Was the violence of the revolution even necessary - Marie Antoinette (2006) Discussion

[–] 12 years ago

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[–] otter 12 years ago

Of course not all the violence was necessary, the French Revolution is the great historical example of retribution spiraling out of control.

First the genuine enemies of the people were killed, then anyone with money that could be confiscated, then anyone who criticized the new government.

" Jack, you have debauched my sloth! "

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[–] varuns-1 12 years ago

The more I read about the French revolution, the more disgusted and revolted( if you'll excuse the pun) I become. It's not even really clear in a large number of cases, whether the executed persons were really "oppressing" anyone in a direct way, apart from simply being wealthy or pro-monarchist. I'm looking for brutal slave drivers(Django unchained?), ruthless, heartless exploiters of peasants/serfs, genocidal maniacs like the Nazis, sadistic torturers like the Spanish conquistadors, irredeemably repressive characters and governments like Stalinist Russia or Kim Jong Ill's North Korea. The French monarchy were none of these!

Even something like the Bastille storming leaves one cold and baffled. I used to think, very naively, that the Bastille was some horrendous medieval dungeon with fiendish punishments, and thousands of unjustly imprisoned inmates. There were a grand total of 7 prisoners in the Bastille at the time of its storming and demolition! 4 of those were mental patients, another was a royalist put in there by the request of his family. And this is what those angry, blood thirsty revolutionaries were targetting? It's kind of distressing to think that people can be so brainwashed into violence, on the basis of the most flimsy reasoning, if reasoning at all.

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[–] CarolineVI 12 years ago

That was a post so thoroughly stupid it warrants only the briefest of replies:

-While I'm glad that your familiarity with such canonic historical sources as Tarantino movies and Sofia Coppola candy-colored extravaganzas makes you feel like you have a solid grasp on history, you might want to look into things like famines and fiscal crises in 18th century France. Or the role of the French monarchy in triangular trading. Those slaves you noticed in Django? Guess who had a hand in getting them from Africa to America?
Likewise, I wouldn't want to blow your mind, but as far as "irredeemably repressive governments" are concerned, you might also want to check out the total absence of anything ressembling a writ of habeas corpus in pre-1789 France.
No sadistic torturers like the Spanish conquistadores you say? Has Hollywood not yet produced a nice movie that could enlighten you as to just how civilized the kings of France were when they ordered the massacre of their own people, be they Cathars, Templars, Beguines or simply your garden-variety Protestants?

-The point in storming the Bastille was never to break a few individuals out of jail. The revolutionnaries were after the munitions and arms that were being stored there.

-Please, do go on about flimsy reasoning and barely-there justifications when a people that's been exploited, abused or outright exterminated for about a thousand years finally rises up. Maybe the populace should have gently handed Louis a pink slip? Agreed to keep him on as the head of the State and gone for a constitutional monarchy? Oh, wait... they did do that. But I'm guessing the dozens of intrigues meant to convince Prussia and the Holy Roman Empire to invade France got the revolutionnaries a little worked up.

So, you know, was the French Revolution a model in civilized uprising and temperate negociations? Of course it wasn't. The Terror wasn't named thus just for kicks. But what I find "kind of distressing" is that someone who obviously doesn't know the first thing about French history, or absolutism dare make such idiotic statements on a public forum. You're not only naive, you're mindbogglingly ignorant about the subject which you purport to tackle.

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[–] varuns-1 12 years ago

"No sadistic torturers like the Spanish conquistadores you say? Has Hollywood not yet produced a nice movie that could enlighten you as to just how civilized the kings of France were when they ordered the massacre of their own people, be they Cathars, Templars, Beguines or simply your garden-variety Protestants?

-The point in storming the Bastille was never to break a few individuals out of jail. The revolutionnaries were after the munitions and arms that were being stored there.

-Please, do go on about flimsy reasoning and barely-there justifications when a people that's been exploited, abused or outright exterminated for about a thousand years finally rises up."

I fail to see how Louis XVI and even more, Marie Antoinette, could have been responsible for the previous one thousand years of exploitation. And if they were really brutal, repressive tyrants as the 'people' claimed, how was it that they allowed the violent storming of the Bastille to go on unpunished. Surely, at that point, if they were Hitler, Stalin, Kim Jong, Idi Amin or the Conquistadors, they would have sent out the army and massacred the entire lot of the besiegers. And what were the people thinking when they stormed the Bastille, then brutally murdered the governor of the Bastille? He had every right to order firing on the mob, and not just hand over the munitions and arms. And to repeat, if they were really repressive as you claim, wouldn't the Bastille be *full* of political opponents of the monarchy, and wouldn't those prisoners be living in absolutely dreadful conditions. The Bastille would have been the symbol of this brutal, repressive, massacring, irredeemable French monarchy. This is actually what I thought many years ago, before doing some detailed reading.

Perhaps some major focus has to be laid on the 'leaders' of this revolution, particularly those who came from a more educated background. And their role in brainwashing the masses into violent action, for their own political purposes.

Monarchies are almost by their very nature regressive and anachronistic and they must go. But not in the manner of the French revolution. Change should have taken place more peacefully. Dethroning, expropriation, light imprisonment,expulsion, giving the monarchy opportunities to relinquish power etc is the more civilised path. Beheadings, burnings, drownings, bayonettings etc, are barbaric.

And need I add, that what succeeds a monarchy should at the very least strive to be morally more elevated than what they opposed and fought against. France in the post revolutionary era, embarked on violent expansion in Europe, colonisation of Africa and South East Asia, and brutal repression in one of its most prized possessions, Haiti.

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[–] CarolineVI 12 years ago

My god, what a bunch of uneducated, wannabe-enlightened crock.

Both Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were full participants in the opression and exploitation of their people. Louis was a dismal king with no political acumen and little interest in the welfare of the country and its inhabitants. He refused reform after reform and clung to his priviliges like the parasite he was. The storming of the Bastille did not "go unpunished" either, I don't even know what you're rambling on about. The only reason why the revolutionaries didn't have a harder time of it was because Louis XVI was an inept ruler who felt a little too secure in his god-given right to exploit the people of France. Your analogies are equally worthless. Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin and Kim Jong Il were "charismatic" rulers who offered an ideology to their countrymen, however flawed or downright abhorrent it was, however horrifically it turned out. They galvanized crowds with promises of a better future, of riches and equality. Louis XVI had no promises to make, no such momentum, no myriads of deluded supporters among the population. He had his guards and the regular army, of which many members defected. It's a lot harder to hold on to a country when a good portion of it isn't blindly indoctrinated anymore. And for the last time, the Bastille wasn't full of political opponents because it wasn't where prisoners were kept at the time. Apparently your so-called "detailed reading" didn't let you on to the fact that by the end of the 18th century, very few people were kept in French prisons because they were either sent to the colonies to perform forced labor in French bagnes, or they were executed outright. Prison was the place where people were kept while they awaited sentencing, or while they were being tortured. Moreover, the Bastille was a symbol of royal oppression because of its history, not because of what was happening inside its wall in 1789. You do understand how symbols work, right?

Again, if you knew the first thing about the French Revolution, you'd know that different paths were originally chosen, that the king and his entourage were given chance after chance to cooperate and move towards a constutional monarchy system, but Louis and his ilk chose to conspire and attempted to flee in order to facilitate an all-out war with the germanic kingdoms. You also prove how little you know about French history, or European history, or biology, really, when you mention beheadings in the same breath as burnings, drownings or stabbings. Beheading was actually the chosen method of execution reserved exclusively for the nobility, because it was the least painful and the least cruel. Regardless of your stance on the death penalty, it was relatively painless and it was fast, which makes it a lot more humane than say, the electric chair, or the gallows.

Was the rest of the rampage necessary, advisable, and should it be emulated? Of course not, captain obvious. But what do you expect from a mob of people who have watched their divine rights sovereigns burn their women at the stake, torture its dissidents and starve them to death for generations? The majority of the footsoldiers of the revolution weren't enlightened people who grew up reading Volaire and Diderot, they were angry people who had finally had enough of surrendering the better part of their livelihood to King and Church.

As for your final paragraph of BS, I have to ask again: are you taking the piss? Who do YOU think started France on its expansionist path? Who went and grabbed Louisiana? Québec? the Antilles? Even your precious Saint Domingue/Haïti? Do you happen to believe that Napoléon wasn't another monarch? Are you even aware of this little thing called the Restauration? Do Louis XVIII, Charles X or Louis Philippe ring a bell? France has always been an expansionist nation, always. It has never, ever been able to leave well enough alone. Does France have a huge colonial problem? You betcha. But to imply that the country was not more "morally elevated" in the post-revolutionary era is just nuts. I don't know what Disney fantasy you live in, but things don't suddenly get awesome, all a country's problems don't get fixed whithin a fortnight. The Revolution, as violent and bloody as it seems to you shrinking violet, paved the way for most of the privileges the citizens of France enjoy today.

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[–] varuns-1 12 years ago

But that is just about the point I'm making. You should fight against and oppose something to make it better, not to become repressive, expansionist, greedy and bigoted yourself. Yes, France has been expansionist, and I'm saying that is bad, very bad. And very, very hypocritical and repulsive no matter which Louis, X, XV, XIV, NNG, DRX started the process. You cannot and should not fight for freedom and liberty, and that too be so pompous and self righteous about it, then go and deny it or continue its denial( if you're saying that the revolutionaries themselved didn't 'start' colonialism) in Haiti, Algeria, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Madagascar etc. And why weren't there massive demonstrations throughout France, about Napoleonic expansionism in Europe, and French colonialism all over the globe? I don't doubt that a few intellectuals in the 20th century questioned and opposed French imperialism, but where was the mass, the public clamour against it?

We're positively not talking about a 'fortnight', it's well over a century of expansionism, racism and colonialism *after* the revolution. Not to mention, violent, inter-mercantalist rivalry with the other "great powers", Britain, Portugal, Netherlands, Spain, Austria, Prussia, Russia( all jerks themselves, by the way).

Not all the killings were so clean and humane, as you make them look. Read about the horrific atrocities in Nantes, that's where I found the stuff about drowning alive of people associated with the monarchy. There were other sadistic killings involving roasting people in ovens and bayonetting infants thrown from windows. This does not have the feel of peasants retaliating against being exploited. It feels more like "snuff out any potential future opposition, and do it with as much terror as possible, to prevent anybody from getting funny ideas".

People who commit those kinds of atrocities are not the type who will think twice about killing anyone, even another revolutionary. And even less about someone who is African, Asian or Caribbean.

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[–] CarolineVI 12 years ago

And now your confused tirade moves from the revolution to colonialism? Oh, boy. Alright.

So, apparently it is news to you that in the 19th century, white people fought to free themselves from oppression while they were themselves oppressing the hell out of anyone who wasn't white, Christian, or both. Every single western revolution at the time was fought by the white man, in the interest of the white bourgeois. Astoundingly, it meant that women, people of color and foreigners got to enjoy being 2nd class human beings for an additional century and a half.
Look,no one ever suggested that French revolutionaries were perfect, or even fair. French women were left out of the rights that were gained, and very little consideration was given to the philosophical issues posed by the colonies. However, it was a step in the right direction. It even inspired several revolutions that took place within the colonial empire, such as the one in Haiti.

Why weren't there demonstrations against French expansionism happening left, right and center? You're kidding, right? Because it was the 19th century and the people of France felt that they would benefit from said expansion? Because they thought that they should snatch a piece of the world before the Spanish and the British were done conquering everything that was vaguely up for grabs? Are you not familiar with the concept of greed? What's your next vapid question? How about "where was the outrage against capital punishment in the 1800s?" Let me answer both questions at once: the people back then? They were only as enlightened as the era allowed them to be. They only made so much progress at a time. And, shocker, they started by improving their own situation at home.

What gets me is that you offer no actual argument.You watched a fluffy -albeit beautiful- Hollywood period piece and read a few pages about the massacres perpetrated in Brittany and you think it gives you the acumen to produce a meaningful commentary on revolutionary France.
This isn't a examination of French history, or even European imperialism, it's a self-congratulatory, indulgent pat on your own back. You're basically going "Violence bad, racism wrong". Do you perhaps want a cookie for coming up with such brilliant notions? Is that what you've gathered from all that "reading" that you've done, that anything in history that did not lead to a perfect system/society in which racism, bigotry and injustice did not exist was unhelpful and unnecessary?
Progress is a process, it often happens in small increments. Dismissing the central importance and the repercussions of the French revolution because it was bloody and imperfect is just plain stupid. Of course France went wrong many, many times post-1789, before it got the right idea about just how universal liberty, equality and fraternity ought to be, but what did you expect? That French revolutionaries would enact changes so radical they'd get to the late 20th century in 1794? Give me break.

Last and not least, I never said anyting about all the killings being clean and humane, I criticized your incapacity to present a nuanced opinion. Beheadings are not similar to drownings, burnings, mutilations and so on. I don't need to read about the atrocities in Nantes, because unlike you, I'm familiar with French history. How about you crack open a book? Say, a Corbin, a Demier, a Charle, or a Gueniffey? Maybe bring a little depth to your manichean vision of 18th-19th century Europe?

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[–] varuns-1 12 years ago

A little too Eurocentric and apologetic for my liking! Look at it this way: If we can judge the extremism and barbarism of the Nazis( and we should) or the overbearing, exploitative, undemocratic quality of the 18th century French monarchy, there should be no issue with severely condemning the imperialism, colonialism, racism, and at times, outright genocide of European colonialism. Including that perpetrated by the French after the revolution.

One of the reasons we hear/read so much about WW 2 and the Nazis, or are quite familiar with the French revolution, is that so much of history is written and taught by Europeans, and Americans. What made the Nazis so outrageous is that they had the audacity to ravage other Europeans, White people, whereas the French, British, Belgians( the Congo episode ranks almost right up there with Nazism, incidentally) Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch did most of their dirty, disgusting stuff on Africans, Aboriginals,Amerindians, Indians and Caribbeans. This is basically all whitewashed, to present a very moral, upright, superior image of the Europeans. Or it is made into almost something trivial or peripheral.

No, it's not outlandish to expect people to behave with a degree of humaneness,forbearance and civilty, particularly when they have just freed themselves from oppression. I hope the human mind and soul is not so fickle and small that it cannot see the contradiction between waging a very arguably progressive movement to end the 'rule of kings', and then going and subjugating and dehumanising three quarters of the world, so they can profit. These were choices individuals and institutions consciously made; it wasn't some cold, impersonal force called "historical progression". Such a repulsive ideology of mercantilsm combined with racism was practised blatantly, not even with subtelty, right until the 1960's! That is, nearly 200 frigging years after all those supposedly glorious revolutions, and after two bloody world wars, including one to defeat fascism.

In my first post, I did write this: "I understand the idea of an oppressed people who have endured oppression and severe exploitation lashing out at the source of their oppression. That can get ugly if it goes on too long.

But little, if any, of the extreme violence, bordering sometimes on sadism, of the French revolution, appears to be a response to hard edged oppression and persecution. It has the feel of something nastier and darker."

Corny as it may sound, there is probably a lesson in this: violence begets violence. Extreme, gratuitous violence to overthrow even an unpleasant and overbearing system, cannot just be turned off like a tap. It will continue in other forms and contexts, perhaps grow and mutate. The history of the following two hundred years does seem to bear that out!

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[–] CarolineVI 12 years ago

Oh, for the love of...

You apparently are thoroughly unable to accept where I'm coming from.

So let us address your absurdities one final time:

-Eurocentrism? Do I need to remind you that we are discussing your opinion of the FRENCH Revolution here? How exactly does one make this issue not Eurocentric, uh?

-Reductio ad Hitlerum? Really, you're gonna go there? You're going to stand (or sit, if you will) there and argue *with a straight face* that putting the French Revolution and the Holocaust in the same sentence is not the saddest possible case of comparing apples and oranges?

-You keep trying to skirt around your original contention that the French Revolution was ill-conceived, because according to your shoddy understanding of European history "their [the nobility's] power and wealth could have been stripped away", as the good people of France were not experiencing "hard edged oppression and persecution".
You go on and dig your grave a little deeper by blathering inanely about the Bastille being almost empty (which: not the point of the assault), and then you proceed to pull some revisionist narrative out of your...hat to explain how, really, the French monarchy was alright, famines, oppression and financial crises be damned.
You advance that the conquest of the prison, the symbol of the toppling of a regime that represented over a thousand years of suppression and oppression is the result of "flimsy reasoning"? Excuse me while I vomit in my mouth a little.

-The issue here isn't moral relativism. No one, least of all me, is trying to argue that racism, imperialism, colonialism, or genocide can ever be viewed in a positive light. So that bit about being "apologetic"? You can shove it.
You are trying to position yourself and your limited understanding of the French revolution as the enlightened side, the one that comes down hard on all the -isms and the violence and all that, while trying to assign me the role of the whitewasher who can't quite manage outrage when the people getting slain/enslaved/oppressed aren't white. You're not getting away with that. Never gonna happen. Here are some quotes from my previous posts, to help get you back on track: "Does France have a huge colonial problem? You betcha.", "white people fought to free themselves from oppression while they were themselves oppressing the hell out of anyone who wasn't white, Christian, or both.", "Are you not familiar with the concept of greed?".
My issue here is not that I find genocide and oppression less objectionable when inflicted outside of the Western world. My issue, and I'm going to state it clearly for the last time, so that it can sink in, is that your dismissing the French Revolution because it was bloody and imperfect is both inaccurate and simplistic. I repeat: your posts have very little substance, in that you appear to know very little about the period and the region.
It therefore looks like the sole point of your "contribution" is to establish yourself as the enlightened critic of a momentous event in French history, with little regard for either historical or philosophical accuracy. Your original point boils down to "murder is bad, torture is wrong", to which I have but one answer: you don't say?
Then, in an attempt to avoid having to retract your idiotic statements, you try to muddle the waters by going on a tangent about French colonialism, and when all else fails, Western imperialism and the evils of Eurocentric history lessons. I mean, if you keep throwing stuff at the wall, something is eventually going to stick, right? Doesn't matter that this isn't a discussion about the many evils Europeans visited upon the world, or that what is argued here is your loose grasp on French (and European) history circa 1789, so long as you can get self-righteous about it, right?

-Did you really just describe yourself as part of a group that is "quite familiar with the French revolution". 50% of my point is that no, you really are not.
I'm not saying you're completely ignorant either: you can obviously name-check important events and you might even have some sort of general idea of what happened. Much like I have a general grasp of Pre-Columbian history. However, I do not feel like that makes me qualified to make a movie about it ('sup, Mel?) or air my vague opinions on a public forum and tell a student of Mayan history that, really, he's got his sh*t backwards.

-I will not pretend to know how history is being taught outside of the "Western" world. I know that a lot of scholars who dominate the scene of historical debate are Westerners, for lack of a better term, and are therefore susceptible to certain biases.
I like to imagine that non-Western countries give preeminence to those parts of history that are the most relevant to their nation/region, while also educating their citizens on the topic of world history, but I'm prepared to take your word that it isn't so, and that Western chauvinism affects their learning opportunities.
However, your assumption that European education systematically glosses over the horrors Europeans inflicted on the rest of the world is insulting. This isn't the 1960s, our "devoir de mémoire", or obligation to remember if you will, isn't limited to the gas chambers, the trenches or the Inquisition. It extends to the crusades, the conquista, triangular trading, and the conquest, oppression and systematic pilfering of most of the planet.
We remember the massacres perpetrated for profit or glory in South America, in North America, in Vietnam, in Algeria, in Kosovo and countless other places, thankyouverymuch.

-No, it's not outlandish to expect "people to behave with a degree of humaneness,forbearance and civility", unless you care about this little thing that's called historical context.
There's a difference between being able to justly determine that a remote event was violent or barbaric and expecting people of a vastly different era to behave according to your modern moral standards and adopt your enlightened ways of resolving conflicts.
In other words, can you regret that Philip the Fair decided that the best way to replenish his coffers and bolster his authority was to burn all the Templars at the stake? Sure, I think we can all agree that your case for "murder bad, torture wrong" is a solid one.
However, expecting good old Philip and his countrymen to value all human life the way we do is not only outlandish, it's downright anachronistic and silly. Expecting 18th century revolutionaries to Gandhi it up doesn't make you a humanist, it makes you a fool.

-Regarding your last attempt at a justification, again, I beg to differ. The first sentence is enough of a banality to get a pass.
However,the second sentence wherein you state that your position as an expert on 18th century French history allows you to assert that the extreme violence of yadda yadda yadda stems not from oppression and persecution but from "something nastier and darker" (whatever the hell that means) really doesn't lend itself to this "violence begets violence" Hail Mary pass you're trying to pull at the last minute.
It is you explicitly stating that this violence isn't in fact a consequence of violence done to the French people. It's you saying that they didn't kill because they were oppressed or persecuted, but because they were inherently "nasty" and "dark".

-While we're neck-deep in clichés, how about "progress begets progress", since the Magna Carta begot the Habeas Corpus Act, and those paved the way for the U.S. Declaration of Independence, which influenced the Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen and the U.S. Bill of Rights, which in turn evolved to allow the successive amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and later the Four Freedoms, so that we could finally arrive at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. How's that for progress as a process?

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[–] varuns-1 12 years ago

Just a few things: I suspect that the environment in France and other European countries( at least their major cities) is more internationalist and pluralist in its reading and awareness of history. It is not the case in Canada or the US, which are known to be very parochial, and very slow in forthrightly acknowledging the massive injustices and perfidy of the past. It wasn't uncommon as late as the 1970's to refer to the native aboriginal Indians in the most derogatory manner.Children would play games where it was okay to 'bomb the Indians'; only the 'political correctness' movement starting in the 1990's really put a major halt to this stuff. Also, Canada and the US are very hesitant in denouncing European colonialism, whether of the British, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch et al variety. When this imperialism is mentioned alongside Nazism, the reaction is usually one of disbelief or revulsion, that the comparison could even be made. It's a very crude, tribal, primordial, instinctual approach to history, that puts European or North American lives first and foremost, Renaissance, Reformation, Reason, Enlightenment and the Revolution be damned! This is partly what is meant by 'something nastier and darker'. It stems from a malvolence in the human condition, all the big supposedly momentous events in history,including the revolution, and their lofty words and concepts notwithstanding.

There were 20,000( at a lower estimate) victims of the guillotine.Whatever the real figure, 80% of these executed persons were peasants, not whip driving landlords and aristocrats. So the very people who were supposed to be suffering so horribly from the exactions of these supposedly oppressive lords and royals, constituted the majority of those executed. Something doesn't feel right here, even when being repelled( as I am) by the excesses committed against the exploitative royals. If that-the killings of the royals- can somehow be justified/explained by the temper of the times, how can the other atrocities?

France( though not as bad as the US and UK) has no serious issue with royalty and monarchy and landlords, exploited workers and peasants, and repressed middle classes, when the country in question is non-white and non-European. Or how do you explain all those Arabian kingdoms supported and propped up, including by France, all these years, without much comment( a tiny handful of Left progressives aside). France fancies itself as the gendarme of West Africa. France also seriously contemplated recognising the independence of the Indian princely state of Hyderabad,under the rule of a king, at a time when there was a progressive stirring for change by the people themselves. This was 1948, incidentally, not the dark dreary ages of 1798 or 1858. Who can be blamed for that, the ghosts of Louis the 16th and Marie Antoinette? Let me try my hand: crass, crude, racist, mercantalist, opportunistic, geo-political, geo-strategic compulsions. Everything a true revolution should be against.

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[–] CarolineVI 12 years ago

Right. More of the same vague BS and misinformed, self-congratulatory platitudes.

More faffing about, trying to stick to your faulty guns.
And now apparently we're moving on from the 1789 Revolution to France's contemporary foreign policies. Which are always an interesting topic in that they're highly questionable, provided you're speaking to someone whose knowledge runs a little deeper than half-baked impressions of what the French learn in school or what they concern themselves with in terms of policy.

So let's not make this any more convoluted than it has to be: you may be qualified to helm a discussion about Hyderabad, and god knows I am not. My point is: you might want to stick to that, given your tenuous grasp on the whole French revolution thing.

Should you ever want to have an educated, intelligent discussion about France at the time of the 1789 revolution, I believe I mentioned key authors earlier. Otherwise, stop trying to pass off your feelings as historical facts.

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[–] varuns-1 12 years ago

Thanks, yes I think I should, considering that I've sounded off on the topic! Reading those authors will certainly provide me with new information, about the conditions and background of the revolution, and perhaps offer incisive explanations for the violence that appears, from the vantage point of the 21st century, as so repellent and irrational. I might even find myself going "Oh, so that's why it went down that way..."

But it won't change the fact that revolutions to overthrow one set of oppressive, overbearing, outmoded, institutions and individuals, have in most cases created another group of obnoxious, overbearing characters and behaviour. The evidence of several revolutions- the English, French, American, Russian and Chinese- is too stark and obvious to dismiss. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" is a line of a very famous song by the group the Who.

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[–] MsEmmaFrost 9 years ago

There were 20,000( at a lower estimate) victims of the guillotine.Whatever the real figure, 80% of these executed persons were peasants, not whip driving landlords and aristocrats.

Source?

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Everyone is replaceable. Even you.

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[–] GuyOnTheLeft 11 years ago

Yes, this. I'm glad someone wrote a good response and saved me the time. :)

I would add that during the "Terror" the Jacobins were dealing with a genuinely threatening reactionary counterrevolution. This wasn't a deal where they were going around finding imaginary enemies.

And unfortunately the common peasantry out in the provinces were not enlightened enough to see how right the revolutionaries were to want to get rid of the shackles of theistic religion.

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See a list of my favourite films here: http://www.flickchart.com/slackerinc

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[–] varuns-1 11 years ago

"the Jacobins were dealing with a genuinely threatening reactionary counterrevolution."

And their solution to this threatening counter revolution was to slaughter anyone, including women and children, who appeared even slightly oppositional to the revolution or its policies. Of the thousands who were killed by the Jacobins, probably only a tiny few were trying to restore the monarchy; most of the victims were simply people who were sceptical or aghast at the brutal methods of the Jacobins in handling any kind of dissent or hesitation.

France was a shameless country throughout the 19th century, after the revolution. France invaded Mexico on some stupid pretext, and tried to impose an Austrian(!) king on the Mexicans. 300,000 Mexicans perished as a result of French greed and hypocrisy. Monarchy and absolutism is not for us, but it's great for Mexicans, particularly since the king can oversee and guarantee profits for our wonderful French companies, right? Way to go, France! Bastards.

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[–] GuyOnTheLeft 11 years ago

19th century France was a counterrevolutionary country. They even brought back the monarchy for a while!

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See a list of my favourite films here: http://www.flickchart.com/slackerinc

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[–] varuns-1 11 years ago

^^^
Okay, but exactly how different would a 'revolutionary' government at the helm be, in terms of France's *external* behaviour? Would France have refrained from invading Mexico, as well as Africa( the 'scramble for Africa') Vietnam, India, the south Pacific and the Caribbean? That would be reaching, in light of France's repulsive behaviour for well over a century. France likely would have succumbed to the temptation of 'getting a piece of the pie while the getting is good', rather than following any highly enlightened principles supposedly embedded in the revolution of the 18th century. It seems to come down to the greed, perfidy and ego of human beings, ultimately.

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[–] immoralfury 11 years ago

I said in a previous thread on this board that the violence expressed in those years was a free for all. The amount of carnage that ensued after Marie and Louis's execution was IMPRESSIVE. You had high officials of the revolution and new government getting executed themselves. Robespierre and so many others. It was incredible. It's a wonder that France managed to survive, especially the likes of Napoleon. Napoleon made Marie Antoinette look like a Sunday School picnic.

The violence was not necessary, but what do you expect from people of that time. People were owning slaves, women had absolutely no rights, royal families were still using their offspring as cattle, there were far more poor people, there were no human rights most of all, and wars were carried out in a smash and grab state. I am more surprised that half the French population did not end up dead. It seemed that the garbage could have gone on forever and England would have just picked over the leftovers.

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[–] nicolehering 11 years ago

You know how when you miss a meal and you get cranky or weak? The people in France were starving and being taxed at the whim of the royalty so they couldn't buy food to eat or really live pleasantly at all. So if you get cranky from missing one meal in a day imagine how angry they were at starving, barely having any food while the royalty were taxing them and using that money for their pampered fluffy lives. It may seem harsh what they did, but they did it because they were starving.

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[–] varuns-1 11 years ago

^^^
I empathise fully, and the greatest moral latitude must be given to people in that desperate situation, year after year. But it's the other type of violence in the revolution that is stupefying. It's the violence that says "I'm going to kill you, or at the very least, imprison you, because I feel you are not as supportive of the glorious revolution and glorious revolutionary government as I( the great, all knowing, infallible "I") think "you"( the lowly, insignificant "you") should be. Or to put it differently, I think I'll kill you because I simply don't like your face. Yes, this happened over and over again, in the 1790's. There can't be any justification for it. Violence of that kind easily spills over into ethnic, racial and national categories, as the history of the following 2 centuries(!) clearly shows.

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[–] franzkabuki 10 years ago

"Or at least given the royals and other rich/powerful elements a chance".

These degenerate leeches already had their "chance".

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

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[–] LetThemEatCake01 10 years ago

Well, no violence is ever necessary, but the revolution and its violence could definitely been avoided if Louis XVI had been a different king. If he had been on the people's side, as opposed to the clergy and nobility's side, things would have turned out ok, there would have been a constitution and the monarchy would have survived. It's how the british monarchy has survived uninterrupted, because they know without the people on their side they are nothing. That doesn't mean that they actually care about the people, it just means they knew when to give in, when not to give in. Louis XVI simply didn't want to give in, he wouldn't budge until it was too late. They truly believed in the divine rights of Kings and so on, and he was just not open to change.

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[–] kaskait 10 years ago

It was necessary. It was extremely necessary.

Because that is the only thing entitled, vein and corrupt criminals understand.

And have no doubt, these people were nothing but glorified gangsters who were (and still are) under the impression that their blood is magic and they MUST rule the rest of us because of it.

Why was the beheading necessary?

Well, to be gory, it's akin to routing out ants in your home. If you don't kill the Queen, they keep coming back because she is still breeding. This is why the French and Russians were so intent on getting EVERYONE in the their country's royal family. Because, quite simply, they didn't want any progeny to pop up and fight for their "throne". The line must end. Permanently. Sad but true. Because its them against us baby...always has been and always will.

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[–] varuns-1 10 years ago

"Why was the beheading necessary?

Well, to be gory, it's akin to routing out ants in your home."

That is really crude, and no regard whatsoever for even something like age. So a ten year old Dauphin is so badly mistreated, he dies in captivity. And his death justified based on the suspicion that he might lead a resurrection of the monarchy.

What about ideas like rehabilitation and reintegration?

And it's almost axiomatic to say that viewing a group of people as "ants", will transfer, in reality did transfer, to viewing other races, other ethnicities, in more or less the same way. That was the ideological underpinning of colonialism and imperialism.

I still maintain, that the one leads to the other.

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[–] kaskait 10 years ago

Rehabilitation and reintegration is impossible for those people.

Imagine you were born into a people who told you that you were born to rule. That your blood is full of magic and better than all of humanity. You have access to unimaginable wealth that proves you are a better person, chosen by the gods you worship. You grow up in this world that treats other human beings like chess pieces to further your power and wealth. You will marry people like you. And your children will be like you and you will want them to keep a hold of power and wealth. All at the expense of the rest of humanity.

THERE IS NO rehabilitation for that kind of corruption.

The only answer is what the French did during revolution and the Russians did as well. Total ripping out of the roots.

These people won't wake up and celebrate Thomas Paine and the great philosophers of the Enlightenment. In fact they have been working to erase the ideals of Enlightenment for centuries.

Our freedom means their death. Or they will always be seeking to regain their thrones.

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[–] varuns-1 10 years ago

Most people would have serious philosophical or ethical issues, with killing children, even those from an overbearing, oppressive royal line. Someone like the Dauphin could have been set free, on the condition that he lives like a commoner, and does not engage in any activity to revive the monarchy. Failing which, he would be arrested, and harsher punishment, even death, would follow. But just holding him hostage for years on end, treating him brutally and letting him die was most inhumane. All because of his lineage and/or some abstract, vague threat he himself presents.

And again, seeing a group of people as malevolent insects to be eradicated, will lead, did in fact lead, to entire races and ethnicities viewed in that same manner. Those people( Africans, Indians, South Americans, Polynesians) only exist for the benefit of one or other imperial power, such as France, Britain, Portugal, Spain etc.

The minute they step out of line, they are to be exterminated like bugs. That was the ideological underpinning of imperialism and colonialism, including from the French post revolution.

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[–] kaskait 10 years ago

Do you know how many royal children were killed throughout the centuries. MOST BY OTHER ROYALS! They kill each other's children as a matter of right to push their own bloodlines. The Princes in the Tower being the most famous of children caught in power struggles. Did you know it was a matter of course for royals to send their children to other courts as hostages?

None of it has ever led to mass extermination unless the public chose sides on which inbred degenerate they decided to name King.

Someone like the Dauphin could have been set free, on the condition that he lives like a commoner, and does not engage in any activity to revive the monarchy.

But there would always be remnants of royals of the blood, no matter how obscure, who would survive and want to revive the monarchy. So the child would have ended up being someone's pawn.

Please stop being naive.

Do you want monarchy? Well then you must accept death for commoners at the whim of these demented idiots. Or you put them down and attempt to build democracy. Simple equation. Because they have no scruples to mercy. History shows you that.

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[–] franco_xxl 9 years ago

Just thought that I'd throw it in here as we're touching on the subject of violent mobs.
I haven't seen the film, so I don't know how much of a role Count Axel Fersen has in the film, or if his fate is mentioned in it.

Anyway, in 1810, about two decades after his parting with Marie Anoinette, back in Sweden, the danish prince - which at the time was heir to the swedish throne - died from apoplexy (stroke), there was a rumor amongst the people that Count Fersen and his sister had poisoned the Crown Prince.

This rumour was enough, so that during the Crown prince's funeral the angry, drunk mob starting with unified cursing of Fersen (at that time Sweden’s highest-ranking official next to the King) and it quickly escalated to him being pulled from his wagon, beat and kicked, and finally jumped at which basicaly crushed his ribcage and killed him... all of this in front of the General and royal guard.

And this was quite a likeable guy :)

____________________________
I kick a s s for the lord.

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[–] jarol1 9 years ago

In my opinion it was completely unnecessary. It lead to many people being executed, also revolutionaries and led to Napoleonic wars. In the end monarchy was restored, although abolished later again.

Beheading Marie Antoinette was a crime. It shows what a group of criminals the revolutionaries were. I would have just sent her back to Austria.

There is no need to kill royal families. In many countries they were deposed (Austria-Hungary, German Empire) and people didn't really want them back. In other countries absolutist monarchies transformed into constitutional ones.

I would prefer head of the state to be a hereditary position - a monarch who was raised from childhood for that position as it was done in 19th century. Today presidential elections offer too much room for rich businessmen to push through their preferred candidates through manipulation of public opinion.

A nice comparison is the Russian system right now against the EU (and any EU member state, especially Franch and Germany). Putin has powers like a monarch and is viewed like quite influential and would never betray his country. Thats why people vote for him. In comparison to Russia, EU is a laughable organization, completely incompetent.

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[–] MsEmmaFrost 9 years ago

I would have just sent her back to Austria.

Some people shared your opinion. Unfortunately for her, the Austrian invason she had promoted forced their hands and her execution was the only logical outcome.

In many countries they were deposed (Austria-Hungary, German Empire) and people didn't really want them back.

It took the carnage of the First World War to end the Austrian-Hungarian empire and the Second Reich. And, they dissapeared more than a century after the Revolution. It was the one that set the path, the laboratory of all the other revolutions that came after it, and all of them had the advantage of learning from it. (The same way the Revolution learnt from both the Blood and the Glorious one; you can see the obsessive fear of a French Cromwell in the revolutionaries' writings.)

In other countries absolutist monarchies transformed into constitutional ones.

And was was France, at first. The king rejected this option and never truly renounced his divine right to rule.

*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
Everyone is replaceable. Even you.

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[–] cfriend37 9 years ago

Do you know what desperate people look like. The French were starved, oppressed, and dominated. The country was bankrupt because of the monarchy and the rich didn't pay any taxes, so they got the money from the poor. Imagine years and years of this.

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[–] jarol1 9 years ago

Todays rich also evade taxes. They get money from general public just as before. Its a different class though. Before it was based on blood and tradition, today on fraud and mafia practices.

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