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The summer of 1789 saw the first voluntary émigrés. Many of these émigrés were members of the nobility who migrated out of fear sparked by the Storming of the Bastille in July of 1789.

But events in France made the prospect of return to their former way of life uncertain. In November 1791, France passed a law demanding that all noble émigrés return by January 1, 1792. If they chose to disobey, their lands were confiscated and sold, and any later attempt to reenter the country would result in execution.[1]

This mass exodus spanned the years of 1791-1794. Groups of émigrés that fled during this period included non-juring priests (i.e. priests that refused to take the oath of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy). They fled following the confiscation of their estates as well as legislation in August 1792 that stipulated that these refractory priests leave France willingly or be deported to French Guiana. The demise of Maximilien Robespierre in 1795 provided a brief window of opportunity for French Royalists at home and abroad. For example, those who had participated in the Vendée uprising were able to communicate with their supporters in Great Britain. These rebels, in collaboration with their British allies, attempted to take a port on the French coast. However, this attempt was unsuccessful, resulting in the execution of 748 royalist officers, an event that became known as the Quiberon disaster. As the Republic evolved into the French Directory, fears that émigrés with royalist leanings would return prompted harsher legislation against them, including the Law of Hostages passed in 1799. This legislation considered relatives of émigrés as hostages and ordered them to surrender within ten days or to be treated as émigrés themselves.[2][4]

This somewhat neutral stance attracted émigrés with variable political leanings. For instance, accounts of the New World that had travelled across the Atlantic appealed to those who believed in the ideals of the Enlightenment and the Revolution, but were unhappy about the turn it had taken during the Terror. Thus, they imagined a place where their philosophical ideals would be accepted, but where radicalism would not be as great of a threat. At the same time, the nobility also found in America a more stable environment in which they would not be persecuted for their lineage.[2]