546. The French Revolution: The Monarchy Falls (Part 3)

0:10Citizens, the National Convention trusting in your courage, hereby accepts your oaths of loyalty. The liberty of your homeland will be the reward for your efforts. And while you defend your liberty with the force of your arms, the National Convention will defend it by the force of the laws. The monarchy is hereby abolished. So that Dominic was yet another person shouting loudly. one of many in our ongoing history of the French Revolution. And it was specifically Jérôme Pétillon, who was president of the National Convention on the 21st of September 1792. And obviously, the abolition of the French monarchy after centuries and centuries and centuries.

1:03I mean, this is a seismic moment, isn't it, in the history of France, but also of Europe. It's a massive moment, Tom. And I think the only voice that really is appropriate to the moment is the one you did there. I mean, because I detected more than a hint of our old friend, Jeremy Corbyn. Is that right? Yes, because I think that Jeremy Corbyn, he would definitely be on the side of abolishing the monarchy had he been in the French Revolution. I think he probably regrets that he wasn't part of the French Revolution. I imagine that is. Well, he's always got cable streets, hasn't he? So, yes, this is a massive moment in French and European history, isn't it?

1:37because the French monarchy, I guess, one of the oldest in Europe. If you take it back to Clovis, who we talked about just before Christmas, didn't we? So, yeah, I mean, that's the end of that story. Yes, it is. So it sends shockwaves across Europe. We will be talking about what it means. And of course, we'll be talking about what it means for Louis XVI. And we'll get to his story in our final episode. Nothing good. Nothing good. But before we get to the moment when they actually do abolish the monarchy, we should set the scene a little bit, Tom. We love setting the scene on this podcast. Well, we did in the previous episode.

2:08We set it in the context of the role of women, didn't we? But shall we go back to the lads? What are the lads up to? Let's set it in the context of Prussians and cannons. Oh, Prussians. So the situation in Paris, people will remember from the last episode, but one, Paris is preparing for an attack. There are church bells ringing. There are cannons on the River Seine that are calling people to prepare for war. The streets are packed with volunteers who are streaming towards the gates of the city to the front. people are pulling down the grills of churches they're digging up their coffins to use as lead for musket shots there are everyday contingents of troops marching through the national assembly singing patriotic songs and shouting slogans and stuff so it's all excitement jeremy corbyn would actually have loved it but it's not a sandbrook vibe is it not really a sandbrook vibe i would say um although slightly more sandbrookian somewhere out there yes the the doer defenders of reaction yes the woods and valleys to the east are the my people are the prussians the duke of brunswick the real hero of this story so on the 20th of september so that's the day before the reading that you began with the new national convention meets for the first time now some listeners if they've made it all the way through the series may be like i've lost track of all the different assemblies and whatnot so if you remember there had been the stormy the tuileries in august and since then france has been in political limbo and they have basically summoned yet another semi-constituent assembly this one has unlimited powers to remake the nation and it is by far the most democratic yet So all men over the age of 21, except for servants, can vote.

3:57Because we talked about that last time and you said that you weren't in favour of it. Yeah, I don't agree with this at all. I mean, I'm with the Duke of Brunswick on this. I think it's a dangerous innovation. Failed experiment. Yes, exactly. So it's a very complicated electoral system, a series of electors and kind of almost like an electoral college. And then they choose the 749 deputies. but as you said tom the turnout is really poor so in some places it might be a fifth but generally it's probably one in ten and the reason for that i think is there's a war on so it's you know people got other things in their mind but it's also harvest time um so in the countryside people have definitely got other barrizes and they actually a lot of people are now completely confused they're probably even more confused than listeners to the podcast they have no idea what's going on they don't know who anybody is yeah well yes exactly and also on top of that um there's quite a lot of intimidation isn't there there is that's another aspect to it of course remember we did that episode about mad elections in britain where you know people people being carried on chairs and whatnot and like lots of throwing of cats well similarly in france for the national convention the voting is public and it is oral you vote you know you say who you want to vote for So if you want to vote in favour of a royalist party, you're basically standing up and saying, I am a reactionary traitor to La Patrie in front of all your fellow villagers.

5:25I mean, it's not... Who are like holding clubs and stuff and sort of leering... Dead cats at the ready. Yeah, leering at you in a sinister way. So clearly, a lot of people just don't want to turn out. So in Paris, the voting has coincided with the September massacres. That's what we began this little kind of mini-series with. So the atmosphere is very grim because as people are voting, There is the kind of stepping over corpses, right? The dull sound of hacking coming from inside the walls of the converted convent just down the road. So what is worse, the second round of voting is held at the Jacobin Club.

6:02So if you are a royalist or reactionary, this is not the ideal place to go and to sort of pin your colours to the mast. And that round of voting, the Jacobin Club, they've got a lot of kind of electors, But they start by agreeing that they'll purge all electors who are feuillants, who are moderates, or who are royalists. So 200 electors are kicked out. There's 800 left. And they vote for 24 deputies. And of those deputies, a lot of those are very big revolutionary names. So the top of the list, number one, their top choice for Paris is Robespierre. And then you've got people like Danton, Desmoulins, Santerre, the butcher, the sans-culottes who led the attack on the Tuileries.

6:42Marat for the first time this firebrand radical journalist he is going to have a seat in the convention so there will be a place for the most extreme the most violent the most paranoid revolutionary sentiments and there's a place isn't there for the worst man in the entire history of the French Revolution yeah the erstwhile Duke of Orleans the cousin of Louis XVI Philip Egalité I mean we've talked about this before this is Prince Harry calling himself Harry Diversity or something renaming himself just so and actually and no harry equity harry equity yeah while living in his palace yeah that's what he'd call himself yeah harry equity anyway so they everybody goes to the tuileries on the 20th of september to register and they do so in an atmosphere of apocalyptic dread because they know that 140 miles away the prussians are there and that their troops their francis troops have basically caught up with the prussians and the duke of brunswick just to remind people, has said that he is going to inflict a biblical fate on Paris.

7:47He has, yeah. A vengeance which will be forever remembered, or words to that effect. So yes. Now of these guys who've turned up to register, about half of them are lawyers. We've got a lot of lawyers who are members of Arrested History Club, so they will love all this. They will see this as a very good sign. There's also loads of doctors, loads of civil servants, loads of actors, journalists they're very young by and large about half of them are under 40 about a quarter of them are under 35 the younger they are the more committed and more militant they are by and large so you know these aren't a lot of them have got experience in kind of local governments and stuff but these aren't incredibly seasoned people they are excited and excitable i think it's fair to say kind of quite a student union vibe definitely i mean this is the birth of the student union really I think it probably is.

8:37Yeah. Motions, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, they love it. And they're there all night, you know, just endlessly arguing and showing off in that student union. And drinking. Exactly. Next day, 21st of September, they assemble at the riding school, the Manège, for their first proper session. And this is the bit that you started with, Jérôme Petillon, because they've come straight to the central question. Let's reboot France, and it must be a republic. There's an actor, of course, called Colot de Bois. He ends up on the Committee of Public Safety, Leif de Rome. He says, let's just abolish the monarchy right away.

9:14No referendums and all that stuff. Let's just go for it. Some of the deputies say, really? No, you wouldn't let the people have a say on this? Such a massive question. And then the Bishop of Blois. So this is an interesting thing because, again, it complicates the slightly sort of stereotypical sense of the French Revolution because it's a bishop, Henri Gregoire, who says, kings are in the moral world what monsters are in the physical world their courts are the workshops of crime and the lairs of tyrants in other words no referendum let's just get rid and they they vote and then of course as so often happens in these kind of scenarios very student union once people work out which way the wind is blowing they all pile in yeah they all pile in so they make the vote unanimous they all start shouting vive la nation they're all terribly excited the The world has started again.

10:04But Dominic, just to pick up one thing that is intriguing, and it's a kind of absence, is that there isn't a kind of formal proclamation of the Republic. There's no official decree kind of installing it. And I just mentioned that because in the next episode, when we come to the trial of the king, I think that is significant. And I think that that is something that frames what will happen with the trial and the execution of the king. because although it is a new beginning, although they've had the vote, it's kind of they know what they're getting rid of, but they don't yet know what they're establishing.

10:38Yeah, I think that's a very fair point, actually, that there is a sense of historical time beginning again, but they don't really know what they all want because I suppose, Tom, they don't all want the same thing, as we shall see in this episode. So if you enjoy political factionalism, this is definitely the Restless History episode for you. Anyway, one of the interesting things about the French Revolution that we've talked about so much is the way it faces two ways. On the one hand, they're looking back to the Roman Republic, as you have described so many times. And on the other hand, they're genuinely thinking this is not just a whole new chapter, but it's basically a new volume in world history.

11:12So they say from September the 20th, all state documents must bear the date, year one of the French Republic. So this is where we get the beginning of the sort of French revolutionary calendar, the numbering system, year one, year two, and so on and so forth. But of course, whether they actually get beyond year one is not in their hands. It depends on events out on the battlefield. So let us now, let us leave Paris. Turn the camera. And turn the camera. Exactly. You know how my mind works. So remember where we got to. The Prussians have been marching all the way west from the border. They've got to the Argonne Forest.

11:54that's 130 or so miles away from Paris. It's pouring with rain, very Agincourt scenes, Tom. There's only one man who can stop them. And that man is a guy called General Charles-Francois du Maurier. So listeners may remember, he's this kind of grizzled, ex-secret agent, ex-Seven Years' War veteran who was foreign minister under the Girondins. He got France into this mess in the first place. And basically, he's in charge of the Eastern Front. He really wanted to, he loves fighting Belgians. He loves attacking Belgium. That's his dream. He wants to liberate Belgium. But the convention has basically said, forget about Belgium.

12:35There's a load of Prussians advancing on Paris. Get to the Valley of the Marne and stop them. There's a lot of maneuvering and faffing around. Do you want to go into detail about that? Do you know what? I could, I could, but I won't. because I don't want to try the patience of our less military-minded listeners. How many divisions are there on both sides? Loads. Couldn't be loads. So to cut a very long story short, the two armies end up faffing around and manoeuvring, and basically they end up on the wrong side of each other. So the Prussians are nearest Paris, and Dumourier is behind them with his back against the Argonne Forest.

13:20Now, the Duke of Brunswick could just ignore Dumouriez. He could have just dashed on, couldn't eat to Paris. He could, but he doesn't want to do that because that would mean Dumouriez could cut his supply lines, basically cut him off from the German states. And his men are very muddy and it's pouring rain. They're knackered. They're short of food. They're ravaged by illness. It feels a little bit Henry V before Agincourt. And he says, right, what we'll do is we'll stop here. We'll turn. We'll finish off Dumouriez. and then we can secure our supply lines and then we can go on to Paris. Jumuray is massively outnumbered, but very good news for him.

13:57So on the 19th, the day before the National Convention, they meet to register. He is reinforced by a second French army under General Kellerman. Who has a German name. He has a German name, very confusing. Yeah, that is confusing. So these troops that they have, by the way, everybody always thinks this is a great victory for kind of people in red bonnets shouting about the revolution But it's not, is it? They're all basically royalist officers and seasoned veterans and so on. They are. They are. These are like regular troops. And they also have a brilliant kind of new cannon. They do indeed. They have a very exciting new cannon.

14:31We love military technology on this podcast. They have new lightweight cannons that were specially designed after the French had shamed themselves in the Seven Years' War. Against Britain. Exactly. They'd lost to everybody, hadn't they? It had been a kind of world war. They'd been fighting the Prussians or whatever. So on the 20th, so this is the day that the National Convention were registering. On the 20th, it's a misty, foggy morning. Kellerman, outside this windmill, outside the village of Valmy, he lines up his men on this ridge. And he's got his lovely lightweight cannons that he's very keen to show off.

15:04The Prussians start firing with their cannons. Kellerman fires back with his. There's hundreds of guns blazing away through the fog. Now, do you know who was fighting for the Prussians? I do. It was Goethe, the great German writer, greatest German writer. Germanist top writer, Goethe. He was fighting with his patron, who was Grand Duke Karl Augustus Sachs Weimar. Was he actually fighting? I always wondered about that because I thought he'd just kind of, you know, he'd gone in the train and was writing a poem. Well, this is the thing. I think there's no evidence. I think of him actually shooting anybody.

15:38I can't imagine him in a uniform. That seems very odd. He must have been wearing uniform, though. because as we will discover, he's exchanging banter with the lads of the, of the battalion and stuff. Goethe said, I mean, you expect great prose from a great writer. Don't you? Do you know what he said? The earth literally trembled. It was a clash of Titans. France, a land of contrast. Anyway, the earth is literally trembling. Goethe can't believe it. What scenes? This goes on for hours and hours and hours. And then the Prussians eventually say, okay, enough. We've definitely softened the French up now.

16:14And Brunswick sends his infantry advancing in these kind of long lines, blue uniforms. They're advancing up the hill. They're convinced that the French are about to collapse. But no, General Kellerman takes off his hat with his tricolor cockade and he lifts it up on his sword and he shouts, Vive la nation! And then the French will start singing the Saira, one of their revolutionary songs. But interestingly, not the Marseillaise, which apparently there's no evidence that they sang that. So that may be another pointer to the fact that these are not the kind of the radicals, the cutting edge revolutionaries as yet.

16:50Right, exactly. I think the revolutionaries would love to rewrite this. This is Saint-Colot singing the Marseillaise. And indeed they do in subsequent years, but that's not true at all. So they're blasting away. The Prussians keep coming. The Prussians can't believe the French are so full of vim and vigor. and then basically the Prussians waver and Brunswick says, call them back, call them, you know, enough. And the French, against all the odds and all expectations because they performed so abysmally at the beginning of the war, they have actually, they haven't quite won, but they have survived to fight another day.

17:25So it's kind of scraping a result in the final match of a group round in the World Cup. Kind of a bit like that. I think it is a bit like that, but after you've, it's the draw that you need that keeps you alive in the group, I think is what it is. But that's because it's come unexpectedly. It's fated as a great victory. It's fated as a great victory. Exactly. That's exactly what it is. The Prussians actually have killed more Frenchmen than the French have killed Prussians. But for the first time, the Prussians have been stopped. They haven't been able to dislodge the French. And the reactions of the two sides could not be more different.

17:56So the Prussians are absolutely gutted. They can't believe it. Doesn't Goethe, he makes a famous comment in a very grandiloquent way. saying that this is, what is it? Something like, gentlemen, you have witnessed the dawning of a new age. I felt you were gearing up to do him as Jeremy Corbyn there, which would have been a shame. So Goethe says, there's a wonderful scene. It's the great vanity of great writers. He says, they all sat alone around this fire. They're all really miserable. They couldn't meet each other's eye. And he says, everybody asked me what I thought about the events of the day as, and I quote, my little sayings had often interested or amused our little company.

18:35And I think, what an insufferable bore he must have been to all the other soldiers. So he said to everybody, from this place and from this day forth commences a new era in the world's history, and you can all say you are present at its birth. Now, so I'll tell you something. I don't believe he did say that. I think that's far too good to be true. And he writes this a considerable time afterwards. So I'm suspicious of Goethe here. I think he's playing fast and loose with the facts. because it's too good a line. That's what writers do, Dominic. It is what they do. Anyway, for the French, this is massive.

19:12So there's a peasant soldier who writes to his father and he says, we've been electrified with a new courage that will make despots tremble. Oh, liberty. Oh, equality. Oh, my country. What a wonderful transformation. It's like listening to Theo. I mean, if peasants are writing like that after the battle, then maybe Goethe is saying that kind of thing. Maybe, Tom. I mean, maybe they're all massive effusions. they all feel that this is titanic i don't know i just yeah no fair that's fair so lots of people say gosh this is a tremendous victory for the for the new republic for our revolutionary virtue and when of course when the news reaches the convention they're all waving their hats in the air and delighted and they say absolutely brilliant history has begun again it is a new chapter in the story of the human race and i've got a question which is that the news reaches paris after the monarchy has been abolished.

20:05Is there a feeling that this victory has been won because France is now a republic? Do you think there's something like that? Yeah, we've got rid of the king and the traitors. And immediately we start winning. Yeah, as soon as we took those blokes into the courtyards of various prisons and dispensed summary justice, and as soon as we locked the king up in the temple fortress, surprise, surprise, we start winning battles. You know, quadrat demonstrandum, the king was a traitor and was undermining the war efforts. And that is what happened with the first democracy when Athens establishes its democracy, having thrown out its tyrants.

20:40They immediately start winning battles and presumably people would have been aware of this. Maybe this is an ironclad law of history, Tom, or maybe it's just a coincidence. Anyway. Well, it is because they actually win the battle before the proclamation of the Republic, right? Yeah. Well, also they don't really win the battle. It's just a draw. So you would think that this would fill them all with great bonhomie, sense of harmony, come on, let's bury that ideological hatchet and work together for the common good, you would be wrong. Because actually, from the beginning, I know you wouldn't be wrong, Tom.

21:13I know you know that what's going to happen. The convention is riven by the most unbelievable faction fighting. So basically, there are three blocks. And maybe we don't need to spend an eternity discussing them, but a little bit of context. First of all, you have Brissot and the Girondin. So if you remember, these are not really a Parisian party. They're a party of the kind of big provincial cities like Bordeaux. Because that's where Girondin comes from, isn't it? It's the Northern Bank. Exactly. They're all hanging around having dinner with Madame Roland in her apartment and swapping witty aphorisms.

21:48And they've basically got about 150 deputies in the convention that will always support them. And they can call on some independents to give them a majority. then you have the great mass of people who are kind of in the middle they are called the they're called the marsh which seems a very you know it's not very i wouldn't want to be part of the marsh what's that centrist dads the cent oh right okay very good yeah well they're not really centrist dads are they because everybody's now on the left but um they are the marsh or the the plane people call them because they sit in the middle of the hall and they basically you know they can lean one way or the other but at this point they are generally swayed by the girondin and then you have the radicals on the far left they're called the mountain the montagna and they sit high up in the left of the hall hence the mountain there's about 200 of them 150 to 200 they're very parisian robespierre danton marat all the famous guys the ones that people have heard of um they They dominate the Jacobin club now because the Jean-Ordin don't bother turning up to it.

22:54And they also appeal to two groups. Very young deputies are much more likely to be Montagnard. They're likely to be kind of more impatient, more ambitious, more radical. And this is the first manifestation of a sense that runs right the way up to the present day, that the young are inclined to back more radical solutions on the left, right? I mean, this is the first manifestation of it. I think that's absolutely right. They also appeal to deputies, interestingly, who come from very isolated kind of places, who've basically been the one radical in their village, who therefore feel very embattled.

23:26And when they arrive in Paris, they are delighted to find friends. And their being embattled has made them more radical, I guess. That must be very exciting for them. Oh, yeah. I think there's a definite sense of excitement. and of the Montagnards basically now we think of them as being a party ruled by the triumvirate of Robespierre Danton and Marat I mean they really are the big three of the French Revolution aren't they the triumvirate you might almost say but they're not like a triumvirate they actually don't really get on with each other Robespierre hates Marat doesn't he Robespierre despises Marat won't have anything to do with him like refuses to have anything to do with him I think because Robespierre is so chilly and he's so worried about his wig and his kind of boniness.

24:09He's got great skin. Yeah. And Mara doesn't wear a wig, has terrible skin, awful, sits in baths. Right. Both Danton and Mara have terrible skin, don't they? Danton is too busy stuffing himself with... Chicken legs. Yeah. And also taking brown envelopes of cash. Mara is just shouting about killing everybody and being very over the top and stuff. So actually, they're all quite suspicious of each other, these three. They don't work together as a tight-knit unit. I guess the other question is, are these kind of ideological, political parties of the kind that we would recognize today? And the answer, again, I think no.

24:45The Montagnon and the Girondins to outside observers seem to have loads in common. You know, they're all Republicans. They all believe in the war, all of that stuff. There are two things, I think, that are really important, the differences. So one of them is the idea of the people. The Girondins, because they're kind of merchant class from Bordeaux and stuff. they basically think that people like them should be running the revolution you know people who go to literary salons and quote poetry to each other yeah whereas rob spear in the montagnard they think they're suspicious of that they are pure populists they're all about the common people the virtues of the street you know the people of paris know better yeah a poor urchin knows much better than you know it's that kind of it's rousseau isn't it It's very Rousseau.

25:30It's very Rousseau. It's almost very Christian, is it not? I'm surprised you didn't say that. Of course. But I mean, you know, this is what I think about everything in the French Revolution. That's true. Yes, that goes without saying. The other thing that's perhaps a little less Christian is the Montagnon are also much keener on violence. No, but you see, I think that is pretty Christian. Virtuous violence. Yeah. Crusades, inquisitions. Okay. Let's just assume you're thinking of everything. No, I don't think of everything because obviously you can have non-Christian violence. But I think the idea of violence being virtuous, that's where it's coming from.

26:03Yes. As you'd expect, because this is 18th century France and displays of violent virtue are everywhere. Yeah, fair enough. So obviously the most visible sign of virtuous violence has been the September massacres, which the Montagnards were all for. But the Girondins are actually a little bit conflicted about the September massacres. Robespierre thought all this was brilliant. He loved the attack on the Tuileries. He loved the September massacres. He thinks the fact that Girondins are being a bit squeamish shows that they are suspects, counter-revolutionary and all that kind of thing. Tom, I can see you're itching to say something.

26:36What is so interesting and fascinating about this is that you see for the first time the manifestation of political trends that just repeat and repeat and repeat. And surely what is happening with the Girondins and the Montagnards is the notion that people on the left can be outflanked to their left and therefore are always moving leftwards to try and avoid that. And so the radicals of one month can suddenly find themselves the reactionaries of the next month. And it means that there's an impetus always to go further and further, whether you are backing, you know, the people are always right, or whether you are saying virtue is manifest in violence.

27:13If you start saying, oh, I'm not sure about that, then immediately you are a reactionary. And that is a trend that you see again and again and again throughout the history of 19th century socialism and right the way up to the present day. Absolutely. You're totally right. That sort of ratchet effect. And in fact, I was just thinking if somebody missed a couple of episodes of the series, if they'd skipped ahead, they'd be like, hold on, those people were on the far left two episodes ago. Now you're describing them as counter-revolutionary reactionaries because, as you say, the centre of gravity is always moving leftwards.

27:45What's on the Girondins' mind as well, by the way, is the fact that during the September massacres, there is some evidence that Robespierre and Marat had actually toyed with the idea of killing them too. So Robespierre, on the day the massacres had broken out, the 2nd of September, he had been giving a speech in the Commune, the sort of city council of Paris, in which he had said that the Girondins were secretations of the Prussians and perfidious intrigues working against French liberty. Now, anyone who's listened to the whole of this series will know how bonkers that is because the Girondins were the key people in getting France into the war in the first place.