1791 | Political Events
Political Events
Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, delivers a stirring address to the French National Assembly January 28; it elects him president the next day, but he comes under attack from leftists and dies at Paris April 2 at age 42. Beloved by the people, he is given a magnificent funeral and buried in the new Church of Ste. Geneviève, which is converted into the Panthéon. His death weakens support for the monarchy.
Louis XVI flees with his family to the northeast frontier to gain the protection of loyalist troops, but he is thinly disguised. Revolutionist Jean Baptiste Drouet, 28, recognizes the king June 22 at Sainte-Menehould in Lorraine, crosses the Argonne Forest, and alerts the townspeople of Verennes-en-Argonne; five national guardsmen and a few townspeople arrest Louis June 25 and return him to Paris with Marie Antoinette and their children.
The sermon "Discourse on the Love of Our Country" by moral philosopher Richard Price expresses admiration for the French Revolution; orator Edmund Burke replies with the pamphlet "Reflections on the French Revolution," criticizing the actions of the revolutionists; Thomas Paine answers Burke with the pamphlet "The Rights of Man." Paine returned to his native England 4 years ago to sell a pierless iron bridge that he had designed (see 1792). Chemist-clergyman Joseph Priestley also replies to Burke's pamphlet, prompting a Birmingham mob to break into his house and destroy its contents.
Louis de Saint-Just's pamphlet "Esprit de la Révolution et de la Constitution de France" states that the constitution framed by the Assembly is acceptable as a first step but that the French people are not yet free nor sovereign. "Law should yield nothing to opinion and everything to ethics," he says, and he proposes the making of a new society that will go beyond benevolence and patriotic activity.
The first mayor of Paris Jean-Sylvain Bailly orders out the national guard to disperse a riotous crowd on the Champ de Mars July 17; the ensuing massacre costs him his popularity and he retires in the fall. France has famine, and the Legislative Assembly has little power to relieve it; Grenoble-born National Assembly deputy Antoine (-Pierre-Joseph-Marie) Barnave, 29, delivers an address July 15 favoring the ultimate restoration of the monarchy, arguing that republicanism is not appropriate to French national interests; he appeals for an end to the Revolution and a return to the status quo ante.
Louis XVI accepts the constitution September 14, France annexes Avignon and Venaissin, and the National Assembly dissolves September 30 after voting that no member shall be eligible for election to the next assembly. Antoine Barnave retires to his home in Dauphiné and enrolls in the national guard (see 1792)
Irish revolutionists Theobald Wolfe Tone, 28, Thomas Russell, 24, James Napper Tandy, 51, and other Protestants found the Society of United Irishmen to unite Protestants, Presbyterians, and Roman Catholics in agitating for independence from Britain (see 1796). Anglo-Irish independence promoter Henry Flood dies at Farmley, County Kilkenny, December 2 at age 59.
A new Polish constitution put through by patriots May 3 converts Poland's elective monarchy into an hereditary one. Friedrich Augustus III of Saxony declines the Polish throne offered him, and Russia resists the new constitution (see 1792).
Persia's Lotf Ali Khan suffers a setback as the governor of Shiraz abandons the capital city to Kajar forces, leaving the king without a base of operations and obliging him to keep on the move in order to avoid being captured (see 1789; 1794).
Vermont is admitted to the Union March 4 as the 14th state. Created from parts of New Hampshire and New York and an independent republic since 1777, the new state will soon be the nation's leading sheep raiser. The late Ethan Allen and his brothers had appealed to the British to annex the region to Canada, and the new state uses its tax laws to strip the Allen family of all its land.
Battle of Quebec veteran Archibald Campbell dies at London March 31 at age 51, having served as governor both of Jamaica and of Madras.
The Canada Act passed by Parliament June 10 takes effect December 26, dividing Canada at the Ottawa River into Upper Canada (whose inhabitants are mainly British) and Lower Canada (mainly French) with two governors and two elected assemblies. Governor in chief of British North America Sir Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester, has promoted the Constitution Act, which helps to develop representative institutions in Canada (see Act of Union, 1840).
Former governor of Virginia Benjamin Harrison V dies at his Berkeley family seat April 24 at age 64 (approximate), having signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. His 18-year-old Berkeley-born son William Henry gives up his medical studies at Richmond, obtains an army commssion, and goes off to the Northwest (see commerce, 1800).