10 August (French Revolution) - The Fatherland in Danger

The Fatherland in Danger

On 11 July the Legislative Assembly on the proposal by Jean Debry declared that La patrie est en danger—"The Fatherland is in danger". All citizens able to bear arms, and having already served in the National Guard, were placed in active service; pikes were given to those who were unable to procure guns. Banners were placed in the public squares, bearing the words, "Citizens, the country is in danger!" On 14 July—the third anniversary of the storming of the Bastille—there were massive patriotic festivities, and the Legislative Assembly openly defied the King's veto by allowing the fédérés to enter Paris. Pétion, dismissed as mayor of Paris for his conduct during the events of 20 June, was restored to office. The constitutional monarchist grenadiers of the Filles-Saint-Thomas scuffled with the federates of Marseilles, but it was the last stand of the constitutional monarchist faction: the club of the Feuillants was closed; the grenadier and chasseur companies of the National Guard which formed the force of the bourgeoisie were disbanded.

Meanwhile, the allied Austrian and Prussian army of the First Coalition was at length mustering on the frontier. The generally "constitutionalist" (monarchist) soldiers of the line, and a portion of the Swiss, were sent away from Paris. At the same time the National Guard—up to now middle-class in character—was opened to those from the lower classes. On 25 July 1792, the Prussian commander Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick issued a manifesto which announced that the Allies would enter France to restore the royal authority and execute anybody who opposed them or tried to injure the king and his family. The Brunswick Manifesto became known in Paris on 1 August; that same day the people of Paris received news that Austrian and Prussian armies had marched into French soil. These two occurences heated the republican spirit to revolutionary fury.