The royal Flight to Varennes during the night of 20–21 June 1791 was a significant event in the French Revolution in which King Louis XVI of France, Queen Marie Antoinette, and their immediate family unsuccessfully attempted to escape from Paris to Montmédy, where the King wished to initiate a counter-revolution by joining up with royalist troops. They escaped as far as the small town of Varennes-en-Argonne, where they were arrested after being recognized at their previous stop in Sainte-Menehould.
Louis XVI and his family, dressed as bourgeois, arrested in Varennes. Picture by Thomas Falcon Marshall (1854)
Declaration to the French People (June 1791)
The arrest of Louis XVI and his family – Stamp by Jean-Louis Prieur, (Musée de la Révolution française).
Jean-Baptiste Drouet, who recognised the royal family
Louis XVI was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution.
Portrait, 1779
The young Duke of Berry (right) with his younger brother, the Count of Provence (by François-Hubert Drouais, 1757)
The Duke of Berry as a young boy (portrait artributed to Pierre Jouffroy)
Marie Antoinette, Queen of France and wife of Louis-Auguste with their three eldest children, Marie Thérèse, Louis-Charles and Louis-Joseph (by Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, 1787)
