History UsefulNotes / TheFrenchRevolution

* CycleOfRevenge: The Revolution became this slowly. The people largely wanted revenge against the aristocrats for centuries of oppression and indentured servitude. In the post-Thermidor, Girondins and Thermidorians would hunt Jacobin sympathizers on a large scale. Later during the Bourbon restoration, regicides, people who voted for the King's death were hunted down, executed or exiled forever, with some managing to weasel their way despite doing those things like Fouche.

* DemocracyIsFlawed[=/=]DemocracyIsBad: The French People basically fought to overthrow the oligarchy and institute a people's government. It worked, and what it amounted to was the people enacting Mob Rule and civil war. At best, France's democracy after the Revolution was flawed, and at worst, it was bad. A third option is to simply regard the outcome as logical for a young nation beset by a siege mentality, facing invasions from all sides and unlike the American Revolution lacked the Atlantic Ocean to provide some geographic buffer.

* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: The instigators of the Reign of Terror actually ''called it that''. Maximilien Robespierre used it to define the climate of siege and necessity which called for it.

** Likewise, the Jacobins, under Robespierre, were embattled and taking control of a city under siege, coping with massive GambitPileup, having to somehow build an army capable of defeating a Coalition of European powers alongside massive desertion and defection of soldiers, all of which to them justified the Terror. And this was directly a consequence of the Girondin Party declaring war with Austria, which Robespierre protested against to start with it.

* {{Conscription}}: The TropeMaker. Revolutionary France was the first government to pass universal conscription for all able-bodied Frenchmen.

* DecidedByOneVote: A very pupular [[HollywoodHistory myth]] about Louis XVI's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution#Execution_of_Louis_XVI execution]]. Execution was in fact widely ahead, but if you add the "death with delaying conditions" to the opposing votes, it comes to this.

--> ''"Soldiers, we have come to avenge you, and to give you leaders who will marshal you to victory. We have resolved to seek out, to reward, and to promote the deserving; and to track down all the guilty, whoever they may be.... All commanders, officers, and agents of the government are hereby ordered to satisfy within three days the just grievances of the soldiers. After that interval we will ourselves hear any complaints, and we will offer such examples of justice and severity as the Army has not yet witnessed."''

* StayInTheKitchen: While overall FairForItsDay as far as women's rights goes, the Revolution's famous Declaration of Rights of Man did not mention women, as Olympe de Gouges, a feminist pointed out. Despite this, several women, working class and aristocratic were prominent in the event. The Women's March to Versailles being the most famous, as well as Revolutionary Republican Women led by actresses Claire Lacombe. However, the Jacobins unexpectedly shut down all women's organizations during the ReignOfTeror particularly due to their closeness to Hebertists. [[{{Irony}} They did this, partly to appease the sans-cullotes who were complaining about women in the streets and not in the homes]]. While it campaigned for universal male suffrage, women's voting rights were not advanced in France during this period and it would take till 1944 for women to get the vote in France[[note]]The National Assembly approved it several times between 1918 and 1939, but the Senate would always refuse it, and at the time, it was [[ObstructiveBureaucrat impossible to bypass the its approval]].[[/note]]

** Robespierre was an aversion, his jaw was shattered which meant that he was carried forward with a handkerchief tied to his cheek and just when his head was placed in the Guillotine, the handkerchief was yanked away leading him to scream loudly in pain as the blade dropped down.

* StayInTheKitchen: While overall FairForItsDay as far as women's rights goes, the Revolution's famous Declaration of Rights of Man did not mention women, as Olympe de Gouges, a feminist pointed out. Despite this, several women, working class and aristocratic were prominent in the event. The Women's March to Versailles being the most famous, as well as Revolutionary Republican Women led by actresses Claire Lacombe. However, the Jacobins unexpectedly shut down all women's organizations during the ReignOfTeror particularly due to their closeness to Hebertists. They did this, partly to appease the sans-cullotes who were complaining about women in the streets and not in the homes. While it campaigned for universal male suffrage, women's voting rights were not advanced in France during this period and it would take till 1944 for women to get the vote in France.

* StayInTheKitchen: While overall FairForItsDay as far as women's rights goes, the Revolution's famous Declaration of Rights of Man did not mention women, as Olympe de Gouges, a feminist pointed out. Despite this, several women, working class and aristocratic were prominent in the event. The Women's March to Versailles being the most famous, as well as Revolutionary Republican Women led by actresses Claire Lacombe. However, the Jacobins unexpectedly shut down all women's organizations during the ReignOfTeror particularly due to their closeness to Hebertists. They did this, partly to appease the sans-cullotes who were complaining about women in the streets and not in the homes...

-->-- Creator/MarkTwain

* ReignOfTerror: The TropeNamer.

* BigBad: Louis XVI, then Robespierre.

* ConspiracyTheory: There are claims that TheIlluminati or the Freemasonry (or ''both'') have secretly orchestrated the French Revolution (despite the Illuminatis' official disbandment years earlier). Over the century, this suffered MemeticMutation to give us what things are now with the Illuminati as the OmniscientCouncilOfVagueness doing things (mostly) ForTheEvulz.

* GrayAndGreyMorality: Whether your sympathies are royalist or republican, neither side comes out particularly well. Both of them were in extremely difficult positions in a situation that was going out of control, with Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette paying the price of a corrupt system that punished them precisely because they were not as cruel as they were supposed to be. Likewise, the Jacobins, under Robespierre, were embattled and taking control of a city under siege, coping with massive GambitPileup, having to somehow build an army capable of defeating a Coalition of European powers alongside massive desertion and defection of soldiers, all of which to them justified the Terror.
** Creator/MarkTwain who always supported the Revolution actually discussed the legacy of the ReignOfTerror in '''A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'' in this light:
--> ''"If we really think about it, there were two Reigns of Terror; in one people were murdered in hot and passionate violence; in the other they died because people were heartless and did not care. One Reign of Terror lasted a few months; the other had lasted for a thousand years; one killed a thousand people, the other killed a hundred million people. However, we only feel horror at the French Revolution's Reign of Terror. But how bad is a quick execution, if you compare it to the slow misery of living and dying with hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heartbreak? A city cemetery is big enough to contain all the bodies from that short Reign of Terror, but the whole country of France isn't big enough to hold the bodies from the other terror. We are taught to think of that short Terror as a truly dreadful thing that should never have happened: but none of us are taught to recognize the other terror as the real terror and to feel pity for those people."''

* HazyFeelTurn: Jacques-Louis David, the talented painter, prominent supporter of the Robespierre, and the chief propagandist of the Revolution and the Terror. He then managed to weasel out of a death sentence when Robespierre was guillotined and later became a great supporter of NapoleonBonaparte. This resulted in the ironic fact that the most famous image glorifying the Revolution (''La Mort de Marat'') was painted by the same man who created the most famous image glorifying Napoleon (''Napoleon Crosses the Alps''), the man who ended the Revolution.

In a way he was right, the French Revolution unlike the American one featured for the very first time, universal male suffrage (women did not get the vote, sadly, in this it was aligned with the American revolution) by which every citizen in France of a certain age, regardless of occupation and vote was given a vote. Suffrage in America at least in its early days was limited to property owners. The French National Convention election in 1792 was the first time in the modern era that it was practiced. Suffrage after Thermidor would be increasingly restricted until returning in the Second Republic. The French Revolution also developed a reform program during the ReignOfTerror that aimed at fixing the price of bread, regulating the market and wealth redistribution. One aspect in which the French Revolution went further than America was the fact that it witnessed in February 1794, the first occasion in the ruling government of a Western power where slavery was outright abolished in an act of law, partly out of principles but also because of the pressures of the Revolution in Haiti which was happening side by side. When Napoleon took power, these and other reforms were set back and made illegal again.

The French Revolution is usually considered to be a radical alternative to UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution. Ironically, at the time the French and American revolutions were seen as ideological twins (subject peoples inspired by [[RomanticismVersusEnlightenment radical liberal ideas]] overthrowing aristocracies, lead by radicalised members of the middle class like Robespierre and Washington) and supporters of one were usually supporters of the other (Creator/ThomasPaine, the Anglo-US radical, considered a traitor by the British for his support of the American revolution, was an equally-fierce supporter of the revolution in France; he later turned against the leaders of both considering them what we would now call sell-outs). Also ironically, the most famous man to say anything about both revolutions, Irish statesman Edmund Burke, supported the American Revolution but not the one in France - he supported the Americans because they were fighting for freedom but opposed what the French were doing because they were trying to change too much too fast and based only on largely untested ideas. Though much of his rhetoric was couched in anti-Semitic harangue that argued against the [[ValuesDissonance "Jew brokers"]] who ran the Revolution. Modern "interpretations" of the events of the period usually say much more about contemporary politics and bickering than they do about the late 18th century.

** One could actually be executed for not being enthusiastic enough, let alone against the Revolution.
*** Or even suggesting an expansion of the scope of the terror. Yes, Robespierre considered extremists like Hebert to actually be counter-revolutionaries (they were more bloodthirsty than him though).

* NeverLiveItDown: Jean-Paul Marat accomplished a lot of things during his life, but most people in France essentially remember him as "the guy who got assassinated in his bathtub". The reason why he got assassinated there was that he had a skin condition that required hydrotherapy and the bath-tub was actually his office

The French Revolution is usually considered to be a radical alternative to UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution. Ironically, at the time the French and American revolutions were seen as ideological twins (subject peoples inspired by [[RomanticismVersusEnlightenment radical liberal ideas]] overthrowing aristocracies, lead by radicalised members of the middle class like Robespierre and Washington) and supporters of one were usually supporters of the other (Creator/ThomasPaine, the Anglo-US radical, considered a traitor by the British for his support of the American revolution, was an equally-fierce supporter of the revolution in France; he later turned against the leaders of both considering them what we would now call sell-outs). Also ironically, the most famous man to say anything about both revolutions, Irish statesman Edmund Burke, supported the American Revolution but not the one in France - he supported the Americans because they were fighting for freedom but opposed what the French were doing because they were trying to change too much too fast and based only on largely untested ideas. Though much of his rhetoric was couched in anti-Semitic harangue that argued against the "Jew brokers" who ran the Revolution. Modern "interpretations" of the events of the period usually say much more about contemporary politics and bickering than they do about the late 18th century.

* NapoleonBonaparte ended this when he took direct power. [[SarcasmMode It's not like he caused any more mess.]] At least he stabilized the country and its institutions.

** A lot of 20th Century writers, including Hannah Arendt and recently, Hilary Mantel, have come to see Robespierre himself this way. Even a critic like Francois Furet noted that Robespierre represented the Revolution at its best and most tragic discourse.
* AristocratsAreEvil: A very influential trope. Though a lot of films and literature set in this time focus equally on MobViolence.

* DecidedByOneVote: A very pupular [[HollywoodHistory myth]] about Louis XVI's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution#Execution_of_Louis_XVI execution]]. Execution was in fact widely ahead, but if you add the "death with delaying conditions" to the opposing votes, it comes to this.
* DemocracyIsFlawed[=/=]DemocracyIsBad: The French People basically fought to overthrow the oligarchy and institute a people's government. It worked, and what it amounted to was the people enacting Mob Rule and civil war. At best, France's democracy after the Revolution was flawed, and at worst, it was bad.

* EarlyBirdCameo: France survived the foreign invasions in no small part due to the brilliance of its military leaders. One of these leaders was a young Napoleon Bonaparte, who was developing the skills and earning the fame that would serve him well later on.

The French Revolution is usually considered to be a radical alternative to UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution. Ironically, at the time the French and American revolutions were seen as ideological twins (subject peoples inspired by [[RomanticismVersusEnlightenment radical liberal ideas]] overthrowing aristocracies, lead by radicalised members of the middle class like Robespierre and Washington) and supporters of one were usually supporters of the other (Creator/ThomasPaine, the Anglo-US radical, considered a traitor by the British for his support of the American revolution, was an equally-fierce supporter of the revolution in France; he later turned against the leaders of both considering them what we would now call sell-outs). Also ironically, the most famous man to say anything about both revolutions, Irish statesman Edmund Burke, supported the American Revolution but not the one in France - he supported the Americans because they were fighting for freedom but opposed what the French were doing because they were trying to change too much too fast and based only on largely untested ideas. Modern "interpretations" of the events of the period usually say much more about contemporary politics and bickering than they do about the late 18th century.

* BlackAndGreyMorality: Whether your sympathies are royalist or republican, neither side comes out particularly well.

* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: The overwhelming conservative opinion. And at least for some pre-Terror liberals and leftists.

The rest of Europe, which was still ruled by kings and emperors, were alarmed at what was happening in France. Many of the rest of Europe's great powers eventually invaded France in the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolutionary_Wars French Revolutionary Wars]], either to forcibly put the Bourbons back on the throne, prevent the revolution from spreading to their own lands or even to take advantage of the chaos in France. Over the course of the war, the French proved to be anything '''but''' CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys, repeatedly thrashing everyone from Great Britain to Austria to the Holy Roman Empire to Spain. A young NapoleonBonaparte [[EarlyBirdCameo was among France's generals]], developing the reputation and skills that would serve him so well later in his career, at the same time building his contacts among revolutionaries in different factions. He was initially a Jacobin and supporter of the Terror, it was Robespierre's brother Augustin who gave him his first major promotion. During the Thermidor, Napoleon was briefly imprisoned for his association with Robespierre but later released. He became a national revolt by defending Paris on 13 Vendemmiare against the Vendee royalist faction. He commanded the defense and won it, in Carlyle's phrase, with a "whiff of grapeshot" and didn't even have a scratch.

Simmer for a few years, then let the poor boil over, form mobs called the sans culotte (literally "without knee breaches", as in they wore trousers), and kill anyone they can catch, including the cream of the country's scientists, musicians, judges, educators, and artists. Burn to the ground any department that raises any objections. Spread lots of stories about Marie-Antoinette's sexual escapades and supposed indifference to the poor and Louis's supposed cruelty to justify your actions, and finish by executing everyone who instigated the revolution. Don't bother to actually feed the poor, though.

The revolution started with many liberal and progressive ideas. The Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen, declared many rights that are now considered basic human rights. In a radical idea at the time, divorce was legalized and so was, surprisingly, homosexual sex. Guilds were abolished, allowing more people to enter professions that had been protected by stringent requirements meant to protect its members from competition. Church lands were seized, and clergy were forced to swear an oath to the new constitution. At first the King seemed to be embracing the idea of a constitutional monarchy, even swearing an oath to uphold the constitution. However, in a scathing letter left behind when he escaped Paris, he made it clear that this was not the case. On the 10th of August 1792, the sans culottes and the National Guard attacked the Tuileries Palace and slaughtered the Swiss Guard guarding the royal family. The constitutional monarchy was no more, with the king placed under arrest. From there all order was lost, with the government declaring itself revolutionary and declaring terror to be its official policy.

The rest of Europe, which was still ruled by kings and emperors, were alarmed at what was happening in France. Many of the rest of Europe's great powers eventually invaded France in the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolutionary_Wars French Revolutionary Wars]], either to forcibly put the Bourbons back on the throne, prevent the revolution from spreading to their own lands or even to take advantage of the chaos in France. Over the course of the war, the French proved to be anything '''but''' CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys, repeatedly thrashing everyone from Great Britain to Austria to the Holy Roman Empire to Spain. A young NapoleonBonaparte [[EarlyBirdCameo was among France's generals]], developing the reputation and skills that would serve him so well later in his career.

* The Reign of Terror under Robespierre killed at least 16,594 people and may have gone as high as 66,000.

** National Convention (1792-1795)

* AristocratsAreEvil: A very influential trope.

** Conspiracy theories were popular. Both the Jacobin and Cordeliers Club included rooting out counter-revolutionary conspiracies in their mission statements. After the fall of the king, the sans culottes believed there was a counter-revolutionary conspiracy among prisoners, leading to what is known as the September Massacres.

--> ''"Citizens, do you want a revolution without a revolution?"''

* MoreDeadlyThanTheMale: That was the ''tricoteuses''' reputation, anyway.

* NeverLiveItDown: Jean-Paul Marat accomplished a lot of things during his life, but most people in France essentially remember him as "the guy who got assassinated in his bathtub".

* TheRemnant: The Royalists of Vendée and the Chouans saw themselves as this, along with LaResistance, in their uprising from 1793-1799. Their defiance and utter zeal caught the admiration of NapoleonBonaparte. [[NeverLiveItDown But even to this day, many of their descendants don't take to the Republic well.]]
* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: The overwhelming conservative opinion.
* TheRevolutionWillNotBeVilified: [[AngryMobSong ''La Marseillaise'']] is now the French national anthem because of this.

* SelfMadeMan: Arguably, NapoleonBonaparte. The Revolution had given him an opportunity to rise up the ranks to become the legendary general-turned-Emperor known to history. Especially through a mix of ability (merit replacing social standing in the military) and connections with some of the Revolution's leaders.

** That's taking the short view. The House of Bourbon couldn't maintain an absolute monarchy for long and constitutional reforms were gradually introduced. The French monarchy in 1815 was ''very'' different from the one in 1789.

* EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether: Robespierre and Desmoulins were friends in law school; they wound up as political enemies, resulting in Desmoulins's execution. Louis XVI was there to hear Robespierre's valedictorian speech. Also, Napoleon went to school and was friends with Augustin Robespierre, Maximilien's younger brother.

* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: The instigators of the Reign of Terror actually ''called it that''.

** The British ''hate'' when this is pointed out, but they did exactly the same as the French, [[EnglishCivilWar just one century before]]. They ousted the King, judged him in Parliament, beheaded him, established a republic[[note]]"commonwealth" is a LiteralTranslation of the Latin "''res publica''", which gave "republic"[[/note]] which ended in a dictatorship, paving the way for the return of the kings. What sets them apart is the French Revolution's bigger focus upon equality and its messianism while the English Civil War had its' [[RealMenLoveJesus religious overtones.]]

The more cynical version of the French Revolution wasn't nearly that much fun. Start with a series of nations (Britanny, Gascogne, etcetc) that kind of hate and have to share a realm with each other as well as being drained by three major world wars in the last hundred years and lots of smaller ones besides (UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution in particular, which basically boiled down to Britain vs France [[note]]The Revolutionary War had fronts in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and India[[/note]] with Britain to get back for [[UsefulNotes/SevenYearsWar the last one]]), add some conspicuously expensive-to-make-and-keep royal palaces and in a new and very young king and queen who don't have a clue how to run the country (it doesn't help that their young son died in the early weeks of the Revolutionary period), throw in a rigid social system more or less akin to castes, a famine that makes bread too expensive for the average person in the Parisian Basin to buy, and don't forget to add a heaping helping of bitter, crude, ranting over the "[[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Austrian Bitch]]" at Versailles and an arbitrary non-income-based tax system that meant far too many people's tax demand was greater than their entire income.

The more cynical version of the French Revolution wasn't nearly that much fun. Start with a nation bankrupted by the construction of palaces and drained by wars (UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution in particular, which France had decided was an excellent opportunity for a world war[[note]]The Revolutionary War had fronts in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and India[[/note]] with Britain to get back for [[UsefulNotes/SevenYearsWar the last one]]), add in a new and very young king and queen who don't have a clue how to run the country (it doesn't help that their young son died in the early weeks of the Revolutionary period), throw in a rigid social system more or less akin to castes, a famine that makes bread too expensive for the average person to buy, and don't forget to add a heaping helping of bitter, crude, ranting over the "[[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Austrian Bitch]]" at Versailles and an arbitrary non-income-based tax system that meant many people's tax demand was greater than their entire income.

* HistoricalVillainUpgrade: [[WellIntentionedExtremist Robespierre]] did some less than commendable things in the name of the Republic, but he was co-author of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, he advocated against the death penalty and was involved in such causes as the abolition of slavery, eliminating the property qualification to be represented in government, and granting rights to Protestants and Jews . Tell that to some fictional portrayals.