Good morning Hank, it's Friday
Today I share with you a story about guns, indoor tennis courts, guillotines, humorous outfits
and competing historical narratives.That's right!
It's time to learn about: the French Revolution
Okay so quick background. This is France. France is in Europe. French people like to eat food.
And one other thing in the 18th century there was this movement called the Enlightenment
wherein people, including French people like Jean-Jaques Rousseau and Voltaire,
were starting to argue that rational thought should be the source of truth and authority
instead of the interpreted will of an omnipotent god.
That was a slightly troubling thought to the French monarchy
which, after all, derived its authority and therefore its ability to purchase humorous outfits
from the supposed will of that aforementioned omnipotent god.
Okay so it's 1789, the US has just won its revolutionary war
which, by the way, would've been impossible without the support of France.
Meanwhile, France has racked up tremendous debts supporting the American Revolution
and also fighting the Seven Years' War. Like, to give you a sense of France's debt,
a lot of people in the US worry about our national debt,
but in 2009 the US spent 5% of its federal budget servicing its debt.
In 1789, France spent 50% of its federal budget servicing its debt.
So France was completely broke, but the King of France, Louis XVI, was not broke.
As evidenced by his well-fed physique and fancy footwear.
Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette had a pretty comfortable life in the rather nice palace of Versailles,
which is the kind of thing that will annoy you if you are a peasant, who is starving.
As I mentioned earlier, French people, like a lot of people, enjoy eating.
So in 1789, in addition to France's debt crisis, there was a famine:
the price of bread rose 50% in one year but wages didn't go up at all.
So the peasants are hungry,
the intellectuals are beginning to question whether power should be centred in the Church and the monarchy,
and the nobility is dithering about, failing to make meaningful financial reforms.
So in May of 1789, Louis XVI, recognising the crisis, calls the Convocation of the Estates General,
a meeting of the three estates of France.
The first estate is the clergy, the second estate the nobility, and the third estate everyone else.
Which is to say about 98% of the population.
The third estate is paying all the taxes, producing all the wealth, fighting in all the wars
Meanwhile, the first estate, the clergy, pay absolutely nothing in taxes.
I mean, they have to be celibate, but still! No taxes!
And the second estate, the nobility, spends most of each day playing an increasingly high-stakes game
of who can develop the most humorous costume.
So the third estate shows up with about 600 representatives,
the first and second estates have about 300 representatives each.
The third estate wants the representatives from all three estates to meet together, in one assembly,
which would basically become a governing parliament in which the third estate would have a very slight majority.
But the first and second estate won't agree to this so the third estate is like
"Fine! You don't want to come to our party? Forget you guys. WE, the representatives of the third estate,
are now the National Assembly of France! We are your parliament!"
This does not please King Louis XVI, so when the third estate people leave the room for a break,
Louis XVI locks the doors and says "Ah! Sorry! You can't go in there! And if you can't assemble...
You can't be an assembly."
At which point the third estate representatives were like: "Hmmmmm. I think we may have a solution to this problem."
The third estate representatives, surprisingly, are able to find a different room in France,
an indoor tennis court at Versailles.
And in that room, the new National Assembly swears the famous Tennis Court Oath
in which they agree that they will not stop until they have written a French constitution.
At this point, Louis XVI sees the writing on the wall, he backs down, says "Okay! You guys can be a National Assembly."
But! At the same time, Louis XVI is flooding the city of Paris with troops who are loyal to him.
So people naturally start to think that Louis XVI might intend to destroy the National Assembly by force
at which point the revolutionaries get a bright idea.
So on 14 July 1789 the revolutionaries storm the Bastille prison, not so much because they wanted to
free the 7 prisoners who remained there, but because they wanted guns.
And there were a lot of them in the Bastille. And this marked a big turning point in the French Revolution:
the governor of the Bastille negotiated a ceasefire which saved a lot of lives on both sides.
And now would've been a great time for everyone to say "You know what? If we start shooting at each other,
this is probably gonna get worse." But instead, they killed the governor of the Bastille,
decapitated him, put his head on a pike and paraded it around.
The next month, the National Assembly released the Declaration of the Rights of Men and of the Citizen,
the French equivalent to the American Declaration of Independence.
The declaration declared that all men - sorry ladies - had the right to liberty, property and security;
rights that the French Revolution, in the end, would do an exceptionally poor job of protecting.
Meanwhile, back in Versailles, Louis XVI was still King of France, and it was looking like France might be a constitutional monarchy.
Which might have meant that the royal family could hang on to their awesome house,
but then; in October of 1789, a rumour started that Marie-Antoinette was hoarding grains somewhere inside the palace.
And in what became known as the Women's March, a bunch of armed peasant women stormed the palace
and demanded that Louis and Marie-Antoinette move from Versailles to Paris.
Which they did, because everyone is afraid of armed peasant women.
So between May and October of 1789, France went from a stable, if somewhat broke monarchy,
to a country where a bunch of armed peasant women could functionally put the king under house arrest.
A country where no one quite knew who was running the show and everyone had guns.
This problem will soon get better, and then worse, and then a little bit better, and then MUCH worse,
and then better, and then NAPOLEONICALLY worse, so stay tuned for that next time.
Hank! I look forward to you teaching me something on Monday.
By the way, with permission from Nerdfighteria, we have temporarily suspended the 4-minute rule
just to get us through this week of educational videos.
So those of you commenting on how punished I am clearly did not watch till the end of the video!
Which means you missed out on me proving that my suit - ... - isn't all business!