leading to the terror

• The king has been suspended​

• Lafayette tried to march on Paris to restore the constitutional monarch – he failed and has defected to the Austrians (19 August)​

• 23 August – Longwy has fallen​

• Verdun – the last fortress blocking Paris is under siege​

• There are around 2000 royalists/counter-revolutionaries/refractory priests in Paris jails​

• There is a royalist rising in the Vendee​

marat:

• Born in Switzerland in 1743​

• Was a physician and writer but his research was rejected – possibly because of his lack of education and patronage​

• In September 1789 he began publishing his own paper – L’Ami du Peuple (The Friend of the People).

  • Was very popular with the people of Paris​

• Initially attacked the king and his ministers, the nobility, the high clergy and affluent Bourgeoisie, then the National Assembly for protecting feudal and bourgeois business interests and not implementing universal suffrage​

• Spent October and November 1789 hiding in the sewers and then spent time in exile in England

danton:

• Born in 1759 and entered law​

• Wasn’t in the Estates-General but was in the National Guard in 1789​

• Founded the Cordeliers club – most radical club at the time​

• Views about the king unclear​

• Called for king’s abdication in favour of king’s son with Duke D’Orleans as regent after flight to Varennes. Turned out he was being paid by the Duke​

• Stood for Legislative Assembly but didn’t get a seat​

• Member of the Paris Commune – helped to overthrow the king​

• Was made Minister of Justice in August 1792

• 30 August – authorised house searches for weapons hidden by the ‘ill-disposed’. Over the next two days, all houses were searched and 3000 taken to prison​

• 2 September – launched a levee enforcing conscription on pain of death