he French Revolution was an incredible uprising against their monarchy, the government ruling the French people. It was incredible because of the sheer number of executions that the French people managed to perform in the rather short period of time that the revolution lasted. It officially started in 1789, but the people of France had been worried about their country for far longer than that, and there had always been grumblers and dissenters for as long as the monarchy had lasted (which was an extremely impressive 872 years) but they had all been disorganized, and didn’t do much other than occasionally speak out in their home towns. As 1789 grew closer, though, more and more people were growing dissatisfied with the king, as he drove them deeper and deeper into debt. Ironically, one of the major money drainers, and reasons for tax, was the American Revolution, which had the duel effect of angering the French peasants, and showing them that revolution was a practical.
Just to put things in some perspective with regards to the money of France and how large the peasantry was, I’ll give you some numbers. The currency of France was divided into three parts, the First, Second, and Third Estates. The First Estate contained only about 1% of France’s population, and consisted of the clergy, or churchmen, of the Roman Catholic Church, and they possessed about 10% of France’s land. The Second Estate was slightly bigger, being made up of the nobility, anyone related to, or close to, the king. They possessed close to 20% of the land and wealth in France, while the Third Estate, some 97% of the entire population of France, possessed barely 70% of the wealth in France. So while 3% of France contained 10 times their number in wealth, 97% got 0.7 times their number in wealth, which was practically unlivable for most people.
In a rather late attempt to console the people, the king of the time called an Estates-General, a meeting between representatives of each Estate, where they would hopefully find a way to pacify the people. This seriously failed. A major reason being the fact that the meeting took place in Versailles, a golden palace built by a previous king that embodied the wealth and laxity the peasants were trying to fight. After leaving Versailles, the Third Estate formed the National Assembly, a group of pretty much everyone with the goal of ending the monarchy. They started rioting in the streets, and actually raided the Bastille, a huge government prison, and released anyone and everyone who had been wronged by the state, as well as others who were sympathetic to their cause. Throughout the revolution those rescued from the Bastille had a special status as heroes, for undergoing the horrors of the nobility personally. This also officially stared the revolution, which would last another 10 years.
For a while the national assembly didn’t do much, just attempted to abolish certain taxes and cruel laws, but then “The Great Fear” swept through France, rumors that the nobility were going to kill them all for their part in the rioting, and so they decided to kill the nobles first. It’s important to note that unlike the American Revolution, where all the people were united in a common goal, the French Revolution had many groups that thought different things had to happen after abolishing the monarchy. The leading group at this time, the Jacobins, led France during the reign of terror, which started with the execution of the king in 1793, and made many guillotines, execution devices like the one in the picture, that separated a head from its owner very quickly and efficiently. Nobles were led to the guillotine in massive lines, and it wasn’t uncommon for 50-75 noblemen to die everyday from 1793 to 1794. These executions, and France, were headed by one Robespierre, a Jacobin that loved executing rich people, but eventually the other Jacobins started to worry about such blood lust, and the other Jacobins executed Robespierre to stop him from such excessive executions (I admit, I did laugh when I realized they used a guillotine).
After that the Jacobins left the spot-light and a different group rose to power, called the Directory. They weren’t as murder-y as the Jacobins, but they were also much less well liked, probably because they were less murder-y. They lasted until 1799, when Napoleon Bonaparte heard about the Directory’s lack of power, and decided to take it for himself. This wasn’t hard, as no one like the Directory and everyone liked Napoleon. After that, Napoleon named himself emperor and ruled France until 1815.
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