A flippant expose of the country and people who will host this year’s Paris 2024 Olympic Games. This week Senior Correspondent Mike Osborne loses his head over the French Revolution.
Here’s the French Revolution in brief – masses go hungry when failed crop creates bread shortages | Queen Marie-Antoinette declares “let them eat cake” | starving peasants storm the Bastille in 1799 shouting “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” and “off with their heads” | King Louis XVI (Louis the Last) is sent to the guillotine along with his Queen and thousands of others | short, military brute called Napoleon declares himself Emperor (and pseudo King). Vive la République!
Simple right? But like everything, it wasn’t quite that easy. It actually took 10 years from start to finish and included a lot of wars and about 17,000 executions. Here’s the full story.
Failed grain crops in 1788 and 1789 caused bread prices to rise, resulting in famine and economic turmoil throughout France, especially for the poor Les Miserables.
The masses were outraged because the royals and nobles had plenty of food. It’s still a matter of debate whether Queen Marie-Antoinette actually said “let them eat cake” when starving peasants demanded bread at the palace gates, but don’t mess with French history unless you want to lose your head.
The citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789, kick-starting the French revolution and creating a French national holiday in the process: Liberty, equality, fraternity.
The Bastille was a royal fortress holding weapons, ammunition, and supposedly many prisoners. The liberators found only seven as they tore the building down.
After hours of fighting that cost the lives of 83 revolutionaries, the governor of the Bastille surrendered and was taken to the town hall where he was executed and his head placed on a pike and paraded through the city.
Message to the royals, nobles and authorities sent and received.
The start of the revolution came almost six years after French King Louis XVI had supported the Americans in their revolutionary war of independence against the British, perhaps a bad idea in hindsight?
A subsequent breakdown in law and order in France led to many attacks on properties owned by the nobility. At one stage 7,000 protestors marched on the Palace of Versailles only to discover that Louis XVI had fled back to Paris with his family.
By 1791 King Louis had mostly lost control to a governing Assembly of the people and was caught trying to flee to Austria. Many of his nobles had already fled abroad, urging other foreign monarchs to back a counter revolution they were trying to fund.
The Assembly’s new government threatened war against Austria and Prussia, who had guaranteed support for the King.
In August 1792 forces loyal to the Assembly attacked the Tuileries Palace where the King was taking refuge after the government voted to relieve the King of his duties.
The next month there were French victories against the Prussians in the on-going Revolutionary Wars while the Assembly announced the first French Republic.
A trial of citizen Louis Capet, formerly Louis XVI, sentenced him to death for “conspiracy against public liberty and general safety” and he was executed by guillotine on January 21, 1793 in the Place de la Revolution, now known as the Place de la Concorde, in central Paris.
This caused outrage throughout Europe’s nobility, with Britain, the Dutch, Spain, Portugal and the Italian city states of Naples and Tuscany joining Austria and Prussia in the war against France.
While there were many internal divisions among the rulers of the new Republic, the French Army was successful against the growing enemy thanks to brutish young military leaders like one colonel Napoleon Bonaparte.
Success on the battlefield, and a friendship with Augustin Robespierre, brother of doomed revolutionary leader Maximilien, helped aid Napoleon’s rise within the army just as France’s new government fell into internal disarray.
From September 1793 to July 1794 hundreds of thousands were arrested on charges of counter-revolutionary activities with about 17,000 executed. Even Maximilien Robespierre was arrested and executed on July 28, 1794 during this period known as “The Terror”.
A few months later Marie-Antoinette was also convicted of a long list of crimes and sent to the guillotine at the Place de la Revolution. No more cake for her.
Despite his links to Robespierre, military success kept Napoleon’s reputation intact. He was victorious in Italy while France essentially won the war against Prussia and made peace with Spain.
Napoleon was promoted to Major General and Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Interior, and in 1795 he put down a royalist uprising in Paris before invading Egypt.
When he returned to Paris, victorious again, and with the economy on a better footing, Napoleon was included in a Consulate of three people to rule the country, along with Roger Ducos and Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes.
Napoleon was made “first consul” for 10 years on November 9, 1799 in what became known as the Coup of 18th Brumaire, which is generally regarded as the end of the French revolution.
It wasn’t long before Napoleon was ruling France and Italy and became Emperor in 1804.
He lasted for more than a decade but by 1815 it was all over when Napoleon lost the battle of Waterloo to British forces led by the Duke of Wellington.
Capture, exile, jail and death followed in 1821. He was however buried with his head intact – a small mercy.
NOTE – This is the latest in a weekly series of “Frivolous facts about France for Olympic bon vivants”. You can read other Frivolous Facts stories by clicking on these topics: French Art | French Architecture | French Sportscars | The French Language | French Wine | French Explorers | French hatred of the British | French Heroes | French Bread | French Inventions | French Olympic History | French Literary Greats | French Films | Famous French Athletes | The French Pacific | French Cafe Society | French History | French Tourism | French Romance | French Food | French Politics | French Work Ethic.
Michael Osborne has been a journalist for more than four decades including 35 years with the national news agency Australian Associated Press, rising from junior reporter to Editor.
He was AAP Editor for 11 years and served four years as Head of Sport and Racing. He was also posted to London and Beijing as AAP’s Bureau Chief and Foreign Correspondent.
He has worked at six Olympics and five Commonwealth Games, covered tennis grand slams, golf majors, international cricket, rugby world cups and numerous sporting world championships. He also co-ordinated and managed AAP’s teams and coverage at three Olympic Games in Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and London 2012.
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