Philip Mansel

Who wore the royal trousers?

Revolutions no longer seem so inevitable, nor the overthrown governments so hopeless, since the failure of the greatest of all European revolutionary regimes, the Soviet Union. In The Fall of the French Monarchy Munro Price analyses, with skill and a light touch, the policies of two celebrated royal failures, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and of some of their ZmigrZ advisers, during the first years of the French revolution. The central figure is the Baron de Breteuil, an energetic former ambassador and minister, chosen by Louis XVI to co-ordinate resistance to the revolution, both from Versailles during his brief ministry of 12-15 July 1789 and, in the opinion of Munro Price, from exile in Brussels in 1790-2. This excellent, dramatic and important book is based on new material from archives across Europe, above all from the papers of one of Breteuil’s confidential agents, another former ambassador, the Marquis de Bombelles.

At the same time as the physical battle for control over events in France, there was an archival battle for control over the historical record. The King kept his papers in a specially constructed iron cupboard in the now vanished Tuileries palace, his gilded prison in Paris from 6 October 1789 until his abject exit, abandoning his guards and his courtiers, on the morning of 10 August 1792. To help fix the record for posterity, the Queen smuggled some of her secret correspondence with revolutionary politicians out of France to her handsome Swedish lover Count Hans Axel von Fersen. Until recently a castle in Sweden contained more letters of Marie Antoinette than the Archives Nationales in Paris. The Bombelles papers were discovered by Munro Price in a castle on the Danube, belonging to some of Bombelles’ Austrian descendants.

They show how Breteuil’s government in exile in Brussels functioned between 1790 and 1792.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in