The Constitutions and Other Select Documents Illustrative of the History of France, 1789–1907/16

by Frank Maloy Anderson

16. The King's Acceptance of the Constitution

September 13, 1791. Moniteur, September 14, 1791 (Réimpression, IX, 655).

This document was read to the Constituent Assembly in explanation of the king's acceptance of No. 15. Three features call for particular notice: (1) the official defence of the king's flight, (2) the interpretation placed upon the revision recently effected in the final draft of the constitution, (3) the attitude of the king towards the general course of the revolution and especially towards the new constitution.

References. Aulard, Révolution française, 164–166.

Gentlemen: I have examined attentively the constitutional act which you have presented to me for my acceptance; I accept it and shall cause it to be executed. This declaration might have sufficed at another time; today I owe it to the interests of the nation, I owe it to myself, to make known my reasons.

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Let everyone recall the moment at which I went away from Paris: the constitution was on the point of completion, nevertheless the authority of the laws seemed to become enfeebled every day. Opinion, far from becoming fixed, was subdividing into a multitude of parties. The most extreme opinions alone seemed to obtain favor, the license of the press was at the highest pitch, no authority was respected. I could no longer recognize the mark of the general will in the laws which I saw everywhere without force and without execution. At that time, I am bound to declare, if you had presented the constitution to me, I should not have believed that the interest of the people (the constant and sole rule of my conduct) would permit me to accept it. I had only one feeling, I formed only one project; I wished to isolate myself from all the parties and to know what was truly the will of the nation.

The considerations which were controlling me no longer remain today; since then the inconveniences and evils of which I was complaining have impressed you as they did me; you have manifested a desire to re-establish order, you have directed your attention to the lack of discipline in the army, you have recognized the necessity of repressing the abuses of the press. The revision of your work has put in the number of the regulative laws several articles which had been presented to me as constitutional. You have established legal forms for the revision of those which you have placed in the constitution. Finally, the opinion of the people is to me no longer doubtful; I have seen it manifested both in their adhesion to your work and their attachment to the maintenance of the monarchical government.

I accept then the constitution. I take the engagement to maintain it within, to defend it against attacks from without, and to cause it to be executed by all the means which it places in my power. I declare that, instructed by the adhesion which the great majority of the people give to the constitution, I renounce the co-operation which I had claimed in that work; and that, being responsible only to the nation, no other, when I renounce it, has the right to complain thereof. I should be lacking in sincerity, however, if I said that I perceived in the means of execution and administration, all the energy which may be necessary in order to give motion to and to preserve unity in all the parts of so vast an empire; but since opinions at present are divided upon these matters, I consent that experience alone remain judge therein. When I shall have loyally caused to operate all the means which have been left to me, no reproach can be aimed at me, and the nation, whose interest alone ought to serve as rule, will explain itself by the means which the constitution has reserved to it.

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Signed. Louis.