10 Startling Details You Want To Know About The French Revolution

No, you don’t HAVE to know these info in regards to the French Revolution while you go to France. 

However for those who do know them, they’ll enable you to perceive why France is the way in which it’s – why we’re all the time taking to the streets, why we not have a king, how we ended up with Napoleon… together with the heroes and heroines behind practically each road identify.

It’s a time period we bandy about so much, the “French Revolution”, a little bit of a catchall for the whole lot that’s each proper and mistaken in my nation. However realizing slightly  one thing about this cornerstone occasion means you’ll take pleasure in your go to much more.

What precisely was the French Revolution?

Regardless of the particulars, it turned France the other way up.

Unusual residents challenged the ability of the king and the the Aristocracy, and absorbed new concepts put forth through the Enlightenment. It was a dramatic chapter in France’s historical past and it will reshape the nation, to not point out the world, inspiring future actions for democracy and human rights.

However let’s backtrack a bit.

The nation had gone into huge debt from the Seven Years’ Warfare and the cash it spent on the American Revolution, so the favored finance minister had been dismissed, the economic system was in a multitude, and other people have been hungry and resentful in the direction of those that ate their fill.

It was determined to reconvene Parliament to attempt to type issues.

For hundreds of years, France had had a so-called parliament: the Estates-Common, which represented the three “estates”, or ranges of society. The First Property (clergy) and Second Property (the Aristocracy) loved a lifetime of wealth and privilege, whereas the most important, the Third Property (commoners), paid probably the most tax and had little political energy.

This parliament could have existed on paper, however in actuality, the Estates-Common hadn’t met in 175 years. It was a bit rusty, but it was supposed to repair the nation’s funds. It could in fact fail, opening large the door to revolution.

These have been the times when philosophers like Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu all known as for a extra egalitarian society. They criticized absolute monarchy and championed the Enlightenment beliefs of liberty, equality, and fraternity.

These beliefs would offer a form of mental justification for the overthrow of the previous order and the creation of a brand new one, which might be based mostly on motive and justice.

At the least that was the speculation, and naturally it did not fairly end up that method.

Why must you care?

Wherever you flip in France, you’ll come head to head with some side of the Revolution. So for those who come right here, and even for those who’re studying about France out of curiosity, you will perceive the nation much better and extra shortly if you realize one thing about one of many greatest occasions in our historical past.

• It gave us a few of our most memorable tales: the ladies’s march on Versailles, the absurd wealth of Marie-Antoinette, the beheading of Louis XVI, the autumn of Robespierre and the rise of Napoleon. All this was extra than simply human drama: it was epoch-changing upheaval performed out on what was then a world stage.

• It overhauled human rights. France had a feudal system earlier than the Revolution, with the the Aristocracy and the clergy on the prime, on the expense of the general public. With notions of equality contained within the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, our invoice of rights can be born. 

• The Revolution unfold from France. It fueled the Haitian Revolution, impressed the Latin American wars of independence, and influenced European political considering for generations.

• With the storming of the Bastille, revolutionaries weren’t simply breaking into a jail – they have been making an assault on oppression and disparity. Take Versailles: while you go to, you’ll discover it opulent, completely over-the-top. Think about how folks should have felt watching royalty cavort within the gardens whereas they fought to seek out bread for his or her households!

• It offered us with new ideas resembling secularism, nationalism, and the separation of church and state.

• For higher or worse, the way in which we structured our future Nationwide Meeting set the scene for parliaments worldwide.

• The Revolution created artwork, which depicted revolutionary fervor and beliefs. Jacques-Louis David’s work are typical of the Revolution. 

• All over the place you flip, you’ll see names – on streets, retailers, metro stations – linked to the Revolution. As you navigate throughout France, take a look at these road names and ask your self: “Who have been these folks?” Lots of them would have been revolutionaries.

10 Intriguing info in regards to the French Revolution

The Revolution was central to what France is as we speak, however past the historical past books, there are tales. Many tales., and listed below are only a few of them.

1. The French hated Marie-Antoinette (typically due to pretend information)

King Louis XVI merely couldn’t get the economic system below management. Having sacked his finance minister, he dug in his heels, and the extra stubbornly he clung to energy, the extra his authority weakened.

His eventual (and unsuccessful) try and flee France together with his household and search overseas assist made him much more of a pariah determine.

If something, Queen Marie-Antoinette embodied the hated elitist regime greater than her husband, and when folks sought a scapegoat for his or her troubles, they turned to the foreigner.

To them, she  represented royal extra and insensitivity, main a lifetime of luxurious and extravagance whereas they starved. The well-known however most likely unfaithful phrase “Allow them to eat cake” confirmed how disconnected the monarchy was from the folks’s struggling.

Additionally, the truth that she was Austrian made folks suspicious. She was accused of meddling in state affairs and blamed for most of the monarchy’s unpopular choices.

However she was additionally blamed for issues she didn’t do.

Probably the most well-known instance is undoubtedly the Affair of the Diamond Necklace.

A grasping lady at court docket had forged her eye upon an costly diamond necklace. It had initially been crafted for Marie-Antoinette, however the Queen turned it down due to its value. The courtier in query, Jeanne de la Motte, solid the Queen’s signature and satisfied a gullible cardinal to assist her purchase the jewellery. As soon as the fraud turned public, Marie-Antoinette was someway blamed, though she knew nothing about it. 

Nonetheless, truthful or not, her extreme life-style didn’t assist her recognition. Revolutionary propaganda exaggerated issues and branded her as manipulative and morally corrupt, in order that by the point of her execution, she was certainly despised.

Louis XVI was decapitated on 21 January 1793, and his spouse, Marie Antoinette, on 16 October the identical 12 months.

2. How an obscure provincial lawyer turned liable for 1000’s of deaths through the Reign of Terror

Maximilien de Robespierre was a small-town lawyer who turned influential via his robust beliefs in equality and justice for unusual folks.

But it surely all went terribly mistaken.

In 1793, he joined the highly effective Committee of Public Security, a gaggle liable for the nation’s defence and inner safety. Below his management, the committee would root out and punish anybody thought of an enemy of the Revolution. This might spiral right into a ten-month interval often called the Reign of Terror, throughout which 1000’s would die by the guillotine, together with former allies and harmless residents.

Robespierre believed that excessive measures have been justified to attain a simply and equal society, and that extremism would make sure the survival of the brand new authorities. For him, terror was a device for good – it will defend the Revolution and maintain it pure.

Finally, the widespread worry and the fixed executions (17,000 “enemies” have been guillotined) started to show folks in opposition to Robespierre. Many noticed his excessive actions as a betrayal of the revolution’s authentic beliefs of liberty and justice.

In July 1794, in a basic case of what goes round comes round, he too was led to the guillotine and executed by his former colleagues, marking the top of the Reign of Terror.

3. The Revolution upended the highly effective Catholic church

Earlier than the Revolution, the Catholic Church had been probably the most highly effective establishment within the land (after the French monarchy, in fact).

The revolutionary authorities was eager on taking away the clergy and separating church and state.

A brand new regulation, the Civil Structure of the Clergy, tried to reorganize the church based mostly on France’s administrative divisions (the then 83 departments – as we speak we now have 101). The folks would elect one bishop per division, and the French authorities would pay their wage.

The federal government then abolished the tithes (which earned the Church its revenue) and took over its lands, injecting a sizeable chunk of wealth into revolutionary coffers alongside the way in which.

Clergy have been required to take an oath of allegiance to the state or lose their parishes: solely half did so, tearing the Church aside. Then, the Pope condemned the state’s demand, and a holy mess ensued, with non-oath-taking clergymen punished as enemies of the state. 

The disarray would solely finish below Napoleon, whose Concordat of 1801 dedicated either side to compromises, ending the schism.

In an intriguing apart, the chief of the Revolution, Robespierre, tried to exchange Catholicism with one thing known as the Cult of the Supreme Being. This concerned a pageant, led by Robespierre prancing round in a toga. What a sight that should have been.

As soon as Robespierre died, the cult died with him.

4. Napoleon would by no means have gained energy with out the Revolution

Napoleon Bonaparte was a product of the Revolution, which modified society and changed start with expertise because the prerequisite for getting forward (more often than not, anyway). This allowed an unknown Corsican officer – gifted with an excellent strategic thoughts – to achieve prominence via navy victories, even with out the precise household connections.

Napoleon was so good at successful wars that he ultimately staged a coup d’état, overthrowing the federal government and establishing himself initially as First Consul, and ultimately as Emperor.

By promising to not reverse the good points of the Revolution, issues like secularism and the abolishment of the feudal regime, he gained the help of all those that had benefited from these reforms.

With out the Revolution, it’s protected to say there would most likely have been no Napoleon. There would have been no want for a powerful chief to wean France from the violence and finish the chaos.

5. The Revolution gave ladies equality (after which took it away)

In October 1789, within the early days of the Revolution, 1000’s of ladies marched to Versailles to demand bread and pressure the royal household to maneuver again to Paris the place the folks might control them.

Two years later, the author Olympe de Gouges printed the Declaration on the Rights of the Girl and Citizen, declaring the total equality of ladies, a radical thought on the time.

Earlier than the Revolution, ladies had been thought of minors, just like kids. They could not inherit property, take part totally in public life, or make necessary choices with out the permission of their fathers or husbands.

The Revolution modified all that: new legal guidelines restricted the ability of males over their households, legalized divorce, and eventually gave ladies the precise to conduct all types of enterprise with out male permission. The brand new legal guidelines additionally decriminalized homosexuality and eliminated the requirement for single or widowed ladies to declare their pregnancies below risk of dying.

However these good points wouldn’t final. 

By 1793, there was a backlash and girls have been once more excluded from political life, their golf equipment shut down, and lots of of their new rights taken away. Issues turned even worse below Napoleon, who made ladies authorized minors once more. 

Nonetheless, the Revolution did lay the groundwork for future feminist actions, though main advances in ladies’s rights must wait practically a century.

6. The guillotine was not invented through the Revolution

There’s a widespread perception that the guillotine was invented through the French Revolution however… no.

This instrument of execution had a protracted historical past: decapitation machines already existed within the sixteenth century in Italy (the mannaia) and in Scotland (“The Maiden”). A sure Dr Joseph-Ignace Guillotin used them for inspiration for his personal machine, designed as a humane methodology of execution to supply a fast and “painless” dying. (Earlier than the guillotine, executions have been brutal and sometimes botched, extra a type of torture than of dying.)

The final execution by guillotine would happen in 1977, and the contraption, together with the dying penalty, can be outlawed in 1981.

7. One revolutionary chief carried out enterprise from his bathtub

Jean-Paul Marat was a outstanding revolutionary chief and journalist through the Revolution.

He had a extreme pores and skin situation that compelled him to spend so much of his time within the bathtub, so he used it as his workplace. However that didn’t cease him from being a fervent advocate for the Revolution, penning inflammatory articles and rallying the folks from the underside of his tub. 

All this led to July 1793 when Charlotte Corday, a younger lady who opposed his radicalism, talked her method into his residence (she pretended she was delivering essential data) and stabbed him whereas he was bathing.

The assassination turned one of many Revolution’s most symbolic occasions: Marat was attacked whereas defenceless, and portrayed as a martyr who died for his beliefs. The truth that his murderer was a girl got here at a time when gender roles have been being revisited: to some, she was a hero, however to others, she was undermining the Revolution. 

The occasion was immortalized in Jacques-Louis David’s iconic portray, “The Dying of Marat”.

8. One of the crucial necessary revolutionary choices came about on a tennis court docket

Within the Revolution’s early days, in June 1789, the “folks” and their allies, the Third Property, have been planning to satisfy however after they confirmed up on the assembly corridor, the doorways have been locked and guarded by royal troops who wouldn’t allow them to in.

As an alternative, they gathered in certainly one of Versailles’ indoor tennis courts and vowed they wouldn’t depart till that they had drafted a brand new French structure.

This act of defiance turned often called the Tennis Court docket Oath, or the “Serment du Jeu de Paume” once more commemorated by artist Jacques-Louis David. It could turn into, just like the taking of the Bastille two weeks later, a serious image of the Revolution.

9. The Revolution overhauled France’s measuring techniques

A significant objective of the Revolution was change, typically for its personal sake, discarding the previous and embracing the brand new, whether or not it made sense or not. Usually, although, it was merely a case of taking away something hinting at faith or royalty. 

A number of the modifications can be enduring and sensible, just like the metric system, whereas others, just like the revolutionary calendar, can be short-lived.

France earlier than the Revolution was a patchwork of provinces with many techniques, together with measurements. Give it some thought: earlier than the Revolution, a minimum of 250,000 completely different weights and measures have been in use. No marvel the Revolution needed to standardize issues!

In 1795, it did simply that.

A brand new measuring system was developed by the most effective of the Enlightenment thinkers. The metric system can be based mostly on nature, and the meter can be one ten-millionth of the space from the North Pole to the equator. Each measure can be based mostly on the decimal system, all the time being a a number of of 10 – 10 millimeters in a centimeter, 1000 grams in a kilogram, and so forth.

Folks typically dislike change and there was loads of pushback. Napoleon even deserted the system in 1812, however like many good concepts, it resurfaced till lastly, in 1840, it was reinstated and is now a cornerstone of commerce and science worldwide.

Much less lucky was the destiny of the brand new revolutionary calendar.

The French Republican Calendar was additionally based mostly on the decimal system, however this went too far.

Each month had precisely 30 days, made up of three “many years” of ten days every (slightly than the normal seven-day week). Every day had ten hours, an hour had 100 minutes, and a minute had 100 seconds.

The brand new system additionally gave every month a brand new identify reflecting the climate round Paris, then, as now, thought of the middle of the universe. So February, or elements of it, can be known as Ventôse, from the phrase for windy. And July-ish can be known as Thermidor, from the Greek for summer time warmth.

It might need made sense on paper however… surprise, shock: it was impractical, unpopular, and was deserted in 1805.

It could resurface for a couple of days in 1871 through the Paris Commune, however quickly disappear, by no means to be heard from once more.

10. The 2024 Paris Olympic mascot is definitely a revolutionary image

Also referred to as the “Liberty Cap,” the pink Phrygian Cap symbolized freedom and resistance to oppression. In 2024, it was adopted because the “mascot” of the Olympics and Paralympics, a well-known French image. France determined it will have a logo for its video games slightly than the normal animal mascot.

The cap has its roots in Antiquity and have become synonymous with freedom in Roman instances. In the course of the French Revolution, it turned a logo of freedom for revolutionaries.

Advised books in regards to the French Revolution

Earlier than you go…

Now that you realize the whole lot (virtually) in regards to the French Revolution, put your information to the take a look at subsequent time you go to Paris by hopping on one of many a number of wonderful French Revolution excursions being provided within the capital.

Numerous the websites could also be extra significant when you perceive the historical past behind them.

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