The Flight to Varennes, War, and the Fall of the Monarchy

Louis XVI and his family attempted to flee clandestinely from Paris toward the eastern frontier on 20 June 1791, hoping to reach loyal forces near the Austrian border. They were recognized and arrested in the town of Varennes, identified by a local postmaster, Jean-Baptiste Drouet, and were escorted back to Paris amid the hostile silence of watching crowds. The failed escape, and a letter the king left behind harshly criticizing the Revolution, destroyed popular trust in his commitment to the constitutional monarchy; in July 1791 the Champ de Mars Massacre, ordered by Lafayette against a republican demonstration demanding the king's removal, caused dozens of deaths and fractured moderate revolutionaries from more radical sectors.