wished to declare "civil death" for all who left France. The debate pitted the safety of the state against the liberty of individuals to leave. Mirabeau carried the day against the measure, which he referred to as "worthy of being placed in the code of Draco." However, before the end of the year, the new French Legislative Assembly would adopt this "draconian" measure. The flight to Varennes For some time, the revolutionaries had feared that the royal family would attempt to escape Paris. When Louis tried to leave the Tuileries for Saint-Cloud at Easter 1791, in order to enjoy the ministrations of a nonjuring priest, they would not let him budge. Encouraged by the émigrés to believe that revolutionary France was without effective military means of defense, representatives of Austria, Switzerland, Sardinia, and Spain, met at Mantua and on 20 May 1791 reached a secret agreement to go to war against France, supposedly on behalf of King Louis. However, when the plan was conveyed to the king, he rejected this potentially treacherous source of aid, casting his lot instead with General Bouillé, who condemned both the emigration and the Assembly, and promised him refuge and support in his camp at Montmédy. On the night of 20 June 1791 the royal family fled the Tuileries. A carriage took them on the road to Châlons aiming towards Montmedy. In the morning, their disappearance was discovered. Despite an angry crowd, the Assembly soon established their control of the situation, seizing executive power and obtaining oaths from the troops to the Assembly (rather than to the king). The overconfident king had the imprudence to show himself, and was recognised and arrested at Varennes late on the 21st, and brought back to Paris under guard. Pétion, Latour-Maubourg, and Barnave, representing the Assembly, met the royal family at Épernay and returned with them. From this time, Barnave became a counsellor and supporter of the royal family. When they reached Paris, the crowd was silent. The Assembly provisionally suspended the king and kept him and Queen Marie Antoinette under guard. The last days of the National Constituent Assembly Republicanism and the Champ de Mars massacre From this point forward, the possibility not only of the forced abdication of this particular king but of the establishment of a republic entered the political discourse. To fend this off, a compromise was reached, but one that left Louis XVI little