Western History 134: What were some of the main milestones of the Legislative Assembly Period?

The National Legislative Assembly was born on the 1^st of October, 1791.

At around the same time an Army of the Center was established to defend Revolutionary France with Lafayette in command. Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau was chosen to lead the Army of the North and Nicolas Luckner the Army of the Rhine. France had to be defended against foreign invaders.

Comte de Rochambeau source: onthisday.com

In January/February 1792  the food situation worsened.  Riots broke out in Paris while Austria and Prussia sat on the verge of an attack on France.

Louis XVI continued to clash with the Assembly over deportation of Priests. Politically the radicals had the momentum.  Georges Danton and Louis Pierre Manuel set up a secret insurrectionary committee within the Paris Commune (government of Paris that was set up after Storming of Bastille) while Lafayette struggled to hold off  the extremist Jacobins.

Georges Danton source www.britannica.com

In July 1792 the Austrian Army advanced on Paris but were held off  by the Army of the Center.

Another firebrand the Jacobin Maximilien de Robespierre continued the political attacks on Lafayette. Cordeliers club speaker Danton would demand that the Legislative Assembly be replaced by a Convention thus ending the Constitutional Monarchy and replacing it with a Republic.

Maximilien de Robespierre source; Biography.com

Fears circulated in Paris about an impending massacre to be carried out by the Austrians should the Royal family come to harm. The National Guard expanded to include Working Class.

By early August Jacobin and Cordelier power was in the ascendancy.   Georges Danton took  over Paris government establishing a Revolutionary Paris commune.

On August the 10^th  the Tuileries Palace (residence of the Royal family)  was stormed and the Swiss guard massacred. The King and his family would be captured and later imprisoned.. Georges Danton was now the Minister of Justice in the new Executive Committee that had taken over government. 

Tuileries Palace source: mtholyoke.edu

Lafayette tried in vain to rally the troops to protect the king but failed. Political power had shifted to a  revolutionary tribunal set up by Robespierre. On August 17^th, 1792 the Legislative Assembly ended as did the last hope for a constitutional monarchy. The National Convention would replace it. France was now a Republic.