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The royal Flight to Varennes ((フランス語:Fuite à Varennes)) during the night of 20–21 June 1791 was a significant episode in the French Revolution in which King Louis XVI of France, his queen Marie Antoinette, and their immediate family attempted unsuccessfully to escape from Paris in order to initiate a counter-revolution at the head of loyal troops under royalist officers concentrated at Montmédy near the frontier. They escaped only as far as the small town of Varennes, where they were arrested after having been recognized at their previous stop in Sainte-Menehould. The incident was a turning point after which popular hostility towards the French monarchy as an institution, as well as towards the king and queen as individuals, became much more pronounced. The king's attempted flight provoked charges of treason that ultimately led to his execution in 1793. The failure of the escape plans was due to a series of misadventures, delays, misinterpretations, and poor judgments.〔J.M. Thompson, ''The French Revolution'' (1943) identifies a series of major and minor mistakes and mishaps, pp. 224-227〕 Much was due to the King's indecision; he repeatedly postponed the schedule, allowing small problems to become big ones. Furthermore, he misjudged popular support for the traditional monarchy. He thought only radicals in Paris were promoting a revolution that the people as a whole rejected. He believed, mistakenly, that he was beloved by the peasants and the common folk.〔Timothy Tackett, ''When the King Took Flight'' (2003) ch. 3〕 The king's flight in the short term was traumatic for France, inciting a wave of emotions that ranged from anxiety to violence and panic. Everyone realized that war was imminent. The realization that the king had effectually repudiated the revolutionary reforms made to that point came as a shock to people who, until then, had seen him as a fundamentally decent king who governed as a manifestation of God's will. They felt betrayed. Republicanism burst out of the coffeehouses and became the dominant ideal of revolutionary leaders.〔Timothy Tackett, ''When the King Took Flight'' (2003) p. 222〕 == Attempt to flee Paris == Louis XVI's indecision on how to deal with revolutionary demands was one of the causes of the forcible transfer of the royal family from the Palace of Versailles to the Tuileries in Paris on 6 October 1789 after Versailles had been attacked by an angry mob. Henceforth, the king seems to have become emotionally paralyzed, leaving most important decisions to the politically untrained queen. Prodded by the queen, Louis committed himself and his family to a disastrous attempt of escape from the capital to the eastern frontier on 21 June 1791. With the dauphin's governess, the Marquise de Tourzel taking on the role of a Russian baroness, the queen and the king's sister Madame Élisabeth playing her maids, the king her butler, and the royal children her daughters, the royal family made their escape. The escape was largely planned by the queen's favourite, the Swedish Count Axel von Fersen and the Baron de Breteuil, who had garnered support from Swedish King Gustavus III. Due to the cumulative effect of a host of errors, which in and of themselves would not have condemned the mission to failure, the royal family was thwarted in its escape after Jean-Baptiste Drouet, the postmaster of Sainte-Menehould, recognized the king from his portrait printed on an assignat in his possession.〔''Récit fait par M. Drouet, maître de poste à Ste Menehould, de la manière dont il a reconnu le Roi, et a été cause de son arrestation à Varennes: honneurs rendus à ce citoyen et à deux de ses camarades''. Auteur; Drouet, Jean-Baptiste, 1791, Collection: ''Les archives de la Révolution française'', and Bibliothèque national de France: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k40773x/f3.image〕 Detachments of cavalry from Varennes, posted along the intended route, had been withdrawn or neutralized by suspicious crowds before the large and slow moving coach being used by the royal party had reached them. The king and his family were eventually arrested in the town of Varennes, 50 km (31 Miles) from their ultimate destination, the heavily fortified royalist citadel of Montmédy. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Flight to Varennes」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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