(^124) › STEP 4. Review the Knowledge You Need to Score High
National Assembly itself had relocated from Versailles to Paris. The March to Versailles, as
it came to be known, demonstrated two important things:
• First, the crowds of Paris did not yet look upon Louis XVI as their enemy; they had
marched to Versailles to retrieve him because they believed that if he were with them in
Paris, rather than isolated in Versailles where he was surrounded by his aristocratic advi-
sors, he would side with them and support the Assembly’s efforts.
• Second, the crowd of Paris, and their willingness to do violence, had become a powerful
political force.
The relocation of both the king and the National Assembly to Paris, within easy reach
of the Parisian crowd, set the stage for the radical phase of the Revolution.
The Radical Phase of the French Revolution (1791–1794)
The end of the October Riot marked the beginning of a two-year period of relative calm. A
gradual improvement in the economy eased the tension in Paris, and the Assembly’s most
determined aristocratic enemies either fled to the countryside or emigrated. The Assembly
used this period of relative calm to complete the constitution and to draft and pass the Civil
Constitution of the Clergy, a piece of legislation that turned clergymen into employees of
the government and turned Church property into property of the state. The Assembly soon
sold off the confiscated property to pay off part of the national debt, but the attack on the
clergy and the Church turned many faithful Catholics against the Assembly.
When Louis XVI signed the new constitution into law on September 15, 1791, the
goals of the bourgeois leaders of the Assembly had been fulfilled: the power of the nobility
and the Church had been diminished, and France was now a constitutional monarchy. Four
developments conspired to send the Revolution into a more radical phase (each of which is
reviewed in the sections that follow this list):
• The king’s attempt to secretly flee Paris in June 1791
• The outbreak of war with Austria and Prussia in April 1792
• The division of the National Assembly into political factions
• The rise of a politicized laboring faction, known as the sans-culottes because of the long
work pants they woreThe King’s Attempt to Secretly Flee Paris
The king’s attempt to flee Paris and head north to rally supporters, an event that came to
be known as the Flight to Varennes, was disastrous. He and the royal family were appre-
hended and forcibly returned to Paris. He was officially forgiven by the Assembly, but he
had forever lost the trust of the people of Paris.The Outbreak of War with Austria and Prussia
The war with Austria and Prussia came about partly because French aristocratic émigrés
had been urging the Austrian and Prussian monarchies to come to the aid of the embattled
Louis XVI. But both Louis and the Assembly wanted the war, Louis because he believed
that the country would have to turn to him to lead it in a time of war, and the Assembly
because they believed it would unite the people of France in a common cause. However,
when the combined forces of the Austrian and Prussian armies invaded France, the French
army collapsed, and the country went into a panic.16_Bartolini_Ch16_119-132.indd 124 27/04/18 1:55 PM