During this period utopian ideas reigned. In a frenetic atmosphere, everyone understood that power had passed from the hands of a single man – the absolute monarch – to the entire population. The representatives of the people, united in the Assembly, adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the abolition of the privileges of the nobility and suppression of the wealth of the clergy. It was planned that the State would pay the clergy.

But the armies of the monarchies of Europe invaded the country to crush the Parisian revolt. In September 1792, after a massacre of suspected Royalists, a group of revolutionaries seized power.