French Revolution (Part 2)

Royals try to escape. Champ De Mars Massacre. Declaration of Pillnitz. Movement towards becoming a Republic.

We left off the last video
at the end of 1789.

The Bastille had been stormed in
July, as Parisians wanted to

get the weapons from the
Bastille, and free a few

political prisoners to, in
their minds, protect

themselves from any tyranny
from Louis XVI.

Louis XVI had reluctantly kind
of gone behind the scenes and

said, "OK, National Assembly, I'm
not going to get in your way anymore."

Because he's seen the writing
on the wall – that every time

he's done something, it's only
led to even more extreme counteraction.

So, we're at the end of 1789. Already,
chaos has broken loose in a lot of France.

The National Assembly, they're
in process of creating

a constitution – which won't
fully happen until 1791.

But they're starting to bring
things together in order to

draft that constitution.

But in August of 1789, they've
already done their version of

the Declaration of
Independence.

The Declaration of the Rights
of Man and the Citizen.

So if everything was well, we
would just wait until a few

years, we'd get a constitution,
and maybe we

would have some type of a
constitutional monarchy.

But unfortunate, especially
for Louis XVI,

things weren't all well.

As we mentioned, all of this
was propagated, all of this

was started to begin with
because people were hungry.

We have this fiscal crisis,
we have a famine.

And so in October of 1789--
we're still in 1789-- October

of 1789-- rumors started to
spread that Marie-Antoinette,

the King's wife, that she was
hoarding grain at Versailles.

So people started imagining
these big stacks of grain at

Versailles, and this is in a
time where people couldn't get

their bread.

And bread was the main
staple of the diet.

So there was actually a march
of peasant women onto

Versailles.

And they were armed.

This is a depiction of the
peasant women marching on

Versailles.

And they went to Versailles, and
they actually were able to

get into the building itself.

And they demanded-- because they
were suspicious of what

Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette
were up to at Versailles--

they demanded that they
move to Paris.

So the women's march.

And they were able to
get their demands.

It resulted in Louis XVI and
wife, Marie-Antoinette, moving

back to Paris, where
they couldn't do

things like hoard grain.

And they'll be surrounded
by all of the maybe

not-so-friendly people
who could watch

what they're doing.

I think the main factor was that
people are hungry, rumors

are spreading that the King
is hoarding grain.

But there were also rumors that
the King was being very

disrespectful to some of the
symbols of the new France, of

the new National Assembly.

So that also made
people angry.

And across the board everyone
kind of knew, and including

Louis XVI, that he wasn't really
into what was going on.

He wasn't into this kind of
constitutional monarchy that

was forming, this power
that was being lost to

the National Assembly.

So we have this very
uncomfortable situation

entering into 1790, where the
King and Queen are essentially

in house arrest in a building
called the Tuileries in Paris.

You have this National Assembly
drafting this

constitution.

They're charted to draft the
constitution up there.

They all pledged at the
Tennis Court Oath.

And at the same time, throughout
France, you have

some counter insurgencies.

This is France right here.

Throughout France you have
counter insurgencies, people

who don't like the Revolution
that's going on.

And then those would
be subdued.

And people are all plotting
one against each other.

And then you have some
nobility, that says,

gee, you know what?

I don't like the way
that this is going.

We've seen already a
lot of violence.

People are angry.

I'm just going to take my money
and whatever I can pack,

and I'm just going to get
out of the country.

I'm going to emigrate away
from the country.

So you start having nobility
starting to leave France.

They're called the Emigres.

I know I'm not pronouncing
it correctly.

But you see, you have this
notion of gee, I had it good

in France, I'm not going to have
it good much longer, I'd

better leave. And this same
idea, now that we get to 1791.

So 1790 was just kind of
a bunch of unease.

Now that we're at 1791, the
same idea of trying to get

away from the danger got into
the heads of Louis XVI and

Marie-Antoinette.

But they couldn't leave
the country.

They didn't trust
Great Britain.

They didn't trust any of these
other countries to safely give

them shelter.

So one of their generals, who
was sympathetic to their

cause, said, hey, at least
come here to the frontier

areas and you could hide
from all of the unrest

that's going on.

So dressed as actual servants--
and it shows you

what type of people they were--

they dressed as servants.

And they actually made their
servants dress as nobility to

make them the targets in case
they were ambushed anyway on

their way trying to
escape from Paris.

Dressed as servants, the King
and Queen-- the King tried to

escape to this general's
estate.

But when they were in Varennes,
right here, they

were actually spotted.

And then the people essentially
took them captive

and brought them
back to Paris.

So this is called, or you could
imagine this is the

flight to Varennes, or the
flight away from Paris, or

however you want to do it.

So already, Louis XVI
started to see the

writing on the wall.

They tried to get away.

But people brought them back.

Now you can imagine, a lot
of people already did

not like the King.

They didn't like the notion
of even having a king.

And the most revolutionary,
the most radical elements,

were called the Jacobins.

And after the King and Queen
tried to escape and came back,

they were like hey, gee,
what's the use of

even having a king?

You National Assembly, why are
you even trying to write some

type of constitution that
gives any power

whatsoever to a king?

We should have a republic.

Which is essentially-- there's
a lot of kind of nuanced

definitions of what a republic
is, but the most simple one is

it's a state without
a king, without an

emperor, without a queen.

So they're saying, we don't
need, you know-- you National

Assembly, you think you're
being radical.

But you're not being
radical enough.

We want to eliminate the idea
of having a monarchy

altogether.

And the fact that Louis XVI
actually tried to run away, we

view that as him abdicating
the throne.

Abdication, or essentially
quitting.

And they actually started
to organize in Paris.

This right here is the
Champ-de-Mars.

I know I'm saying it
completely wrong.

This is a current
picture of it.

And so they started taking
signatures in this kind of

public park in Paris to
essentially say, we

don't need a king.

We want to essentially create
our own republic.

That this National Assembly,
they're not radical enough.

And so people started gathering
over here in the

Champ-de-Mars and things
got a little ugly.

So the actual troops were
sent in to kind of

calm everyone down.

And these were actually
troops controlled by

the National Assembly.

The people who are
mainly controlled

by the Third Estate.

But things got a little crazy.

Rocks were thrown at
some of the troops.

Some of the troops, at
first, they started

firing in the air.

But eventually when things
got really crazy, they

fired into the crowd.

And about 50 people died.

And this was the massacre.

Or the Champ-de-Mars Massacre.

I know I'm saying it wrong.

This isn't a video on French
pronunciation.

But you could imagine, now
people are even angrier.

People are still starving.

That problem has
not gone away.

The King and Queen has been
kind of very reluctantly--

everyone is suspicious of the
fact that they're probably

going to try to come
back to power.

They tried to run away.

When the Jacobins, or
in general kind of

revolutionaries, but they're led
by the Jacobins, when they

start to suggest that, hey,
we should have a republic.

We shouldn't even have a king.

And they gather people here,
all of a sudden, the troops

that are controlled by the
current National Assembly

actually fire on the crowd, and
actually kill civilians

for throwing rocks.

And they might have
been big rocks.

But you can imagine, this is
going to anger already hungry

and already suppressed
people even more.

And to make people even more
paranoid that the King and

Queen might eventually come
back to power, you had two

major powers all of a sudden
trying to insert certain

themselves into the
French Revolution.

I'm going to do a little
bit of an aside here.

Because this is something, at
least you when I first learned

European history, I found
the most confusing.

You have these states,
you can call them.

You have Austria, which I've
highlighted in orange.

The kind of map here
is a modern map.

But in orange, I've kind of
shown what Austria was at that

point in time.

Around 1789, 1790, 1791.

In this red color,
I have Prussia.

I want to show you that these
are very different than our

current notions of
one, Austria.

Austria today is this modern
country right here.

And Prussia doesn't even exist
as a modern country.

And then you had this notion
of the Holy Roman Empire,

which overlaps with these other
kingdoms, or empires, or

whatever you want
to call them.

And I want to do a little
bit of a sideview.

The Holy Roman Empire, as
Voltaire famously said, is

neither Holy, nor Roman,
nor an empire.

And he was right.

It was really kind of a very
loose confederation of German

kingdoms and states-- mainly
German kingdoms and states.

As you can see, it kind of
coincides with modern Germany.

And the two most influential
powers in the Holy Roman

Empire, or actually the most
influential power in the Holy

Roman Empire, was
the Austrians.

And the ruler of the Austrians
had the title

of Holy Roman Emperor.

And that was Leopold II.

So Leopold II was the Holy Roman Emperor.

But it's not like he was like
the Roman Emperors of old.

The Roman Emperors of old
actually came out of Rome.

Notice, nothing in the Holy
Roman Empire at that time, it

had no control of Rome.

So it was not Roman, we're
not talking about

people who spoke Latin.

We're talking about people who
spoke Germanic languages.

And it wasn't an empire.

That it wasn't a tightly knit
kind of governance structure.

It was this loose confederation
of states.

But what was the most
influential was the region

that was under control of the
Habsburgs of Austria, or

Leopold II.

And not only was he in control,
or not only did he

have the title of Holy Roman
Empire, and essentially had

control of the Austrian, I guess
you could say Empire, at

that point in time.

He was also Marie-Antoinette's
brother.

Leopold II, that's
her brother.

So Leopold II and Frederick
William II of Prussia, which

is another mainly
Germanic state.

Let me do that in
a better color.

They issued the Declaration
of Pillnitz.

Let me write this down.

So this is going to add even
more insult to injury to just

the general population
of France.

The Declaration of Pillnitz.

And this was done in August. so
I just want to make it very

clear what happened.

In June of 1791, they tried
to escape, they

were captured at Varennes.

Then in July of 1791, you have
the Champ-de-Mars Massacre.

So already, people are very
wary of the royals.

The idea that we don't need
them is spreading.

And people are getting
angrier.

And then you have the
Declaration of Pillnitz by

these foreign powers, one of
whom is essentially the

brother of the current
French royalty.

And that declaration is
essentially saying that they

intend to bring the French
monarchy back to power.

They don't say that they're
definitely going to do it in

military terms or whatever.

But it's a declaration that they
do not approve of what's

going on in France.

And even though they themselves
might have not

taken it too seriously, the
people of France took it

really seriously.

You have these huge powers on
their border right here.

You had the Austrians
and the Prussians.

So this wasn't anything
that people

could take very lightly.

So it only increased the fear
that the royals were going to

do something to come back
to full power and

really suppress people.

And it really gave even more
fuel for the Jacobins to kind

of argue for some type
of a republic.

So I'm going to leave you
there in this video.

As you can see, we saw in the
first video, things got bad.

Now they're getting really
worst. Chaos is

breaking out in France.

People are questioning
whether they even

need a king or queen.

Foreign powers are getting
involved, saying hey, they

don't like what they're seeing
there, with kings and queens

getting overthrown.

Maybe that'll give ideas
to their people.

And by the way, I'm your
brother, so I want to

help you out too.

That scares people even more.

The current National Assembly,
which is kind of the beginning

of the Revolution, they
themselves are on some level

massacring people.

So it's really leading to a
really tense and ugly time in

French history.

And you're going to see that
that's going to culminate with

what's called the
Reign of Terror.

And we're going to see that
in the next video.