ABSTRACT
The king had been out hunting as usual when the first reports of events in Paris reached him. ‘So, this is a revolt?’ he is reported to have remarked, only to be corrected: ‘No Sire, this is a revolution’ (Cobb & Jones, 1988: 61). There can be no doubt that the news that a lightly armed crowd of Parisians had contrived to seize control of the principal royal fortress in the capital had an electrifying effect. The intention of the new conservative ministry formed after the removal of Necker and headed by the Baron de Breteuil had been to use the troops to secure Paris. There is little actual evidence that an offensive operation to dissolve the National Assembly sitting in Versailles had also been in preparation (Price, 1990: 318). However, this is not how matters appeared in the aftermath of the event. The Comte d’Artois and a number of courtier families immediately packed their bags and left Versailles (see Chapter 6).
