The Demonstration of 20 June 1792 () was the last peaceful attempt made by the people of Paris to persuade King Louis XVI of France to abandon his current policy and attempt to follow what they believed to be a more empathetic approach to governing. The demonstration occurred during the French Revolution. Its objectives were to convince the government to enforce the Legislative Assembly's rulings, defend France against foreign invasion, and preserve the spirit of the French Constitution of 1791. The demonstrators hoped that the king would withdraw his veto and recall the Girondin ministers.
The Demonstration was the last phase of the unsuccessful attempt to establish a constitutional monarchy in France. After the Insurrection of 10 August 1792, the monarchy fell.
Background
Under the Girondin ministry, on 20 April 1792, war was declared against Austria.
This precipitated a major economic crisis. As it struck France's towns, it again set the masses in motion. The crisis was caused by inflation rather than scarcity as past crises, as the currency in circulation had increased by 600 million since October 1792. With continued depreciation of the assignat, the exchange rate fell even more rapidly. By March 1793, French money once worth British £100 would buy only £50 worth of goods in Paris. The flood of paper notes, misused by speculators, aggravated unrest.
Military setbacks
France declared war on the King of Bohemia and Hungary (Austria) on 20 April 1792. The French troops and their leadership were inadequate from the beginning, leaving the French army in a state of total disarray. The front-line regiments were insufficiently strong because most men preferred to enlist in volunteer battalions, which were better paid, elected their own officers, and could disband after the campaign.
But despite these attractions, even the volunteer battalions were slow to form. Few volunteers were truly motivated to fight. Frequently, National Guardsmen, not wishing to leave their homes, offered bonuses to convince others to take their place and to muster the necessary quotas. Consequently, it took time for a sufficient quantity of men to enlist. Equipment was furnished by local authorities but arrived slowly, and insufficient arms were available.
French general Charles François Dumouriez thought the army could get its training in combat. He argued that the enemy had no more than 30,000 men to throw into a campaign, and that foreign troops would be arranged in a cordon from the sea to Lorraine. He proposed to break through this barrier: one column each from Furnes, Lille, Valenciennes, and Givet, totalling more than 50,000 men, would set out on 29 April towards the enemy line.
The other generals, however, were trained for regular war and rejected this plan. Additionally, the officers distrusted their undisciplined troops, while the troops were suspicious of their generals in return. Out of 9,000 officers, at least half had already emigrated, and a few more deserted on the eve of the offensive. In May, several others took three regiments into the enemy camp.
The first military confrontation, the capture of Porrentruy in Switzerland on 28 April, was a small French success. However, in the Battle of Marquain in the Austrian Netherlands on 29 April, Théobald Dillon and Armand Louis de Gontaut ordered a retreat at the sight of the first Austrian troops. Their men cried treason and disbanded; Dillon was murdered at Lille.
The generals blamed these setbacks on a lack of discipline and on a ministry that tolerated such conditions. In reply, the Gironde ordered Dillon's murderers prosecuted, along with Jean-Paul Marat, who had been exhorting the soldiers to get rid of their generals. A new decree tightened military justice and authorized the generals to issue regulations bearing penalties for infractions. The decree undeniably marked a surrender of legislative power, but to no avail. On 18 May, the leaders of the armies, meeting at Valenciennes, disregarded repeated orders from the ministry and declared an offensive impossible, advising the king to make immediate peace.
As a result, the generals suspended the offensive. In May, a whole corps, the Royal-Allemand, defected to the enemy. Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, commander of the Armée du Nord, resigned. Assembly member Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette went as far as deliberate treachery. Secretly, he proposed to the Austrians that fighting should be suspended so that he could turn his army against Paris in order to disperse the Jacobins and establish a strong regime.