The Uprising of June 20, iyQ2 129 



After some other business had been presented to the assembly, 

 Guyton-Morveatix, spokesman of the last deputation sent to the 

 king, reported that all was quiet at the Tuileries, that the 

 deputies had remained some time with the king and that they had 

 seen nothing to cause alarm. He said an officer of the guard had 

 reported that the chateau was clear and that the king had retired 

 to rest. The assembly adjourned at half past ten o'clock.^^^ 



So ended the famous demonstration of June 20, 1792. That 

 it was a popular uprising, a spontaneous outburst of feeling 

 against the king because of his duplicity and his collusion with the 

 foreign enemy, a feeling intensified by his dismissal of the minis- 

 try and his refusal to sanction the decrees of the assembly, is 

 clearly seen. The war which had been forced on the court by the 

 assembly and carried on in a half-hearted way had failed. 

 Austria was presumptuously interfering in the internal affairs of 

 France and the constitution which the revolution had made pos- 

 sible was not being enforced and was now threatened with over- 

 throw. The king, in order to carry out his anti-revolutionary 

 policy, dismissed the Girondist ministry and vetoed the decrees 

 for the establishment of a camp of 20,000 federes to protect 

 Paris and the assembly. In doing this, the king acted within his 

 constitutional rights. 



The assembly, although it believed that the king was using 

 this technical right to aid the invaders and to defeat the revolu- 

 tion, was itself unwilling to save the country by violating the 

 constitution. 



In the faubourgs, where the people felt less respect for con- 

 stitutional restrictions, there was deep seated distrust of the king, 

 a strong belief in his treachery and fear of the foreign enemy. 

 Ever since the outbreak of the war in April, the sections in the 

 faubourgs had considered organized resistance to the menaces 

 from the court within and from the enemy without France and 

 this feeling had been intensified by the dismissal of the Girondist 

 ministry and the veto of the decrees. The men of the faubourgs 

 determined to save France by bringing pressure to bear on the 

 assembly and by forcing the king to act in accordance with the 



^Ibid. 



225 



