Narrative representation: ‘Le 10 août’

Representation, as Paul Ricoeur puts it, is always a form of ‘lieutenancy’ (1983-5, III:149) to the extent that it involves making effectively present something which stands for, or in the place of, something which is absent. Historical events are by definition absent: they have already happened in the past and can never be repeated, reproduced or replicated in the present; they can only be represented by something else.

‘Le 10 août’, the insurrection which led directly to the deposition and incarceration of Louis XVI, is one of the canonical or ‘cardinal’ events which invariably figure in any history of the Revolution. It has traditionally been defined by such incidents as the gathering of the various sections of the garde nationale in response to the ringing of the tocsin; the formation of a new, insurrectionary Commune at the Hôtel de Ville; the organisation of the defence of the Tuileries; the summoning of pétion, the mayor of Paris, to the Tuileries and his escape from there; the summoning of Mandat, head of the defences at the palace, to the Hôtel de Ville where he was killed; the defection of the national guards posted at the palace; the royal family's taking refuge in the Assemblée nationale which was in session at the Salle du Manège at the bottom of the Tuileries gardens; the attack of the insurrectionary forces on the palace;