Document E: The National Convention, September 21, 1792
Source Note: On August 10, Louis XVI had been suspended from the throne due to his attempted escape from France. The National Convention held a debate during its opening session on September 21, 1792, which illustrates the attitude of the new Assembly toward the ancient monarchy and serves to introduce some of the men who were soon to be most active during the Reign of Terror.
M. Manuel. Representatives of the sovereign people: the task which devolves upon you demands the power and wisdom of gods themselves. When Cineas entered the Roman senate he thought he beheld an assembly of kings. Such a comparison would be an insult to you. Here we see an assembly of philosophers occupied in preparing the way for the happiness of the world. I move that the president of France have his residence in the national palace, that the symbols of law and power be always at his side, and that every time that he opens a session all the citizens shall rise. This act of homage to the sovereignty of the people will constantly recall to us our rights and duties.
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M. Chabot. Representatives of the people: I oppose the motion made by Citizen Manuel. I am astonished that Citizen Manuel, after having repudiated every idea of any comparison with kings, should propose to make one of our members like a king. The French nation, by sending to the Convention two hundred members of the legislative body who have individually taken an oath to combat both kings and royalty, has made itself quite clear as to its desire to establish a popular government. It is not only the name of king that it would abolish but everything which suggests preeminence, so that there will be no president of France. You cannot look for any other kind of dignity than associating with the sans-culottes who compose the majority of the nation. Only by making yourselves like your fellow-citizens will you acquire the necessary dignity to cause your decrees to be respected. . .
M. Tallien. I am much astonished to hear this discussion about ceremonials. . . . Outside of this hall the president of the Convention is a simple citizen. If you want to speak to him, you can go and look for him on the third or the fifth floor. There is where virtue has its lodging. . . .
The Assembly unanimously rejected the motion of Monsieur Manuel.
M. Couthon. ...I am not afraid that, in the discussion which is about to take place, any-one will dare to speak of royalty again; it is fit only for slaves, and the French would be unworthy of the liberty which they have acquired should they dream of retaining a form of government branded by fourteen centuries of crime. But it is not royalty alone that must be eliminated from our constitution, but every kind of individual power which tends to restrict the rights of the people and violate the principles of equality. . . .
M. Collot d'Herbois. You have just taken a wise resolution, but there is one which you cannot postpone until the morrow, or even until this evening, or indeed for a single instant, without being faithless to the wish of the nation, - that is the abolition of royalty. [Unanimous applause.]
M. Quinette. We are not the judges of royalty; that belongs to the people. Our business is to make a concrete government, and the people will then choose between the old form where there was royalty and that which we shall submit to them. . . .
M. Gregoire. Assuredly no one of us would ever propose to retain in France the fatal race of kings; we all know but too well that dynasties have never been anything else than rapacious tribes who lived on nothing, but human flesh. It is necessary completely to reassure the friends of liberty. We must destroy this talisman, whose magic power is still sufficient to stupefy many a man. I move accordingly that you sanction by a solemn law the abolition of royalty.
The entire Assembly rose by a spontaneous movement and passed the motion of Monsieur Gregoire by acclamation.
M. Bazire. I rise to a point of order. . . . It would be a frightful example for the people to see an Assembly commissioned with its dearest interests voting in a moment of enthusiasm. I move that the question be discussed.
M. Gregoire. Surely it is quite unnecessary to discuss what everybody agrees on. Kings are in the moral order what monsters are in the physical. Courts are the workshops of crimes, the lair of tyrants. The history of kings is the martyrology of nations. Since we are all convinced of the truth of this, why discuss it? I demand that my motion be put to vote, and that later it be supplied with a formal justification worthy of the solemnity of the decree.
M. Ducos. The form of your decree would be only the history of the crimes of Louis XVI, a history already but too well known to the French people. I demand that it be drawn up in the simplest terms. There is no need of explanation after the knowledge which has been spread abroad by the events of August 10.
The discussion was closed. There was a profound silence. The motion of Monsieur Gregoire, put to vote, was adopted amidst the liveliest applause:
The National Convention decrees that royalty is abolished in France.
Editor's Note: The Convention, after ridding France of the institution of monarchy, proposed to make its armies a means of propagating liberty and reform throughout Europe. it-accordingly prepared a proclamation to be published in those countries which already were, or should be, occupied by the armies of the new French republic.