When the King Took Flight

From Publishers Weekly
Historian Tackett (UC-Irvine) skillfully shows how Louis XVI's infamous failed flight from his revolutionary captors in Paris in 1791 led to the eventual victory of radicalism and strengthened those calling for terror to "protect" the revolution from its enemies. Attempting to escape across the border to the Austrian Netherlands, the king planned to march a counterrevolutionary army back into France and reestablish Bourbon rule. As Tackett's dramatic account makes clear, Louis very nearly succeeded. He was famously halted in Varennes, a few miles from the border, and forcibly returned to Paris. Tackett describes the nation's reaction to the king's flight and return, not just in Paris but also in the provinces, where widespread fears of foreign invasion immediately followed news of Louis's escape. The whole nation felt betrayed by their "father," and Louis's public image was destroyed. The flight to Varennes, Tackett shows, strengthened republicanism and weakened those moderates favoring a constitutional monarchy. Louis's flight also created factionalism in the Assembly and was thus a harbinger of the Terror to come. Jacobins called for the king's immediate removal, but the moderates won the day in the short term, and Louis was reinstituted as a constitutional monarch. The Jacobins bided their time, and in September 1792, they voted to dethrone Louis and declare a republic; a few months later, they voted to execute the king. Tackett has penned a highly accessible popular history that should appeal to those wanting to learn more about one of the central events of the French Revolution. 24 illus., 3 maps.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
For scholars and general readers alike, the French Revolution remains a perennially favorite historical event. And one of the most intriguing as well as pivotal occurrences in the whole revolutionary period took place on the night of June 21, 1791, when "something quite extraordinary did happen" that "changed the history of France." In the little town of Varennes, in northeast France near the border of what is now Belgium, townspeople halted the progress of Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette and the rest of the royal family on their disguised flight from the country to escape the growing frightfulness of the Revolution. The entire planning process of their run for freedom is explained here with almost thriller-novel-like tension. The royal family's disguise was seen through by the time they arrived in Varennes, and their forced return to Paris proved traumatic. Tackett explores the ramifications of the event on the direction the Revolution subsequently took--namely, toward terror and republicanism. The book's approachable style, clear ideas, and excellent pacing guarantee general readership interest. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2002
Exciting, provocative, instructive: popular history at its finest.

Book Description
On a June night in 1791, King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette fled Paris in disguise, hoping to escape the mounting turmoil of the French Revolution. They were arrested by a small group of citizens a few miles from the Belgian border and forced to return to Paris. Two years later they would both die at the guillotine. It is this extraordinary story, and the events leading up to and away from it, that Tackett recounts in gripping novelistic style.

The king's flight opens a window to the whole of French society during the Revolution. Each dramatic chapter spotlights a different segment of the population, from the king and queen as they plotted and executed their flight, to the people of Varennes who apprehended the royal family, to the radicals of Paris who urged an end to monarchy, to the leaders of the National Assembly struggling to control a spiraling crisis, to the ordinary citizens stunned by their king's desertion. Tackett shows how Louis's flight reshaped popular attitudes toward kingship, intensified fears of invasion and conspiracy, and helped pave the way for the Reign of Terror.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

On a June night in 1791, King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette fled Paris in disguise, hoping to escape the mounting turmoil of the French Revolution. They were arrested by a small group of citizens a few miles from the frontier and forced to return to Paris. Two years later, they would both die at the guillotine. Through this extraordinary story, and the events leading up to and away from it, Timothy Tackett recounts in gripping novelistic style the dynamics and trajectory of the French Revolution. The king's flight opens a window to the whole of French society. Each chapter spotlights the drama as it was experienced by a different segment of the population: from the great orators of the National Assembly to the Revolutionary officials and national guardsmen of small-town France; from Louis and Marie-Antoinette -- and Marie's Swedish lover -- to the ordinary men and women of Paris passionately committed to transforming their world. Tackett shows how Louis's flight reshaped popular attitudes toward kingship, intensified fears of invasion and conspiracy, and helped pave the way for the Reign of Terror. Tackett brings to life an array of characters, celebrated and humble, commoner and king, as they grappled with the monumental transformations set in motion in 1789. In so doing, he offers an important new interpretation of the Revolution. By emphasizing the unpredictable and contingent character of this story, he underscores the power of a single event to change irrevocably the course of the French Revolution, and consequently, the history of the Western world.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Historian Tackett (UC-Irvine) skillfully shows how Louis XVI's infamous failed flight from his revolutionary captors in Paris in 1791 led to the eventual victory of radicalism and strengthened those calling for terror to "protect" the revolution from its enemies. Attempting to escape across the border to the Austrian Netherlands, the king planned to march a counterrevolutionary army back into France and reestablish Bourbon rule. As Tackett's dramatic account makes clear, Louis very nearly succeeded. He was famously halted in Varennes, a few miles from the border, and forcibly returned to Paris. Tackett describes the nation's reaction to the king's flight and return, not just in Paris but also in the provinces, where widespread fears of foreign invasion immediately followed news of Louis's escape. The whole nation felt betrayed by their "father," and Louis's public image was destroyed. The flight to Varennes, Tackett shows, strengthened republicanism and weakened those moderates favoring a constitutional monarchy. Louis's flight also created factionalism in the Assembly and was thus a harbinger of the Terror to come. Jacobins called for the king's immediate removal, but the moderates won the day in the short term, and Louis was reinstituted as a constitutional monarch. The Jacobins bided their time, and in September 1792, they voted to dethrone Louis and declare a republic; a few months later, they voted to execute the king. Tackett has penned a highly accessible popular history that should appeal to those wanting to learn more about one of the central events of the French Revolution. 24 illus., 3 maps. (Mar. 15) Forecast: This joins two other excellent recent books on revolutionary France: The Road from Versailles (Forecasts, Nov. 18) and The Great Nation (Forecasts, Dec. 16). Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

According to Tackett (history, Univ. of California, Irvine; Becoming a Revolutionary), Louis XVI's aborted escape from the clutches of revolutionary Paris led to the rise of radical republicanism and the bloody excesses of the Reign of Terror. In many respects, his book is a rebuttal of a prevalent school of thought that views the French Revolution as an abhorrent event from beginning to end (see Simon Schama's Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution). Tackett contends that the political culture of 1789 had placed the revolution on an essentially moderate course and that it was the duplicitous recalcitrance of the king and his network of supporters that unleashed the demons of extremism. Tackett is a lucid writer, and he presents his unique thesis in a scholarly and lively style that will appeal to both specialists and general readers. Recommended for academic and public libraries.-Jim Doyle, Sara Hightower Regional Lib., Rome, GA Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews