of the municipality and of the National Guard of Paris was made answerable with his head, to be judged by military courts without hope of pardon. And:
“If the palace of the Tuileries is forced or insulted, if the least violence, the least outrage is done to Their Majesties the King, the Queen and the royal family, […] they will take an exemplary vengeance, never to be forgotten, by delivering the city of Paris to military execution and to total overthrow.”
— Brunswick Manifesto, Article 8
At the end, the allies declared in advance that they would recognise no declaration made in the king’s name so long as he was not truly free. In other words, nothing Louis XVI said in Paris could any longer be taken at his word.
Paris answers
Sixteen days to the fall of the throne
The manifesto did the opposite of what its authors intended. When its text became known in Paris, in the first days of August, it seemed to prove what the king’s opponents had been saying for months: that the court was counting on the foreign armies, and that the king’s cause and the enemy’s were one. Its menaces did not cow the capital; they united it. At the Jacobin ClubGroup: Jacobin Club. The Paris club at the heart of the radical Revolution, RobespierreFigure: Maximilien Robespierre. The Incorruptible who defended the Terror and died by it had already called on 29 July for the king’s deposition and for a National Convention elected by all citizens. Now the call spread.
On 3 August Louis XVI sent the Assembly a message disowning the manifesto. It convinced few. The same day the mayor of Paris, Jérôme Pétion, came to the bar of the Assembly to ask, in the name of 47 of the city’s 48 sections, for the king to be deposed. The Assembly put off a decision, and the sections and the fédérés, among them the men from Marseille who had arrived on 30 July, prepared to act without it. In the night of 9 to 10 August an insurrectionary Commune took over the Hôtel de Ville, and in the morning the palace the manifesto had named was stormedEvent: Storming of the Tuileries. The day Paris overthrew its king. The Assembly suspended the king and called a National Convention.
From Koblenz to the Tuileries
25 JulyBrunswick signs the manifesto at Koblenz
c. 1 AugustIts text becomes known in Paris
3 August47 of the 48 sections ask for the king’s deposition
9–10 AugustAn insurrectionary Commune takes over the Hôtel de Ville
10 AugustThe Tuileries stormed; the king suspended
Sixteen days in the summer of 1792
Why it matters
Few documents have so thoroughly defeated their own purpose. The manifesto was meant to shield the royal family; instead it helped to bring down the monarchy and put the king’s life in danger. It made the war a war about the king, and it allowed his enemies to present him as the ally of the invaders.
Brunswick crossed the frontier on 19 August, took Longwy and Verdun, and was halted at Valmy on 20 September by the armies of Dumouriez and Kellermann. After a cannonade that settled little on the field, he fell back and led his army out of France. On 21 September the new National Convention abolished the monarchy. That winter the Convention put the king on trial, charging him among other things with conspiring with foreign powers, and on 21 January 1793 he was guillotinedEvent: Execution of Louis XVI. The morning the Republic beheaded its king. Brunswick is said to have regretted his signature for the rest of his life. He led the Prussian army again in 1806 and was mortally wounded at Auerstedt.
