Storming of the Tuileries Palace

On August 10, 1792, revolutionary insurrectionists and armed sections of Paris, alongside federated troops from the provinces, stormed the Tuileries Palace, where the royal family had been residing under increasingly precarious circumstances since the Flight to Varennes. The assault resulted in the massacre of much of the king's Swiss Guard and marked the definitive, violent end of the French monarchy's practical authority.

Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI, and their children had fled the palace shortly before the fighting intensified, seeking refuge with the Legislative Assembly, but this offered only temporary safety. In the chaos's aftermath, the Assembly voted to suspend the king's powers, and the royal family was placed under guard, effectively ending over eight centuries of French monarchy in practice, even before its formal legal abolition weeks later.

This event is considered one of the most decisive turning points of the French Revolution, transforming it from a constitutional reform movement into a radical republican upheaval. For Marie Antoinette, it meant the loss of all remaining royal privilege and freedom; she and her family were soon transferred into formal custody, a prelude to imprisonment.

The storming of the Tuileries demonstrated the collapse of royal authority and the ascendancy of radical revolutionary factions, including the Jacobins, who would soon dominate the National Convention. It directly precipitated the September Massacres and the formal abolition of the monarchy on September 21, 1792, fundamentally altering the trajectory of Marie Antoinette's life toward imprisonment and eventual trial.