Ephemeris of August 10 in Paris: Sans-Culottes seize the Tuileries Palace

Sometimes referred to as the"Second Revolution", August 10, 1792 was a decisive day in the history of the French Revolution. Organized and led by the insurrectionary Paris Commune, this bloody day put an end to the thousand-year-old French monarchy and gave birth to a new republican regime.

Since their attempted escape to Varennes, the royal family had been under house arrest and "people's surveillance" at the Tuileries Palace - then located west of the Louvre and the seat of executive power - in an atmosphere of suspicion of a possible external invasion of the kingdom, and distrust of royal power. The Parisian Sans-Culottes were ready for a fight.

On the morning of August 10, 1792, the Sans-culottes, led by General Santerre and Westermann, a former Alsatian hussar and close associate of Danton, gathered not far from the Palais des Tuileries, determined to put an end to the ruling power. Insulted by revolutionaries chanting "Down with the veto! Down with the fat pig!", King Louis XVI, Queen Marie-Antoinette and the Dauphin fled the palace and took refuge in the Assembly.

Around the Tuileries Palace, the crowd swells and the atmosphere heats up. After several attempts to storm the palace were repulsed by the 900 Swiss and National Guards, the Sans-culottes finally managed to enter the royal palace by force of arms.

On the King's orders, the Swiss Guards retreated, but were soon surrounded by revolutionaries in the Place Louis XV. Captured, 600 of them were taken to the Hôtel de Ville and massacred. The corpses were mutilated by the crowd, while inside the Palais des Tuileries, the Sans-culottes indiscriminately killed 200 aristocrats, courtiers and servants.

• To be read
• Ephemeris for August 7 in Paris: Aviator Charles Godefroy flies under the Arc de Triomphe
• Ephemeris for August 8: Signing of the Saint-Germain-en-Laye peace edict
• August 9 ephemeris: The last shell fired by Big Bertha on Paris

Convened by theLegislative Assembly, a National Convention took unprecedented measures dictated by the insurrectionary Commune to"ensure the sovereignty of the people and the reign of liberty and equality" . The suspension of Louis XVI from his title of King of the French was immediately pronounced.

Captured by revolutionaries after three nights in the Feuillants convent, the King and his family were thrown into prison at the Tour du Temple. August 10, 1792 marked theabolition of royalty and the fall of the constitutional monarchy in France. But the first Terror was already on the horizon.