I'm probably digging myself a very deep rabbit hole right now, but can you please explain the basic timeline of the French revolution? Because American education is terrible and I never learned anything about it beyond that it was important and inspired the American revolution and a couple of other ideas. I would love to know more so I can understand your memes.
I'll try not to make this too long and rambling.
So for centuries France was ruled by an absolute monarchy. This monarchy was getting increasingly detached, and they and the nobility kept raising taxes on the third estate (everyone not a noble or a clergyman). As this was happening, the Enlightenment was going on, with thinkers like Rousseau and Montesquieu questioning if society really benefited from having a king.
The king at the time of the revolution, Louis Capet (AKA Louis XVI) was very poor at managing money. He sent tons of financial aid to America in their war of independence, and never was paid back, among other bad investments. His wife, Marie Antoinette, came from Austrian nobility and was a strong advocate for financial conservativism (keeping the nobility far above the rest in terms of money and assets).
The Estates General was called as an advisory body, but a skewed voting model gave the small minority of the population (royals and clergy) a profound advantage, so delegates of the Third Estate broke off and met in a Tennis Court, declaring themselves a National Assembly and preparing to draft a new constitution that gave them a fair say.
In July of 1789, Louis dismissed Jacques Necker, his minister of finance, who was more pro-Third Estate than most of the court at the time. It was the straw that broke the camel's back, and when the king refused to listen to the citizens, a group of them stormed the Bastille in search of weapons and gunpowder. Camille Desmoulins (later to be a famous journalist) was among them.
Eventually, the king was forced to cave to the Assembly, and they instituted a constitutional monarchy similar to England at that time. The Third Estate had more powers, and the king had less. He was no longer an absolute ruler.
Louis Capet didn't like this, and neither did his wife, and this will be important later.
In rural areas, peasants began to rise up against wealthy lords. The Constituent Assembly- a new governing body- voted and declared the abolition of feudalism and the tithe (goods payed to the lords). The king tried to veto, but the Parisians marched to Versailles and forced the royal family to come back to Paris.
Political clubs had begun to circulate around this time. From the Feuillants (fairly conservative constitutional monarchists) to the Jacobins (mainly republicans) and to one of the most radical, the Cordeliers (radical democrats, one of the only clubs to allow women to speak), people had begun to take part in their local politics. The Jacobins in particular would skyrocket in popularity.
New financial measures, such as the assignat, were also put into place to try to curb the debt. Some land was redistributed. France was divided into new sections to facilitate voting. Louis Capet, again, was not happy with this.
Some nobles began to leave the country- the emigres. They realized public opinion was turning against them, so they booked it. Many of them went to countries actively hostile to the Revolution, and took state secrets with them. This caused alarm amongst the French citizens.
War broke out between the French and the Austrians in 1792. (Robespierre and Marat, the radical journalist both opposed it, but they were not listened to.) Suspicion began to grow that Louis Capet and Marie Antoinette were secretly siding with Austria, due to the fact that Marie Antoinette's brother was the king there.
Eventually they caught the king and his family trying to flee. They found a cache of incriminating letters, particularly between Marie Antoinette and her brother. The rumors were true. The king was put on trial for treason.
Eventually, they executed the king for treason. (Despite being generally against the death penalty and trying to have it abolished earlier, Robespierre did support the king's execution, as he posited that the king was too great a security risk to be left alive.) France was declared a republic, and the Convention (a new incarnation of the Assembly) no longer had to answer to any monarch. One of these Conventionists was Saint-Just, a 25-year-old who had made an impression with his speech shortly prior to the king's trial.
The war wasn't going well at that point, and fingers were being pointed at the Girondin faction, an offshoot of the Jacobins that had been the most vocally pro-war. Marat was particularly fierce in his condemnation of them, which led a Girondin woman named Charlotte Corday to murder him in his bathtub. This led to the people being more convinced that the Girondins were traitors, as Marat was a beloved and popular public figure.
Eventually, after members of the Gironde were caught trying to flee their posts, several of their leaders were executed for treason and many were expelled from their seats on the Convention.
Around this time, the Committee of Public Safety (and the Committee of General Security) was formed to deal with the escalating war situation. It has twelve members originally, but this eventually dwindled to nine. Robespierre and Saint-Just were among the people chosen.
Representatives were sent out on mission to war fronts or to put down province revolts. Many of these representatives committed excessive acts of violence, such as Fouche, Tallien, and Collot d'Herbois. This will also be important later.
Marie Antoinette was also tried and executed for treason, because of her collaboration with Austria.
A new constitution was now in the process of being drafted, and it held some of the most egalitarian principles yet. Saint-Just and Heuralt were both involved in its drafting, but it would never be implemented due to the war and the eventual coup of Thermidor.
Fights broke out between deists and advocates of state-sanctioned atheism. A compromise was proposed in the form of the Cult of the Supreme being, basically a doctrine that encompassed all religion. Robespierre, a deist himself, was heavily involved. However, the COTSB was not very popular or successful amongst the atheist deputies, and became an object of mockery to them.
The Law of Suspects passed and increased the amount of crimes that could be considered treason. Another law, 22 Prairial, followed it. This had been aimed to reduce unwarranted executions in the provinces but had the unfortunate side effect of overloading the Parisian justice system, leading to a spike in executions in early 1794.
One faction, ultra-militant radicals associated with Jacques-Rene Hebert, another journalist, was caught trying to plan for an insurrection as they wanted to intensify the policy of 'terror'. Hebert and some others associated with him were executed.
Soon after, Fabre d'Eglantine, a member of the more moderate Indulgent faction, was caught in a financial fraud scheme. Also implicated was Danton, who had been a prominent figure since the outbreak of the revolution. Desmoulins, an ally of Danton, was caught up in it by association. All three as well as a number of others were guillotined. Being a politician was very dangerous in this time, and there were numerous assassination attempts.
Robespierre stopped coming to work. It's highly likely that the execution of Desmoulins- a once-close friend of his- as well as the turbulent political system had harmed his mental state, and he was also suffering from bouts of ill health. In his absence, members of the government began spreading rumors that he was plotting to turn public opinion against them and have them killed (he did not have the power to do this).
He returned to his job and was met with outright hostility. He gave a hastily-composed speech that only worsened the problem. Saint-Just attempted a reconciliation but neither side was willing to cooperate and he was forced to pick a side. He sided with Robespierre even though distancing himself from him would've been safer.
This culminated in the coup of 9 Thermidor, where Fouche, Tallien, Barere, and some others violently declared Robespierre and his allies under arrest. They tried to escape to the Convention hall with the help of the municipal Paris government, but they were eventually trapped in the Convention hall by opposition troops. Many were injured in the scuffle, including Robespierre. The next day, he and his allies were guillotined too.
The conspirators formed a new government, the Directory, and began stripping back many social progressions that had come to existence in the revolution. As was mentioned earlier, many of the conspirators were those who had committed huge acts of violence and were worried that Robespierre and his allies would expose them. Robespierre had a reputation for being 'incorruptible'- you couldn't buy him out or use personal connections to keep him quiet, and that made him dangerous to those with so many dirty secrets.
I believe the revolution ends here, in 1794, with the coup of Thermidor, but some historians include the years of the Directory up until Napoleon in it.
...I said I'd keep this short, didn't I. Well. So much for that. Sorry. Hope this was what you were looking for.
