September Massacres (1792)

The September Massacres (1792) in the history of the French Revolution were a mass killing of royalist prisoners which took place in Paris after the overthrow of King Louis XVI. The massacres lasted four days, beginning on September 3 and subsiding on September 6, 1792. Although most of the prisoners were royalists who had been sent to prisons for plotting against the Revolution, there were also many clergymen who had refused to swear the oath which they felt put the State over the Pope. Half the prisons population of Paris were executed: some 1,200 trapped prisoners, including many women and young boys. Sporadic violence, in particular against the Roman Catholic Church, would continue throughout France for nearly a decade to come.

In late summer, 1792, news had reached Paris that the Prussian army had invaded France and was advancing quickly toward the capital. Moreover, rumors circulated that the Prussians would find ready support from Parisians who secretly opposed the Revolution, especially refractory priests. On September 3 and 4, inflamed by radical propaganda, ongoing food shortages, and fear of the invasion, crowds broke into the prisons where they attacked the prisoners, including refractory clergy, who were feared to be counterrevolutionaries who would aid the invading Prussians.

These violent excesses were triggered by gossips about a possible counter-revolutionary movement backed up by European absolute monarchs, who were constantly conspiring against the revolutionaries, who were willing to advance the cause of social and political change, in the face of difficult wartime circumstances the French population was suffering.

The crowds killed the Princesse de Lamballe, friend of Marie Antoinette and sister-in-law to the duc d’Orléans, and mutilated her body. Her head was paraded atop a pike under the captive Queen’s windows at the Temple. Religious personalities also figured prominently among the victims: the massacres occurred during a time of great and rising resentment against the Roman Catholic Church, which eventually led to the temporary dechristianization of France. Over a 48-hour period beginning on 2 September 1792, as the Legislative Assembly (successor to the National Constituent Assembly) dissolved into chaos, angry mobs massacred 3 bishops, including the Archbishop of Arles, and more than 200 priests.