Good Morning, Hank. It's Wednesday.
We now return to the French Revolution.
Where, at the end of 1789, King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette,
find themselves under house arrest in Paris
while the French National Assembly is trying to write a constitution.
We shall skip the year 1790 entirely, except to note that:
One, the National Assembly was not making anyone less hungry.
And two, the financial crisis continued.
And, also, three, a lot of nobles were starting to take their money and leave France because being a noble in France,
which had once been among the very best jobs in the entire world, was suddenly becoming sort of dangerous and unprofitable.
These nobles were called the émigrés. Only, I'm pronouncing it wrong because I'm American, and we pronounce everything in American.
By the middle of 1791, Louis and Marie Antoinette were starting to think, "you know that émigré life sounds pretty awesome,"
but they couldn't leave France because they still fancied themselves the king and queen of it.
So this general, named Bouillé, comes along and says,
"Listen, come and live at my estate in the French county side; blue skies, clean air, no revolutionaries plotting your destruction."
For making this offer, by the way, Bouillé would later be likened to a blood-thirsty despot in the French National Anthem.
but, anyway, in July of 1791, Louis and Marie Antoinette decide to light out for Bouillé's country estate.
They dress up as servants, have their servants dress up as royals, sneak out of their house arrest,
and if you've ever read a Shakespeare play you know what happens next,
the ruse is discovered, and everyone lives happily ever after.
Well...the ruse was discovered anyway.
Still dressed as servants, Louis and Marie Antoinette are captured in the city of Varennes just one day after leaving.
And, they are humiliatingly returned to Paris in their servant get up,
but the worst part of all this is that some of the more radical revolutionaries including a group called the Jacobins.
argue that Louis XVI leaving Paris amounted to him basically abdicating the throne.
and that therefore France has no king which means that France can now become a republic.
Alright, so the next month, July, the Jacobins have a huge petition drive in the Champ de Mars and lots of people come to sign the petition saying,
"Yes, the King abdicated his throne. We should be a republic,"
and then troops, controlled not by the king but by the National Assembly, show up and end up firing on the crowd killing fifty people.
Now, you'll remember the National Assembly was the voice of the revolution,
the people who started the idea of a representational government for France
who went to that indoor tennis court in Versailles and pledged not to stop until
we have a constitution, but suddenly it's the National Assembly firing on a crowd
to try to control revolutionary fervor. You see this all the time in history
during economic contractions what looked like radical hope and change a year
ago suddenly becomes the man. But, by September of 1791, the National Assembly
finally finishes its constitution fulfilling the Tennis Court Oath and
ushering in a constitutional monarchy in which the Legislative Assembly has most
of the power but the King has veto power on certain things. Around the same time
France's neighbors start to get pretty nervous about all this talk about
representational government. Especially, the Holy Roman Empire which as Voltaire
once famously noted was neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire.
The Holy Roman Empire was a loose confederation of states, and the Holy Roman Emperor was a guy named to Leopold II.
who was not Holy not Roman and not an emperor since basically he only directly
controlled Austria, but he was Marie Antoinette's brother. Also, like a lot of
monarchs, Leopold II liked the idea of monarchies, and he wanted to keep
his job as a person who gets to stand around wearing a dress pointing at nothing,
owning winged lion monkeys made of gold and who can blame him.
Leopold II figured that having a neighbor turn into a republic might be
bad for his job security, so he, along with King Frederick William II of Prussia,
issued the Declaration of Pillnitz which promised to restore
the French monarchy and naturally further radicalize the revolutionaries
in France. Also, it's worth mentioning again that nothing that the assembly, or
the Jacobins, or King Louis XVI has done has done anything to address the
underlying problems which is that the French people are hungry, and the country of France is broke.
But then in april of 1792, finally, King Louis XVI and the National Assembly agree upon a plan,
"Let's invade Austria." The idea was to plunder Austria's wealth and also sure
of the food supply by stealing delicious
austrian cuisine. Also the revolutionaries thought that they might
be able to like topple all of the European monarchies and spread
revolution through the world which made Prussia a little nervous, so they
immediately joined Austria in a war against France.
So, by August of 1792, France is still poor, people are still hungry, but now they're
fighting two wars and it is then that a group of radical revolutionaries is led by
the Jacobins arrange for a parliamentary session to which they cleverly do not
invite the vast majority of parliament and declare France to be a republic.
there by invalidating France's year old constitution, and then things get pretty
bad pretty fast. Allow me to introduce you to my friend the guillotine.
During the monarchy, commoners and nobles had been put to death using different
methods, but of course that's not going to work in an age of enlightenment.
The thinking went that capital punishment should be egalitarian and rationalist.
So, everyone should have the same death, and it should be humane
because of course rationally we don't want to hurt condemned criminals we just want to kill them.
which is precisely what happened to King Louis XVI in January of 1793.
Thereby, making it very difficult for Austria and Prussia to fulfill their promise of returning him to the throne.
Within a month of decapitating their king, France was at war not only with
Prussia and Austria but also with Spain, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Portugal.
In short, things seem pretty bad, but don't worry they're about to get much worse.
Hank, I'm gonna stop there for today so Marie Antoinette can live until tomorrow afternoon.
My last French Revolution video will be uploaded tomorrow, and then you will
educate us further on Friday, so i guess that i will see me tomorrow.
At which point, I promise to prove that I'm not wearing pants.