page_title: Timeline of the French Revolution
section_title: June 20–21 – The Royal Family flees Paris
hierarchical_section_title: Timeline of the French Revolution / 1791 – The unsuccessful flight of the Royal Family from Paris / June 20–21 – The Royal Family flees Paris
caption_attribution_description: English: Publication de la loi martiale au Champ de Mars&#160;: le 17 juillet 1791&#160;: [estampe] / Prieur inv. &amp; del.&#160;; Berthault sculp.
context_page_description: The following is a timeline of the French Revolution.
context_section_description: June 20–21: The Flight to Varennes. In the night of 20–21 June, the King, the Queen and their children slip out of the Tuileries Palace and flee by carriage in the direction of Montmédy.
  June 21–22: The King is recognized at Varennes. The Assembly announces that he was taken against his will, and sends three commissioners to bring him back to Paris.
  June 25: Louis XVI returns to Paris. The Assembly suspends his functions until further notice.
  July 5: Emperor Leopold II issues the Padua Circular calling on the royal houses of Europe to come to the aid of Louis XVI, his brother-in-law.
  July 9: The Assembly decrees that émigrés must return to France within two months, or forfeit their property.
  July 11: The ashes of Voltaire are transferred to the Panthéon.
  July 15: National Assembly declares the king inviolable, and cannot be put on trial. Louis XVI suspended from his duties until the ratification of a new Constitution.
  July 16: The more moderate members of the Jacobins club break away to form a new club, the Feuillants.
  July 17: A demonstration sponsored by the Jacobins, Cordeliers and their allies carries a petition demanding the removal of the King to the Champ de Mars. The city government raises the red flag, the sign of martial law, and forbids the demonstration. The National Guard fires on the crowd, and some fifty persons are killed. 
  July 18: Following the events in the Champ de Mars, the Assembly forbids incitement to riot, urging citizens to disobey the law, and seditious publications, aimed at the Jacobins and Cordeliers. Marat goes into hiding and Danton flees to England.
  August 14: Slave uprising begins in Saint Domingue (Haiti)
  August 27: Declaration of Pillnitz - A proclamation by Frederick William II of Prussia and Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, affirms their wish to "put the King of France in a state to strengthen the bases of monarchic government." This vague statement is taken in France as a direct threat by the other European powers to intervene in the Revolution.
  September 13–14: Louis XVI formally accepts the new Constitution.
  September 27: The Assembly declares that all men living in France, regardless of color, are free, but preserves slavery in French colonies. French Jews are granted citizenship.
  September 29: The Assembly limits membership in the National Guard to citizens who pay a certain level of taxes, thus excluding the working class.
  September 30: Last day of the National Constituent Assembly. Assembly grants amnesty to all those punished for illegal political activity since 1788.
  October 1: First session of the new national Legislative Assembly. Claude Pastoret, a monarchist, is elected President of the assembly.
  October 16: Riots against the revolutionary commune, or city government, in Avignon. After an official of the commune is killed, anti-government prisoners kept in the basements of the Papal Palace are massacred.
  November 9: Émigrés are again ordered to return to France before January 1, 1792, under penalty of losing their property and a sentence of death. King Louis XVI vetoes the declaration on November 11, but asks his brothers to return to France.
  November 14: Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve is elected mayor of Paris, with 6,728 votes against 3,126 for Lafayette. Out of 80,000 eligible voters, 70,000 abstain.
  November 25: The Legislative Assembly creates a Committee of Surveillance to oversee the government.
  November 29: Priests are again ordered to take an oath to the government, or to be considered suspects.
  December 3: The King writes a secret letter to Frederick William II of Prussia, urging him to intervene militarily in France "to prevent the evil which is happening here before it overtakes the other states of Europe. 
  December 3: Louis XVI's brothers, (the counts of Provence and Artois) refuse to return to France, citing "the moral and physical captivity in which the King is being held." 
  December 14: Lafayette receives command of one of the three new armies established to defend the French borders, the Army of the Centre, based at Metz. The other two armies are com
caption: The National Guard fires on demonstrators in the Champ de Mars (July 17, 1791)
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