The Archive

Happy Bastille Day!

The origins of the French Revolution were many, complex and (less often noted by historians) a comedy gold mine. To celebrate Bastille Day, I am proud to present your guide to the revolution that changed the world.

Hungry and broke, please help

In late 1770s, there was financial chaos in France. The country had conducted pointless, unnecessary wars and was in astonishing amounts of debt they had no idea how they were going to pay off – a situation difficult to imagine today.
In addition, there was a general failure of the harvest resulting in starvation across the land.

In the countryside, the malnourished peasants would eat anything to survive. So fair enough, they had no choice but to eat snails back then. But really guys, you can stop now.

What’s more, at this time there were aspects of French society many considered unfair. The country was divided into three Estates. The First Estate was the clergy, the Second Estate, the nobility and the third was, well, everyone else. Although the first two estates had all the money, it was only the Third Estate who paid any taxes.

Obviously, these inequities between people aren’t present in modern society, because we have corporations that have all the money and don’t pay any tax instead.

Representatives of the three estates formed the Estates General, a kind of government which King Louis XVI would summon in order to agree such important things as going to war, raising taxes and what size wig should be considered ‘in’ this season.

In 1789 King Louis XVI convened the Estates General in a last ditch attempt to fix the nation’s broken finances. Unfortunately, as each estate had one vote each, the meeting largely consisted of the king saying to the first two estates, “Oh go on. Please start paying taxes. Please.”

They decided against it.

It was about then that the Third Estate realised that it represented 90% of the people of France and therefore really didn’t need the posh kids or the vicars to run the country. So it set up on its own as the National Assembly.

Members of this new Assembly came together in a tennis court near Versailles in order to take an oath that they would not rest in their quest for a new constitution for France, and to make the ‘new balls please’ joke.


Fortunately for all of us in the Gordon Brown era, topless leadership didn’t really catch on

The Storming of the Bastille – or how I learned to stop worrying and love the mob

After this came what was, for many, the symbolic beginning of the French Revolution. On July 14th 1789 a French mob stormed into the Bastille prison.

As the huge, angry horde descended on the prison walls, the guards decided that although it was their job to stop people breaking out of the prison, nobody had said anything about stopping people breaking in and, frankly, dealing with this lot was more than their job’s worth.

The prison fell and, in that moment, it seemed like France belonged to the people.
After this, the revolution really took hold, and the motto on everyone’s lips was “Liberte. Egalite. Fraternite.” which translates roughly as “Liberty. Something about an eagle, probably. Drunk American college students”.

The spirit of the times was captured in the painting ‘Liberty Leading the People’ by Eugene Delacroix. In this, the symbol of the revolution is a woman with her boobs out, which tells us something about the difference between Britain and France.

Over there, a topless woman can lead a revolution, initiate enduring social change and diminish the inequities of society.

Over here, she can marry a footballer.

In 1792 France was declared a republic and in the newly-named National Convention, leaders emerged.

There was Georges Danton, who had been personally involved in the storming of the Bastille, unlike many revolutionaries who would later start claiming to have ‘been there’.

There was Jean-Paul Marat “short in stature, deformed in person, and hideous in face” yet who was also both famous and powerful, making him an eighteenth century Andrew Lloyd-Webber.

And there was Maximilien Robespierre, an evil man as clever and cunning as he was cruel who, it surprised nobody to learn, was a lawyer.

The Terror – the morning after the night before

Anxious to keep the revolution going and afraid of counter-revolutionary activity, Robespierre initiated The Terror, during which aristocrats and enemies of the state would be executed.

On the first day of this bloody period, aristocrats would walk up to the platform and say a few words before dying horribly, leading many historians to consider it the very first Open Mic night.

After this, aristocrats were hunted down and beheaded in front of a jeering crowd with a front row of toothless old crones knitting, with a rather cruel irony, woolly hats.

During the period of The Terror, over 15,000 people were executed, much to the distress of Joseph Guillotine, who had only ever really wanted a neater way to cut paper.

The Terror dragged on and more and more people were caught up in the atmosphere of paranoia and anti-aristocrat suspicion. Before long, all it took to be arrested and killed was to be spotted with a large wig and heavy make up, leading to a tragic mix-up in Paris during that year’s gay pride parade.

It couldn’t go on. An early victim of the backlash was Marat, who was fatally stabbed whilst he was taking a bath – an incident that began a French mistrust of bathing that continues to this day.



Before telephones, the need to write a letter to summon an ambulance led to high mortality rates

Then the National Convention realised the bloodshed was unsustainable so they had Danton and Robespierre arrested and guillotined to ‘see how they like it’ and to bring an end to the Terror.

No longer talking about a revolution

Meanwhile, France’s neighbours were fearful that the revolution might spread to their own oppressed masses who were watching developments carefully because Big Brother and Heat magazine had yet to be invented.

So, in an effort to bring back the good old days, Austria and Prussia declared war on revolutionary France.

Unfortunately for them, the French army was well trained, well equipped and included a young general named Napolean.

Equally unfortunately for the revolution, Napolean’s victories led him to acquire quite a taste for taking control of things. In 1799 he returned to Paris with his army and, with the nonchalance of bullies everywhere, said of the nation “You don’t mind if I take this do you?” and declared himself First Consul, essentially the new ruler of France.

Nobody felt compelled to argue. The revolution was over.

posted by Peter The Great @ 9:18 PM