This fiery and impolitic manifesto more than anything else hastened the fall of the throne, and prevented the success of the coalition.

The insurgents fixed the attack on the Tuileries for the morning of August 10.  The vanguard of the Faubourgs, composed of Marseillese and Breton Federates, had already arrived by the Rue Saint Honore, stationed themselves in battle array on the Carrousel, and turned their cannon against the Tuileries, when Louis XVI. left his chamber with his family, ministers, and the members of the department, and announced to the persons assembled for the defence of the palace that he was going to the National Assembly.  All motives for resistance ceased with the king’s departure.  The means of defence had also been diminished by the departure of the National Guards who escorted the king.  The Swiss discharged a murderous fire on the assailants, who were dispersed.  The Place du Carrousel was cleared.  But the Marseillese and Bretons soon returned with renewed force; the Swiss were fired on by the cannon, and surrounded; and the crowd perpetrated in the palace all the excesses of victory.

Royalty had already fallen, and thus on August 10 began the dictatorial and arbitrary epoch of the revolution.

During three days, from September 2, the prisoners confined in the Carmes, the Abbaye, the Conciergerie, the Force, etc., were slaughtered by a band of about three hundred assassins.  On the 20th, the in itself almost insignificant success of Valmy, by checking the invasion, produced on our troops and upon opinion in France the effect of the most complete victory.

On the same day the new Parliament, the Convention, began its deliberations.  In its first sitting it abolished royalty, and proclaimed the republic.  And already Robespierre, who played so terrible a part in our revolution, was beginning to take a prominent position in the debates.

The discussion on the trial of Louis XVI. began on November 13.  The Assembly unanimously decided, on January 20, 1793, that Louis was guilty; when the appeal was put to the question, 284 voices voted for, 424 against it; 10 declined voting.  Then came the terrible question as to the nature of the punishment.  Paris was in a state of the greatest excitement; deputies were threatened at the very door of the Assembly.  There were 721 voters.  The actual majority was 361.  The death of the king was decided by a majority of 26 votes.

He was executed at half-past ten in the morning of January 21, and his death was the signal for an almost universal war.

This time all the frontiers of France were to be attacked by the European powers.

The cabinet of St. James, on learning the death of Louis XVI., dismissed the Ambassador Chauvelin, whom it had refused to acknowledge since August 10 and the dethronement of the king.  The Convention, finding England already leagued with the coalition, and consequently all its promises of neutrality vain and illusive, on February 1, 1793, declared war against the King of Great Britain and the stadtholder of Holland, who had been entirely guided by the cabinet of St. James since 1788.