# Speeches of Maximilien Robespierre/The Flight of the King

Speech delivered June 21, 1791, in the Club of the Jacobins.
SPEECHES OF MAXIMILIEN ROBESPIERRE
THE FLIGHT OF THE KING
The royal family had left Paris in the night between June 20 and 21, 1791. An immense excitement took possession of the population of the city, great masses of people surrounded the Legislative Assembly. The Assembly attempted to take measures to pacify the population. All the clubs in Paris held meetings. On the same evening Robespierre delivered the following speech, which was published in No. 32 of the Révolutions de France et de Brabant, which was Desmoulins' newspaper.
Citizens! I am not one who would regard the flight of the King as a frightful event. This day might have become the fairest in the annals of the Republic and the saving of the forty millions we have to pay for the support of this royal individual might perhaps be the smallest of our benefactions. But in order to make June 20 a happy day for us, the Legislative Assembly would be obliged to take entirely different measures from any it has thus far adopted. The King has not chosen a bad moment for his decision. The King feared the national veto of the Legislature and chose for his flight that mo​ment in which the treasonable priests are about to lead all to the attack on the Constitution, the fanatical edicts of the eighty-three departments. He has chosen the moment when the Emperor and the King of Sweden are meeting at Brussels, in which the harvest is being gathered in France, and in which he believes he can make us all starve, with the assistance of a small group of bandits with incendiary torches in their hands. Yet all these are circumstances that do not terrify me. Even if all Europe should unite against us, all Europe will be defeated. What strikes fear into my heart are the very facts that cause every one else to feel confidence. The fact, for instance, that this morning, when his flight became known, all our enemies spoke the same language. The entire world is united, all wear the same countenance, and yet it is evident that when a king with an income of forty millions annually, still in possession of all the resources of the country, bearing the fairest crown of all the world—that when such a king leaves everything in the lurch in this manner, it must be because he feels certain that he will be able to return soon. And this feeling of sympathy cannot be based on the Emperor alone, or on the King of Sweden, or on the Army of the Rhine, the army of our enemy, or on all the brigands of Europe, who are united against us. No, it is right here among us that the King must feel his security, must feel the strength that guarantees ​him a victorious return. We cannot explain his flight otherwise. You know that three million armed men would constitute an insurmountable bulwark of liberty; but you refuse to arm the men. There must be a powerful party, there must be great accomplices, powerful intrigues, and all these right here in Paris. I am afraid of this mask of patriotism now being worn by every one. I am not expressing suspicions or insinuations; I am stating facts; and I therefore demand that the speakers who will follow me give their reasons for doubting these facts and advance evidence to disprove them. …
You all know the reminiscences left behind by Louis XVI. You remember how he sabotaged the points that were not to his advantage in the Constitution that was passed, and what was his attitude toward those articles in the Constitution that were so fortunate as to please him? Read the King's protest and you will understand the entire plot. In a short time the King will appear at the boundaries, he will be a member of the suite of the Emperor, of the King of Sweden, of the Count of Artois, and of the Prince of Condé, and with him will be all the émigrés, all the deserters and all the brigands that will have been united by the common cause of kings. And then what will these gentlemen do? They will issue a patriotic manifesto and the King will declare, as he has declared a hundred times already, :My people may count on my affection." The advantages ​and loveliness of peace will be exalted and even liberty will find favorable comment. A compromise will be proposed with the émigrés; they will promise an eternal peace, amnesty and fraternity, and at the same time the heads of the conspiracy will depict all over France, even in Paris itself, the terrible prospects of a civil war, and they will ask you all why you insist on fighting, why you insist on murdering each other, although we all have the same fraternal object. And Bender and the Prince of Condé will declare themselves to be patriots. What will you do then? You will do nothing. You have made no preparations; you have no army at the border and you will comply with the insinuations of your leaders, for at first you will not be asked to make any but insignificant sacrifices. …
Louis XVI has written to the Legislative Assembly to the effect that he is resorting to flight and the Assembly has resorted to cowardice, to a cowardly falsehood in order to misrepresent this situation; it has declared that the King has been abducted and in twenty decrees it regrets the monarch's fate. The Constituent Assembly might speak quite differently, if we had three million bayonets at our disposal. …
Do you wish further proofs that the Legislative Assembly has betrayed the interests of the nation? What are the measures it adopted this morning? Let us consider the principal ones:
The Minister of War has continued to remain in ​his position; so have all the other ministers. And who is this Minister of War? The Minister of War has thus far persecuted all patriotic soldiers, has personally conducted the massacres among the republican troops, and has given his protection to all the aristocratic officers. And who is the military committee that has been associated with the Minister of War? Among the members of the military committee are the disguised partisans of the ancien régime and the aristocracy, who unmask themselves in their deeds. The military committee that has hitherto conducted all the movements of the counter-revolution is the source of all the measures that were directed against freedom. …
I have indicted the Legislative Assembly and I now ask the Legislative Assembly to indict me.
—Speech delivered June 21, 1792, in the Club of the Jacobins.