CHAPTER XXXVI THE FIRST FRENCH REPUBLIC I. The Flight of the King and the Origin of a Republican Party The National Assembly, which had done so much to reform France, was drawing to a close in the summer of 1 79 1, after two years of arduous labor. It was subject- ing the new constitution which it had been drafting to a final revision before it left the task of government to the king and the Legislative Assembly, after carefully defining and restricting the powers of both. The flight of the king toward the eastern frontier, on June 20, 1 79 1, served to show how slight was the chance that the new government would succeed, when the monarch was ready to desert his people in order to put himself in the hands of foreign powers and of the runaway nobles. The impression that the news of the king's flight made upon the people of Paris is described by Prudhomme, a well-known journalist of the time, in his newspaper. 402. How It was not until ten o'clock in the morning that the muni- thePari- c ipal government announced, bv firms: a cannon thrice, the sians viewed . , , , _f . ° . , , the flight of unexpected event of the day. But for three hours the news the king had already been passing from mouth to mouth and was ioif 20> circulating in all quarters of the city. During these three (From Prud- hours many outrages might have been committed. The king homme's h a cl gone. This news produced a moment of anxiety, and de Paris.) everybody ran in a crowd to the palace of the Tuileries to see if it were true ; but every one turned almost immediately 428
