Storming of the Tuileries Palace
A crowd stormed the Tuileries palace on 10 August 1792, and the French monarchy ended that day. The immediate cause was the war. France had declared war on Austria in April, the armies were losing, and on 1 August Paris read the Brunswick Manifesto, in which the commander of the invading army promised the total destruction of the city if the royal family were harmed. It was intended to protect the king and it convinced Parisians that he was in correspondence with the enemy, which he was. The insurrection was organised rather than spontaneous. The sections of Paris, the fédérés who had come up from the provinces for the anniversary of the Bastille — including the Marseille battalion that brought the song — and a new insurrectionary commune that replaced the city government during the night. The palace was defended by some 900 Swiss Guards, gendarmes and noble volunteers. Louis XVI left for the Assembly with his family early in the morning to place himself under its protection, and sent an order to the Swiss to cease firing after the fighting had begun, which left them exposed; some 600 were killed, many after surrendering. Around 400 of the attackers died. The Assembly suspended the king the same day, and the Convention elected by universal male suffrage abolished the monarchy on 21 September. The September massacres followed within three weeks, and the king was executed in January 1793. The Swiss are commemorated by a dying lion carved into a cliff at Lucerne, which Mark Twain called the saddest piece of stone in the world. Their descendants still guard the pope, which is the last remnant of the trade that put them there.
- Year: 1792 CE
- Category: Military
