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Because the National Assembly had passed a “self-denying ordinance” that prohibited the reelection of its members, the composition of the Legislative Assembly tended to be quite different from that of the National Assembly. The clerics and nobles were largely gone. Most of the representatives were men of property; many were lawyers. Although lacking national reputations, most had gained experience in the new revolutionary politics and prominence in their local areas through the National Guard, the Jacobin clubs, and the many elective offices spawned by the administrative reordering of France. The king made what seemed to be a genuine effort to work with the new Legislative Assembly, but France’s relations with the rest of Europe soon led to Louis’s downfall.

OPPOSITION FROM ABROAD By this time, some European countries had become concerned about the French example and feared that revolution would spread to their countries. On August 27, 1791, Emperor Leopold II of Austria and King Frederick William II of Prussia issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, which invited other European monarchs to take “the most effectual means … to put the king of France in a state to strengthen, in the most perfect liberty, the bases of a monarchical government equally becoming to the rights of sovereigns and to the well-being of the French Nation.”6 But European monarchs were too suspicious of each other to undertake such a plan, and in any case, French enthusiasm for war led the Legislative Assembly to declare war on Austria on April 20, 1792. Why take such a step in view of its obvious dangers? Many people in France wanted war. Reactionaries hoped that a preoccupation with war would cool off the Revolution; French defeat, which seemed likely in view of the army’s disintegration, might even lead to the restoration of the old regime. Leftists hoped that war would consolidate the Revolution at home and spread it to all of Europe.

The French fared badly in the initial fighting. A French army invaded the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium) but was routed, and Paris now feared invasion. In fact, if the Austrians and Prussians had cooperated, they might have seized Paris in May or June. Alarmed by the turn of events, the Legislative Assembly called for 20,000 National Guardsmen from the provinces to come and defend Paris. One such group came from Marseilles singing a rousing war song, soon known as the “Marseillaise,” that three years later was made the French national anthem:

Arise children of the motherland

The day of glory has arrived.

Against us, tyranny’s

Bloody flag is raised.

Don’t you hear in our countryside

The roar of their ferocious soldiers?

They are coming into your homes

To butcher your sons and your companions.

To arm, citizens! Form your battalions!

We march, we march!

Let their impure blood water our fields.

As fears of invasion grew, a frantic search for scapegoats began; as one observer noted, “Everywhere you hear the cry that the king is betraying us, the generals are betraying us, that nobody is to be trusted; … that Paris will be taken in six weeks by the Austrians… . We are on a volcano ready to spout flames.”7 Defeats in war coupled with economic shortages in the spring reinvigorated popular groups that had been dormant since the previous summer and led to renewed political demonstrations, especially against the king. Radical Parisian political groups, declaring themselves an insurrectionary commune, organized a mob attack on the royal palace and Legislative Assembly in August 1792, took the king captive, and forced the Legislative Assembly to suspend the monarchy and call for a national convention, chosen on the basis of universal male suffrage, to decide on the future form of government. The French Revolution was about to enter a more radical stage as power passed from the assembly to the new Paris Commune, composed of many who proudly called themselves the sans-culottes (sahn-koo-LUT or sanz-koo-LAHTSS), ordinary