Jean-Baptiste Drouet was a French politician of the Revolution and the Empire, best known for his key role in the arrest of King Louis XVI and his family during the Flight to Varennes.
Portrait of Drouet in 1791, published with a caption reporting his role in the Flight to Varennes
Flight to Varennes
Videos
The Flight to Varennes during the night of 20–21 June 1791 was a significant event in the French Revolution in which the French royal family—comprising Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, the Dauphin Louis C
Jean-Baptiste Drouet (revolutionary)
…1824) was a French politician of the Revolution and the Empire, best known for his key role in the arrest of King Louis XVI and his family during the Flight to Varennes. Drouet was born at Sainte-Menehould, in the province of Champagne. He enlisted in the Condé-Dragons regiment in 1781, but left seven years later to…
Louis XVI and his family, dressed as bourgeois, arrested in Varennes. Painting 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)
Drouet recognised the King, perhaps due to his profile on an assignat