The Bourbons in Exile: After Varennes

Hi to all the members!...because I loved this time of history and specially about Queen Marie Antoinette and her tragic end, I decided to made this thread with the possibility about the flight of Varennes being successful.

Note: I added in this thread the two children of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette who died in infancy.


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Varennes-en-Argonne, 21 June 1791:

Once the royal family and his entourage arrived to the town of Varennes, the population became widely suspicious. Not long after they were recognized and voices began to demanded their return to Paris.....

Louis XVI, unable to made a serious decision about to return or wait, was pushed in all ways.

Marie Antoinette, with two of her children gravelly ill: the Dauphin Louis Joseph (aged 9) with constant attacks of fever and unable to walk, and Mademoiselle Marie Sophie (aged 5), a extremely large child who suffered with bouts of epilepsy and also had attacks of fever, was worried about the perilous return trip would killed them, so she decided to play her last card....

Putting under her knees to the Major of Varennes, the Queen and Madame Elisabeth (sister of the King) begged him to let them stay in the bourgeois house assigned to them until their return, at least to the morning of 22 June.

"Please Monsieur! the life of my children are in your hands!...I'm not asking you as a Queen, but as a mother, if they died, their blood are in your hands!!" say Marie Antoinette to the Major.

Convinced by his own wife and despite the bitter and even violent opposition of the population, the major agreed and they could spend one more night at Varennes.

22 June:

Just as the Queen though, the royal troops of the Marquis François Claude de Bouillé, arrived to Varennes in the first hours of 22 June.

Inmediately, Marie Antoinette (who was watching for a window during all the night hoping this miracle) woke up and hurriedly dressed her children, with the help of Madame Elisabeth and the faithful Princess of Lamballe.

Louis XVI, shocked by the attitude of his consort, now see the real intention of her: she knew that waiting only a few hours they must be saved...and this exactly happened.

The troops of Bouillé surrounded all the town of Varennes and watched all suspicious attitude. In the meanwhile, the General-Marquis talk to the King:

"Sire, we must be move quickly from this town if must be save the Monarchy!" exclaimed with his customary energy and ruthlessness.

Claude Antoine Gabriel, Duc de Choiseul-Stainville, colonel of Dragoons and firm royal, also arrived to the town. He discretely followed the King and his family in his flight and was stopped a few miles away by a group of republicans. Now with both troops there, Louis XVI felt secure enough to made a decision.

The King, the Queen and their family and entourage took their carriage and left Varennes surrounded by the troops of Bouillé and Choiseul-Stainville, in the middle of insults and screams of the population. Inmediately after their departure, the Major of Varennes and his family were killed by the population, under the accusation to left escape the Autrichienne and her family.

Without stopped in any other part, the royal family arrived to the fortress of Montmédy one hour later (11 a.m.)

Now, the counter-revolution must began.....



TO BE CONTINUED......
 
Oh my, a French Revolution timeline. :):D

I'm interested to where you'll go with this. Will Louis be able to escape France? Tune in next time for the next installment! :D;)

(But seriously, keep it up. ;))
 
Montmédy, 22 June 1791:

Once the royal family arrived to the fortress of Montmédy, in the north-eastern border district of Lorraine, Louis XVI began to discuss with his generals about the next step: they must be remained in France and fight against the Revolution, or they must be acepted the hospitality of other royals and escape?....

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Marie Antoinette, furious about the weakeness of her husband who almost costly their lifes, broke her marital vows to obedience and defy her husband in front of the general and royalists, who discussed in the middle of papers and plans:

"My Lord and Husband, this is no time to be polite!....the future Kingdom of our son, our poor Joseph was in your hands....we can wait too much!!...A decision must be taken, and if you can take it, I do it!!" exclaim the Queen surrounded by her children.

Years later, Marie Thérèse, Madame Royale, the eldest child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, still proudly remembered how her mother stand in front of all the royalists and generals and exposed her anticipated plans to them.

"I knew that Provence and Artois are planning our deaths....I now how much you love your brothers and the pain I cause to you with my words, but Sire, dear Louis, listen to me!....we must to leave our Kingdom, at least for now, until we can crushed and destroy this disgusting Revolution!!!....."

Marie Antoinette, with the secret help of her beloved sister Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples and Sicily and Queen Charlotte of Great Britain (her pen friend for years) was planning for her own the better way to safe the Bourbon dynasty.

After one entirely day of hesitation and bitter and even violent discussions between Louis XVI and the regional royalists, the King made a decision: They must to leave France, and the only realistic possibility was Great Britain...


TO BE CONTINUED......
 
Montmédy, 24 June 1791:

For almost two days, was prepared in the fortress of Montmédy the escape route of the royal family. Bouillé and Choiseul-Stainville believed that a trip through the french borders to the port of Calais must be secure enough, but Marie Antoinette firmly believed that they must to go to Luxembourg and via Germany, go to Great Britain. As an Habsburg Archduchess by birth, she believed that her brother Leopold II, the new Holy Roman Emperor since September 1790, could help them in this dangerous hour.

However, after received a letter of her sister Maria Carolina, Marie Antoinette abruptly change her mind and accepted the trip for the French border towns to Calais. It's unknown why after this letter Marie Antoinette decided to support Bouillé, because she burned all her letters after being readed; moreover, a second letter, this time from another sister, Maria Amalia, Duchess of Parma (with whom she also had a close bond) determined Marie Antoinette to hurried the plans to escape.

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At the midnight of 24 June, three tiny carriages leave the fortress of Montmédy in the most secrecy, and surrounded by two Swiss and four German mercenary regiments, who were perceived as being more reliable in a time of general political unrest than their French counterparts.

Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI and their two sons where in the first carriage; in the second Madame Elisabeth with Madame Royale and Mademoiselle Sophie. The third carriage was the consecuence of a violent dispute between the Queen and her husband: there where the Princess of Lamballe with Madame of Tourzel and her daughter. Louis XVI, following the advice of Bouillé and Choiseul-Stainville, had decided to leave Lamballe and company in Montmédy, in order to not caused much attention in this second part of their flight; however, Marie Antoinette had the last word in this case: if Lamballe and Tourzel didn't go with her, she refused to go. After the letters of her sisters, the French Queen was extremely paranoid and fearful about everything, especially in the comunication of Louis XVI with his brothers the Comte de Provence (in Coblenz) and the Comte d'Artois (in Savoy); she constantly adviced her husband to not write to them about their plans of escape, especially to Provence.

The second part of the flight of Varennes began....


TO BE CONTINUED.........
 
Britain, why not Austria?

Anyways interesting, I'm really interested to see how Lafayette reacts.

Emperor Leopold II, unlike his brother Joseph, wasn't close to his sister the French Queen and looked at the weakening of France as a good thing. So unlikely to be any real help past words.
 
Calais, 25 June 1791:

Following a dangerous journey through Mons, Lille and Dunkirk, the Royal Family arrived to Calais in the first hours of 25 June 1791.

During all the trip, Marie Antoinette wrote extensive letters to her sisters Maria Carolina and Maria Amalia, but none to her brother Leopold II; before the stay in Montmédy, the Queen was fiercely convinced to the help of Austria in the counter-revolution, but something changed in her mind about her Austrian ties following her arrival to the fortress. In fact, she never wrote again to her brother Leopold II and hardly do it to her nephew Francis II, who succeeded his father as Holy Roman Emperor in 1792.

In the meanwhile, the news of the escape of the Royal Family caused a series of riots and violent disturbs in Paris. Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, as the leader of the National Guard, was the responsible for the Royal Family's custody. He was thus blamed by extremists like Danton for the escape and was called a traitor by Robespierre. These accusations made Lafayette appear as a Royalist, damaging his reputation in the eyes of the public, and strengthened the hands of the Jacobins and other radicals. Voices in the Assembly asked his execution, but Lafayette narrowly could escape from death and after resigned from the National Guard, he retired to his home province of Auvergne some months later, in October 1791.

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In the middle of the night between 25-26 June, the HMS Pandora under the command of Captain Edward Edwards arrived to the port of Calais. Following the direct orders of King George III, Captain Edwards asked the inmediate evacuation of the French Royal Family. Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI, their children and Madame Elisabeth were the first to go. The Dauphin Louis Joseph, in his weelchair, was melancholic but happy to enter in a ship for the first time; Louis Charles, Duke of Normandy and his sister Mademoiselle Sophie (both holded by Madame de Tourzel and her daughter Pauline) say godbyee with their hands to the few people in the port; Madame Royale, embraced by the Princess of Lamballe, had a deep but silent crying.

The journey through the Strait of Dover was quickly; in the first hours of 26 June, the HMS Pandora arrived to the port of Dover. Now, the Royal Family of France was in effective exile....


TO BE CONTINUED.....
 
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Once the Royal Family of France arrived to the port of Dover, in the first hours of 26 June 1791, they inmediately began the trip to London.

Marie Antoinette was atonished about the English countryside: for her, was completely different to her Petit Trianon or Versailles; however, for the first time in almost two years, she had a sensation of freedom that soon shared by the rest of her family.

The arrival of the French royal family caused a real revolution in London: once was confirmed the arrival of them to Dover, the citizens of the capital of Great Britain expected the formal entry to the capital. However, Louis XVI (following the advice of George III) entered without pomp to the city and continue the trip to the Royal County of Berkshire, where the British Royal Family expected them at Windsor Castle.

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Windsor Castle, 26 June 1791:

In solemn reception, with all his court surrounded them, King George III, Queen Charlotte and the rest of the British Royal Family received the exiled Bourbons at Windsor Castle.

In a gesture completely unusual to him, George III embraced Louis XVI and called him My Dear Brother, secured him that all the humilliations passed previously soon be punished.

Marie Antoinette and Charlotte, for the first time one in front to the other, also had a touching conversation. A pen friends for years, the French and British Queen shared many interests, such as their love of music and the arts, in which they both enthusiastically took an interest.

George III and Charlotte had sixteen children, the last six where of similar ages of the French princes. Prince Adolphus, Princess Mary and Princess Sophia soon became close friends of Madame Royale, while the Dauphin, the Duke of Normandy and Mademoiselle Sophie found in Princes Octavius and Alfred and Princess Amelia perfect playmates.

However, the situation wasn't completely easy for the French Royal Family in Great Britain: the Parliament showed his distrust in the arrival of an authocratic ruler to his constitutional Kingdom, and mostly had their reservations about Marie Antoinette, whose reputation followed her to Great Britain.

However, the public opinion soon became favorable to them, and thanks to the pressures of both King George III and surprisiling Queen Charlotte (who never meddled in politics), the Parliament allowed the Bourbons a pension of 180,000 pounds per year during their stay in Great Britain; in addition George III gave them Hampton Court Palace as their grace and favor residence.

Soon, the french émigrés began to arrive to Hampton Court, the first of all are the Comtes de Provence and d'Artois. Marie Antoinette wasn't much happy to see her brothers-in-law or the other courtesans who left them in the hour of danger; soon, she preferred the company of Queen Charlotte and her inseparable Princess of Lamballe, who the British Queen found "so delicate and friendly".


TO BE CONTINUED......
 
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With the arrival of the Comtes de Provence and d'Artois to Great Britain, Louis XVI and especially Marie Antoinette began to actively work for the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty.

The French Queen, despite the distrust that she had over her brothers-in-law (the Comte de Provence even declared himself "regent" in the case of his beloved brother death), knew that they had to show a common front to the Revolutionary France.

With the help of her sisters Maria Carolina and Maria Amalia, the French Queen wrote letters to all the royal heads of Europe. The first to answer was King Gustaf III of Sweden, an staunch absolutist, who secretly declared his support to Louis XVI, but he made his declaration of war to France oppenly only when others rulers could joined to the Royalist army. The husbands of her sisters, King Ferdinando III of Naples and IV of Sicily and Duke Ferdinando of Parma where the next rulers who supported Louis XVI (as the French monarch was, they are completely dominated by his wives, so Marie Antoinette could count since the beginning with the support of Naples-Sicily and Parma).

King Frederick William II of Prussia also joined to the "Restoration Army", and, unexpectedly, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II also decided to support the Bourbon cause. Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (brother-in-law of King George III) took the command of the Prussian-German Army. Shortly after, and despite the struendous opposition of the House of Commons, King George III declared the war to France (1 July 1792). With the British declaration of War against France, Gustaf III felt enough confident to also formally declared his support to Louis XVI and joined to the Restoration Army (16 July)

The arrival of Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé in late August to Great Britain, gave a new breath to the Bourbon court-in-exile. With the Duc de Richelieu, the Duc de Blacas and Chateaubriand, the Duc de Choiseul, the Comte de Langéron, the Comte de Damas, the Comte de Montlosier, the Vicomte de Bonald and several others french nobles, he formed the "Condé Army", one of the main Armée des Émigrés, groups of counter-revolutionary armies raised outside of France by and out of Royalist Émigrés, with the aim of overthrowing the French Revolution, reconquering France and restoring the monarchy.

King Charles IV of Spain was the last monarch who joined the Restoration Army. Like his French cousin, the Spanish monarch was indolent to the government affairs, who where managed by his wife, Queen Maria Luisa of Parma (through her mother a granddaughter of Louis XV of France and also a sister-in-law of Maria Amalia). Queen Maria Luisa, a staunch royalist, clashed with the Spanish chief minister José Moñino, 1st Conde de Floridablanca, a liberal, who after being deposed was replaced by Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea, 10th Conde de Aranda, who, like Floridablanca, was liberal and wanted to reform the Spanish monarchy; finally, he also was overthrown, this time by Manuel Godoy, the favorite (and reputed lover) of Queen Maria Luisa; despite his attempts to remain neutral, the Queen forced him to declare the war to the Revolutionary France.


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Hampton Court Palace, June 1791-March 1792:

With almost all the royal heads of Europe at her side, Marie Antoinette felt confident in the quickly destruction of the Monstre, the Revolution. She maintain an active correspondance with all the rulers, except her brother Leopold II, whose unexpected death on 1 March 1792 was almost unnoticed to her. The election of her nephew Francis II as new Holy Roman Emperor in July also unafected her; the new Emperor never met his aunt, and hesitated about to maintain his support to the Restoration Army.

When Marie Antoinette (again, thanks to the information of her sister Maria Carolina) found out about this, she wrote a formal but firm letter to her nephew:

To Francis, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia:

Dear Nephew:

My first thoughs are in tears for the death of my beloved brother your father, but the time of crying must be gone....Le Monstre is a shadow that cast out to all the mighty rulers of Europe who received their will and power to rule from God. We can let that this poor people continue wrong in their faiths and beliefs.

For this, I expected that you, as the grandson of the mighty and powerful Maria Theresia must found in your royalty the strenght and courage to continue our Holy Crusade.

Praying for your health and your family,

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France and Navarre.


Francis II was shocked by this letter, but he still hesitated; finally was his own wife, the Empress consort Maria Theresa (born a princess of Naples and Sicily as daughter of Maria Carolina and thus niece of Marie Antoinette) who adviced him to reafirm his commitment with the Restoration Army. Because was known to all that the new Empress was as an easy-going woman with a sensuous appearance, and more interested in masquerades and carnivals that in politics, was highly supposed that she followed the wills of both her mother and aunt.

The War against the Revolutionary France was ready to began.....


TO BE CONTINUED......
 
You need a POD where the English government and monarch are more sympathetic to the plight of the royal family. I would suggest you looking at the correspondence of the Foreign Secretary from the time, it clearly shows British indifference to the plight of the French royal family. In actuality it shows that the British government did not want to lift a finger to help them.
 
You need a POD where the English government and monarch are more sympathetic to the plight of the royal family. I would suggest you looking at the correspondence of the Foreign Secretary from the time, it clearly shows British indifference to the plight of the French royal family. In actuality it shows that the British government did not want to lift a finger to help them.

Big difference between the Royal family and the Government. At this point George III was experiencing a surge in popularity after his recovery from madness and Queen Charlotte was very much sympathetic to the French royals. If George III decided to support his "cousins" the government would have to fall in with him. Also it depends on what the French government does without the Royals. Do they radicalize earlier? Or does the revolution stabilize?
 
Big difference between the Royal family and the Government. At this point George III was experiencing a surge in popularity after his recovery from madness and Queen Charlotte was very much sympathetic to the French royals. If George III decided to support his "cousins" the government would have to fall in with him. Also it depends on what the French government does without the Royals. Do they radicalize earlier? Or does the revolution stabilize?
I think the author clearly wrote that they radicalized much earlier in this timeline.
 
Big difference between the Royal family and the Government. At this point George III was experiencing a surge in popularity after his recovery from madness and Queen Charlotte was very much sympathetic to the French royals. If George III decided to support his "cousins" the government would have to fall in with him. Also it depends on what the French government does without the Royals. Do they radicalize earlier? Or does the revolution stabilize?

I wrote in the other thread about King George's instructions to the French Ambassador in Paris Lord Gower. The revolution had already radicalised, however the king wished to preserve neutrality at all costs. This was reiterated by Lord Grenville on 9 August 1792, a day before the storming of the Tuileries. The king basically said that he wishes he could do more, but the situation was delicate and to give their majesties his regards and best wishes. Britain has nothing to gain by assisting the French royal family, and the Hanoverians have few familial ties to Bourbons. However, if they managed to escape after the storming of the Tuileries I can imagine them being welcomed in England. Before that, it would have been an awkward situation for the British.
 
The political unrest in France following the escape of the Royal Family had his own repercusions in all Europe, especially in countries where the absolutism was the form of government. King Gustaf III of Sweden, called "the heart and soul of the absolutism", wanted to stop the inflamatory speechs of Robespierre, Danton, Marat and others, who claimed Liberté, égalité, fraternité among the citizens.

Despite the help given to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, King George III of Great Britain, at least during the first stages of the Revolution, decided to maintain his neutrality. The English Ambassador in France, George Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland, received direct orders to secure this neutrality with any government who ruled France at that point. With the successful escape of the Royal Family, the British public opinion, at least during 1791-1792 turned in favor to receive them; however, the Parliament (especially the House of Commons, who fervently supported the French Constitution of 1791) was divided about how they can't acted with France: recognized the Republic? or condenmed the Revolution and supported Louis XVI?.

At the end, was King George III who had the last word. In secret conversations with the Prime Minister William Pitt ‘the Younger’, the Parliament decided to support the French Royal Family and formally declared war against the Revolutionary France on 1 January 1793. This sudden change in the British government was, in all probability, caused by the realistic fears of George III; he believed, despite his huge popularity among his subjects, if he continue with the neutrality and eventually expelled the French royals, this could alienated Great Britain from the others European rulers, and they could take actions against him.

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Hampton Court Palace, March 1792-April 1793:

In her court-in-exile, Marie Antoinette used all his relations among the royal rulers in Europe to secure the defeat of the Revolution, especially when soon the public opinion turned against her and her family. The war against France was extremely expensive, straining Great Britain's finances.

The government of Pitt ‘the Younger’, with the consent of King George III, allowed the increase of taxes, raise of armies, and the suspension of the right of habeas corpus; this caused a complete breakdown between the French royals and the British population. Marie Antoinette, at Hampton Court, continue with her intrigues among the European countries for the definitive overthrown of the French Republic, moreover when she received disturbed news:

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On 10 February 1793 the Legislative Assembly declared Louis XVI formally dethroned and stripped him from all his rights; after a session of almost one hour, the Assembly formally declared the monarchy abolished and proclaimed the creation of the Republic of France; little more than a third of the deputies were present, almost all of them Jacobins. Inmediately after this, began the process to eliminate the vestiges of the ancien regime. This dramatic change was powerful encouragement to the growing wave of anti-clericalism which sought the Dechristianisation of France. The Holy See send violent reprimands to the new French government, but without results.

With enemy troops advancing, the Legislative Assembly looked for potential traitors in Paris. Where sent gangs of National Guardsmen and fereres into the prisons to kill 10 or more victims, mostly non-juring priests. The Assenbly then sent a circular letter to the other cities of France inviting them to follow this example, and many cities launched their own massacres of prisoners and priests in the "February massacres." The Assembly could offer only feeble resistance. In March, however, there was a counterattack accusing the instigators, especially Marat, of being terrorists. This led to a political contest between the more moderate Girondists and the more radical Montagnards inside the Assembly, with rumors and difamation used as a weapon by both sides. The Girondists lost ground when they seemed too conciliatory. But the pendulum swung again and shortly after the men who had endorsed the massacres were denounced as terrorists.

The chaos continued in all the French territory until the creation of the National Convention on 20 March 1793, and one of the first tasks was to supress the civil war who erupted inside the country between republicans and the royalists who continued there, especially in the region of the Vendée, where the local population seems to have been more permanently in residence and less bitterly resented than in other parts of France. The anti-Catholic reforms made by the Assembly and radicalized by the Convention where bitterly resented by this part of the country, who remained deeply catholic and loyal to the monarchy.

There were other riots across France when regions started to draft men into the army in response to the March decrees. The reaction in the northwest in late March was particularly pronounced with large-scale rioting verging on insurrection. By early April, in areas north of the Loire, order had been restored by the revolutionary government, but south of the Loire in four departments that became known as the Vendée Militaire there were few troops to control rebels and what had started as rioting quickly took on the form of a full insurrection led by priests and the local nobility.

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Marie Antoinette, thanks to a complete network of royal spies in France, strongly supported the Vendée uprising, sending money and letters to other european rulers to did the same for "the sake of our Kingdoms and domains". During the first half of 1793 she secretly began to sell her own jewelry and send part of the income granted to her family by the British Parliament to the General Bouillé and Choiseul-Stainville, who quietly remained in Montmédy and secured the loyalty of several provinces, like Metz, Rouen, etc.

In the Italian peninsula, the French Queen could count with the unconditional help of her sisters, Maria Carolina and Maria Amalia, the de facto rulers of Naples-Sicily and Parma, respectively. King Gustaf III of Sweden also send secretly money and support to the Vendée, alongside the King of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor, whose deep catholicism forced him to participate against his own personal feelings.

The pressures of the Holy See (who desperately wanted to extermine the Monstre), combined with the intrigues of Marie Antoinette, her sisters and Gustaf III, caused the anticipated creation of the First Coalition against the French Republic. The war was only matter of time.


TO BE CONTINUED......
 
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The War of the First Coalition against France formally began on 12 July 1793, with the formal declaration of war against the Holy Roman Empire from the French First Republic.

The first major step took place on 1 August, when Holt Roman Emperor Francis II and King Frederick William II of Prussia, in consultation with some well-known émigrés issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, which declared the interests and well-being of Louis XVI and his family as their own, and threatened vague but severe consequences if they couldn't be restored in the throne by the end of the year.

With the inminent war, the French Republic required a potent military force to ensure its survival. As a result, one of the first major elements of the French state was a complete and radical restructuration of his army.

Thanks to the Committee of Public Safety (an organism created by the Convention in January 1793), whose main task was to protecting the newly established republic against foreign attacks and internal rebellion, began a quickly and violent persecution against all the pro-monarchical elements in the country. For them "all the Republic must be with the Republic, and others elements are contaminated with their old and debauched ideas", according to the words of Maximilien Robespierre, the main leader of the Committee and of the most notorious faces of the Revolution.

In mid August-November 1793 began a violent and bloody supression of the rebellion in the Vendée region, whose strong support of the King was soon followed by near districts, such Rennes, Morbihan, Charente, Dordogne, Deux Sévres, Vienne, Sarthe among others. In the meanwhile, in the German border near Luxembourg, the Prussian-German troops leaded by the Duke of Brunswick stationed in Coblenz and prepared for the invasion to the Republic.

The news of the war in the Vendée and the inminent invasion of the Coalition troops greatly alarmed Paris, where the chaos was at the order of day. Was in the middle of this events that Robespierre decided to change the course of the Revolution and began his Reign of Terror: on 12 November 1793 Louis Antoine de Saint-Just with a large group of radical and violent Jacobins invaded the National Convention and under death threats, they forced them to granted Robespierre full executive powers, and in this way he established a virtual dictatorship.

Almost inmediately, began the persecution and capture of all the political adversaries of the Jacobins, or more specific, of Robespierre. Installed in the Place of Concordy, the guillotine (called the "National Razor" for the radicals), began his bloody work with the Girondins; on 16 December 1793 a decree of the National Convention proscribed 21 Girondin deputies as traitors and enemies of their country. They were Antiboul, Boilleau the younger, Boyer-Fonfrêde, Brissot, Carra, Duchastel, the younger Ducos, Dufriche de Valazé, Duprat, Fauchet, Gardien, Gensonné, Lacaze, Lasource, Lauze-Deperret, Lehardi, Lesterpt-Beauvais, the elder Minvielle, Sillery, Vergniaud and Viger. All of them were sent to trial on 11 January 1794 and in a summary process, condemned to death as "enemies of the Republic and the Frenchs". The next they were sent to the guillotine; according to witnesses, took at least 30 minutes to cut off the 21 heads. Georges Danton, a moderating but powerful influence on the Jacobins, completely reprobed this bloody persecutions against the Girondins: is said that he admonished Robespierre that "if you continue to tainted with blood this holy cause, the Revolution soon could turned against us like a mother renegated from her children".

With the elimination of his political rivals, Robespierre (with the fanatic support of Saint-Just, his "faithful brother" as he called him), began the preparation for the defense of the Republic.


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Hampton Court Palace, April 1793-February 1794:

Marie Antoinette received the news of the violence in the interior of the French Republic with joy: she knew perfectly that if this state of chaos continued, her return to the throne was secured. For this, she fiercely supported the War of the Vendée, and in November 1793 she directed orders to Bouillé to rescue her "beloved children of the Vendée" at any cost, always in the name of her lord and husband.

In addition, she began secretly negociations with one of the most famous Revolutionary commanders, General Charles François Dumouriez. A commited Girondin and feared of this violent turn of the Revolution, he began a correspondence with the Queen for his reintegration to the Royalist lines, like "a prodigue son who returned to the arms of his father". Finally, the negociations were successful and in mid-February 1794, jointly with the Ducs of Chartres and Montpensier (sons of the also guillotined Duc d'Orleans), he fled into the Austrian camp.

With this defection, Marie Antoinette could concentrate all her energies to the War of the Vendée. Day and night the Queen wrote letters, passed messages, directed orders, received news from the onset of the War. Her health (already undermined by all the events following her forcing way to Paris from Versailles in the march of 8 October 1789 and her "prison" at the Tulleries) began to deteriorated considerably. Her sisters Maria Carolina and Maria Amalia, since the Italian peninsula, are worried about this and desperately wanted to forced their husbands to support in a more decisive way the Restoration.

Thanks to the wise medical prescriptions of the British doctors send by Queen Charlotte, Marie Antoinette soon showed a paulatine recovery; however, she began to training her eldest son, the Dauphin Louis Joseph, in politics and military orders. If I can taught about this my son, she say, you, my intelligent and courageous child, could do it better. The 12-years-old prince, despite his tragically notorious physical disabilities (he hardly could stand up and always needed his weelchair around) showed more determination and political understanding that his father; Louis XVI, in the name of whom men and children are dying in France and Europe was in the border of the war, lived quietly in Hampton Court, spending his days in hunting and praying with his sister Madame Elisabeth. Marie Antoinette always resented this lack of manhood in her husband, and the disdain that she felt for him aumented in this time of exile. In the chambers of the Queen, who now are almost a Royal Chancillery, are hardly visited by the King, who only watched curiously, gave his Royal consent and leave in the same way: without doing anything.

For the émigrés, Marie Antoinette was widely known as the soul and heart of the Restoration, and this became notorious when visiting Hampton Court, they firstly paid their homage to the Queen and later to the King.

By the end of February 1794, the court-in-exile at Hampton Court received news from the Vendée:

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The arrival of émigrés armies in early January 1794, aroused support in nearly everywhere in the Vendée and near districts, and set in motion the first serious signs of sedition. For the most part, much of this resistance was quelled quickly, but in the lower Loire, in the Mauges and in the Vendean bocage, the situation was more serious and more protracted. Youths from communes surrounding Cholet, a large textile town on the boundary between the tow regions, invaded the town and killed the commander of the National Guard, a "patriotic" (pro-Revolutionary) manufacturer. Within a week, violence had spread to the Breton marshlands; peasants overran the town of Machecoul on 10-11 January, and several hundred "patriots" were massacred. A large band of peasants under the leadership of Cathelineau and Stofflet seized Saint Florent le Vieil. On 19 January, a band of peasants attacked and scattered small republic army of about 3,000 men on its way from La Rochelle to Nantes. By mid-January, then, this apparently minor revolt against the Republic, had turned into an widely and well prepared insurrection.

The Republic was quick to respond, dispatching over 45,000 troops to the area. The first pitched battle was on the night of 19 February. A Republican column of 2,000, under Louis Henri François de Marcé, moving from La Rochelle to Nantes, was intercepted north of Chantonnay at Charrault bridge (La Guérinière), near the Layon. After six hours of fighting rebel reinforcements arrived and routed the Republican forces. In the north, on 22 February, another Republican force was routed and defeated near Chalonnes-sur-Loire.

There followed a series of skirmishes and armed contacts between royalists and republicans, under the command of Bouillé and the direct orders of Marie Antoinette.


TO BE CONTINUED......
 
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The events in the Vendée seems at first completely favorable to the Bourbon cause. After a series of minor skirmishes, the Battle of Saumur (17 April 1794) was the high point of the insurgency: Vendean insurgents commanded by Jacques Cathelineau captured the town of Saumur from Louis-Alexandre Berthier (formely a Chief of Staff of the Versailles National Guard and now completely devoted to the French Republic). The victory gave the insurgents a massive supply of arms, including 50 cannon.

However, this victory was short-lived: in 12 May, Jean Baptiste Kleber arrived from Mainz with a veteran army to suppress the rising. At Chatillon-sur-Sevre, southeast of Cholet, he inflicted one of the first defeats on the insurgents.

Within days (24 May) taken place the three battles of Luçon who were fought over four weeks, until 20 June, between forces of the French Republic under the command of Augustin Tuncq and Vendean forces. On 24 May, Claude Sandoz and a garrison of 800 had repulsed 5,000 insurgents led by d'Elbee; on 4 June, Augustin Tuncq drove off a second attempt; two weeks later, Tunq and his 5,000 men defeated and killed 30,000 insurgents under the personal command of François Athanase de Charette de la Contrie. The final battle of 20 June, fought near the town of Luçon in Vendée, was between the Vendean troops of Maurice Gigost d'Elbée and the Republican French. With this defeat, for the Vendean insurrection was the beggining of the end.

This victory gave enough confidence to the Committee of Public Safety, who ordered General Jean-Baptiste Carrier to carry out a "pacification" of the region by complete physical destruction (1 July 1794). These orders were not carried out immediately, but a steady stream of demands for total destruction persisted. Finally, after continues pressures from the central government, in August 1794 the Republican forces launched their final "pacification" effort (named Vendée-Vengé or "Vendée Revenged"): twelve columns, the colonnes infernales ("infernal columns") under Louis Marie Turreau, marched through the Vendée. General Turreau was disturbed about "the fate of the women and children whe will encounter in rebel territory", and stated that, if it was "necessary to pass them all by sword", he only could do it after a formal decree. In response, the Committee of Public Safety ordered him to "eliminate the brigands to the last man, there is your duty...even woman and children, because the seed of the contamination must be erradicated".

The Republican army was reinforced, benefiting from the first men of the levée en masse and reinforcements from Mainz. The Vendean army had its first serious defeat at the Battle of Cholet on 11 September; worse for the rebels, their army was split in the middle of chaos and desertions. In October the main Vendean force, commanded by Henri de la Rochejaquelein and numbering some 25,000 (followed by thousands of civilians of all ages), crossed the Loire, headed for the port of Granville where they expected to be received by a British fleet and an army of exiled French nobles. Arriving at Granville, they found the city surrounded by Republican forces, with no British ships in sight. Their attempts to take the city were unsuccessful. During the retreat, the extended columns fell prey to Republican forces; suffering from hunger and disease, thousands died in the following days. The force was defeated in the last and decisive Battle of Savenay on 1 November.

After this victory of the Republican army, came formal orders of forced evacuation; also, farms were destroyed, crops and forests burned and villages razed. There were many reported atrocities and a campaign of mass killing universally targeted at residents of the Vendée regardless of combatant status, political affiliation, age or gender. From December 1794 to April 1795, 20,000 to 50,000 Vendean civilians were massacred by the Infernal columns of the general Louis Marie Turreau.

In Anjou, directed by Nicolas Hentz and Marie Pierre Adrien Francastel, Republicans captured 11,000 to 15,000 Vendeans, 6,500 to 7,000 were shot or guillotined and 2,000 to 2,200 prisoners died from disease.

The Convention issued conciliatory proclamations allowing the Vendeans liberty of worship and guaranteeing their property. General Lazare Hoche applied these measures with great success. He restored their cattle to the peasants who submitted, and on 18 June 1795 annihilated an émigré expedition which had been equipped in Great Britain and had seized Fort Penthievre and Quiberon. Treaties were concluded at La Jaunaie (15 August) and at La Mabillaie, and were fairly well observed by the Vendeans; no obstacle remained but the feeble and scattered remnant of the Vendeans still under arms and the Chouans.

The final estimation of those killed in the Vendean conflict – on both sides – range between 117,000 and 450,000, out of a population of around 800,000.


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Hampton Court Palace, February 1794-December 1796:

The news of the final defeat of the Vendée insurrection, the executions of their major leaders (including Charette, who was fusiled at Nantes on 1 August 1795) and the complete innaction of Bouillé and Choiseul-Stainville, who in the last and most important moment they decided to retreat to Coblenz; arrived to Hampton Court in the first days of September 1795.

Marie Antoinette was devastated; according to her eldest daughter, Madame Royale, she fainted in the arms of the Princess of Lamballe and histerically cried for hours..

For the Queen, was more bitter the apparent betrayal of the British government, who left "her beloved children of Vendée" at the mercy of the Republicans forces, that "butchers", as she constantly called them.

After this incident, the relations between Marie Antoinette and the British Royal Family changed; she believed that the King, as the "anointed Sovereign by God", must be forced his subjects (as she called the Parliament) to help their "cousins of France". Because the King George III had in fact any real political power and the public opinion was now even more against her for the histories of massacres and brutalities who taken place in the Vendée, the Parliament decided to blocked the hoped help of British ships and armies to the Vendeans.

However, for Marie Antoinette this wasn't a time to weakeness: with a new and violent breath, she now decided to gave her energies to the European royalties, leaded by the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia, and used all her connections and diplomacy to forced a definitive attack against the Revolution.

During the final months of 1795 and the beggining of 1796, the French Queen organized an strategical network of alliances between her and the royal rulers of Europe.

Finally, on 15 August 1796 the hard work of Marie Antoinette had a result: Prussia, Spain, Naples, the Netherlands, Great Britain, the Holy Roman Empire, Portugal, Sardinia and the Duchy of Tuscany all formally declared the war against France. Thus the First Coalition was formed.

With all Europe concentrated to the inminent war, the Queen decided to take a short break in the politics and took more atention to her family life: her eldest son, the Dauphin Louis Joseph celebrated his fifteen birthday in October 1796, and this caused a motherly and political concern in the Queen; was time to chose a wife for her son and heir of the French throne.

King Louis XVI and Madame Elisabeth showed their worries about this idea of Marie Antoinette; the Dauphin had a weak constitution and they wasn't expected much of him; moreover, in this times of war it's impossible to think in weddings, loudly say the always shy Madame Elisabeth.

However, the now determined mind of the Queen, developed by the force of war and humiliation, began to show the well-known match-making tradition of the Habsburg. For Marie Antoinette, the perfect bride was already selected: the 14-years-old Princess Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily, one of the many daughters of her beloved sister Maria Carolina. Since Maria Amalia's birth, both Queens already planned this marriage between their children. Now was the time to fulfill their common desire.

Despite the oposition of her husband (who wasn't to marry his daughter to an exiled prince without current political significance) and Maria Carolina's own personal doubts about the wedding (her ambitious nature wanted to arranged good marriages for her children), at the end the Napolitean Queen decided to honored her word; moreover, she was sure about the victory of the First Coalition, so the position of Louis Joseph as exiled heir must be ended soon.

Another factor, apparently without much significance, were the deep desires of Maria Amalia to marry her French cousin. Since her birth, her mother always say to her that one day she would become in the next Queen of France, and she was exclusively educated for this purpose. She learn the French language and etiquette, and Maria Carolina developed in her daughter warm feelings for her intended husband. So, when was announced to Maria Amalia her upcoming wedding, she readily agreed.


TO BE CONTINUED........
 
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You know, assuming the royalists win ITTL, Marie Antoinette is probably going to be remembered as an indomitable badass. I find this deeply amusing.
 
You know, assuming the royalists win ITTL, Marie Antoinette is probably going to be remembered as an indomitable badass. I find this deeply amusing.

Instead I hope Napoleon will rise and dominate Europe as OTL just to see the reaction of Marie Antoinette... But I agree she is the uncontestable protagonist of TTL.
 
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