Timothy Tackett's When The King Took Flight

When seeking to resurrect the delicate nuances of history, a historian must not only present their topic in a clear and logical fashion, they must also employ several tactics to ensure that their positions are well founded and that the evidence works in a fashion that both supports their positions while simultaneously attempting to dispel any criticism of their arguments. Understandably, this task is often difficult and riddled with hidden obstacles seemingly designed by history itself to derail the historian’s task of breathing new life into times past. One strategy employed in recent decades by historians to advance their arguments is their use of the history of the individual in terms of their influence on key historical events and society.

In his work, When the King Took Flight, Tackett used a description of the humble inn keeper Jean-Baptiste Sauce to detail how an average citizen shaped the political course of France and, for that matter, the future of royal authority in Europe. Tackett used accounts from the period to detail his narrative of events surrounding the King’s capture in Varennes, France. According to Tackett, Jean-Baptiste Sauce recognized the King and his family and housed them in his home to prevent them from fleeing abroad. The actions of this concerned average citizens ultimately led to the King being forced to return to Paris. Once there, events quickly compounded until eventually the King and his wife Queen Marie Antoinette were both beheaded in 1783. Tackett, therefore, used the example of Jean-Baptiste Sauce as an underpinning to his argument that the average person can and has altered the very course of political and social history. In this instance, the innkeeper’s actions led to the death of the monarchy in France, for the time being, and to the eventual solidification of Republican leanings in Revolutionary France. In turn, these notions led to the establishment of the First French Republic. Thus, Tackett’s depiction of the actions of Jean-Baptiste Sauce worked as an effective method for proving his