History UsefulNotes / TheFrenchRevolution

* ThePurge: The ReignOfTerror eerily anticipates the Soviet examples. The jury is still out if it was genuinely driven by stresses and tensions of wartime necessity and siege mentality, or a result of Robespierre's desire for power which lead him to cull other factions. After Thermidor, there was the White Terror, where the Thermidorians hunted down Jacobins and Robespierre holdouts, even sponsoring street gangs such as the "jeunesse doree" and the Muscadins who killed with impunity. After Robespierre's death, the Thermidor executed 77 supporters in a single day, the largest single mass guillotine during the Revolution.

** Theroigne de Mericourt, a highly flamboyant female revolutionary was called ''[[LadyOfWar The Red Amazon]]'' for her tendency to dress in Red and Black riding gear. Charlotte Corday came to be called ''[[FemmeFatale L'ange de l'assassinat]]'' (The Angel of Assassination). Therese Cabarras, who seduced Tallien [[note]]She would dump him later and move on to other men like the smart girl she was[[/note]] and often intervened to save others from the guillotine, was called ''Notre Dame de Bon Secours''(Our Lady of Good Fortune) and when [[IHaveYourWife Robespierre finally imprisoned her]], driving Tallien to depose him, she came to be called, ''Notre Dame de Thermidor''(Our Lady of Thermidor).

* TheManBehindTheMan: Paul Barras is probably quite close to this. A wealthy bourgeois and minor Nobleman, he was an active member of the Jacobin Club and hoped to profit from the revolution via his business contacts and his network in the Provence. He was an active terrorist and quite unscrupulous, which earned him Robespierre's loathing. He plotted Robespierre's downfall with Fouche and Tallien. During the revolution, he established contacts with many former aristocrats and even counted Therese Cabarras and the young Marie-Rose Joseph de Tascher as his mistress. When Napoleon renamed Marie-Rose as Josephine, Paul Barras sponsored the wedding and his rise to power. He somehow managed to get a cozy exile during the Bourbon restoration despite having voted for the death of the King.

* TheNicknamer: The Citizens of Paris loved bestowing nicknames on public figures:
** Marie Antoinette was called ''L'Autrichienne, Madame Deficit'' and ''Madame Veto''. Her husband who was initially liked came to be called "Monsieur Veto".
** Danton was called ''[[BoisterousBruiser The Titan, Jove the Thunderer, Mirabeau of the Masses]]'', Lazare Carnot was called ''[[BadassBureaucrat Organizer of Victory]]'', Robespierre was called ''[[ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules L'Incorruptible]]'' almost to the point of being used nearly as often as his real name.
** Saint-Just wins prizes for the coolest and scariest - ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Angel of Death]]''.

* PropagandaMachine: Jacques-Louis David was a one-man prima-donna dedicated to the awesomeness of the Revolution, and later Napoleon. He was a major driver of all the festivals and cultural programs during the Revolution, his paintings of classical themes such as ''The Oath of the Horatii'' and ''The Death of Socrates'' featured the fashionable Graeco-Roman themes. His triumph however was ''The Death of Marat'' where a lurid crime scene gets the same treatment as a Christian painting, lionizing Marat as a martyr to the Republic. David worked extensively with Robespierre on the notorious Festival of the Supreme Being, essentially the son-and-image theatrical event avant-la-lettre. After Thermidor, he came to the attention of Napoleon (a canny propagandist himself) and painted several iconic portraits that built his legend.

** Once Napoleon's expedition to recover Haiti failed (which resulted in 50,000 casualties...far moreso than the ReignOfTerror), he negotiated the Louisiana Purchase with Jefferson, giving up hope on reclaiming France's New World colonies and turning to Europe. Several historians argue that had the Haitian Republic not repulsed Napoleon, a French New World base would have inevitably resulted in [[ForWantOfANail a Napoleonic war with the United States]]. Despite this, America refused to give Haiti official recognition until after the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar.

An example of the variety of viewpoints is: in England "Jacobin" means "Jacobin", in America "Jacobin" means "fanatic", in Austria "Jacobin" means people like Alexander I of Russia, and in France "Jacobin" means "anti-federalists". To this day, the [[UsefulNotes/StandardEuropeanPoliticalLandscape European political spectrum]] is largely oriented by one's opinions on the French Revolution: the terms "left" and "right" themselves originate in where the delegates sat in the national assembly (other cool terms like Montagnard (Mountaineer) have not survived). Broadly speaking, liberalism consists in agreeing with it only so far as it went before the Reign of Terror; socialism consists in extending and "perfecting" it; conservatism consists in working within the structures it creates but either thinking it went too far/too fast or disliking it; and reaction consists in trying to do away with it altogether. These notions have slipped a lot with time, the modern meaning of these terms being quite different. RedOctober and WorldWarII changed these positions (for instance fascism was added, encompassing a combination of socialism's revolutionary spirit with a conservative/reactionary twist on its ideals), but did little to alter the overall orientation.

* ''Farewell, My Queen'' a 2012 French film starring Diane Kruger as Marie Antoinette.

* ''A Place of Greater Safety''

** The calendar entirely operated in decimal measures. Each Day had 10 Hours, Each Hour Had 100 Minutes and Each Minute Had 100 Seconds. Each month had thirty days organized in three weeks called Decades, the tenth day of each week was called the decadi and a public holiday. A leap year likewise had five extra days. Each year had 12 months divided into sets of three months to reflect the four seasons of Autumn (Vendémiaire [[note]]from Latin vindemia, "grape harvest"[[/note]], Brumaire [[note]] From brume, French for "fog"[[/note]], Frimaire [[note]] (From French frimas, "frost")[[/note]]), Winter (Nivôse [[note]] from Latin nivosus, "snowy"[[/note]], Pluviôse [[note]]from Latin pluvius, "rainy"[[/note]], Ventôse [[note]](from Latin ventosus, "windy")[[/note]]), Spring, (Germinal [[note]]from Latin germen, "germination"[[/note]], Floréal [[note]]from Latin flos, "flower"[[/note]], Prairial [[note]](from French prairie, "pasture")[[/note]]) and Summer (Messidor[[note]]Harvest[[/note]], Thermidor[[note]]summer heat[[/note]], Fructidor[[note]]Fruitful Month[[/note]]). There is a conversion table [[http://www.shtukoviny.ru/calendar/index.html for contemporary dates into the French Calendar]]. The real problems with the use of the calendar aside from widespread cultural inertia with the Gregorian calendar, is that the new months while corresponding well, more or less, with the seasonal structure of France was useless in colonies where a Snowy Month (Nivôse) doesn't snow and so on. The other issue was that there were only three ''decadis'', i.e. Sundays rather than the four-to-five Sundays per month in the Gregorian leading workers to complain about having their free time taken from them.

** The calendar entirely operated in decimal measures. Each Day had 10 Hours, Each Hour Had 100 Minutes and Each Minute Had 100 Seconds. Each month had thirty days organized in three weeks called Decades, the tenth day of each week was called the decadi and a public holiday. A leap year likewise had five extra days. They still kept months to reflect the four seasons of Autumn (Vendémiaire [[note]]from Latin vindemia, "grape harvest"[[/note]], Brumaire [[note]] From brume, French for "fog"[[/note]], Frimaire [[note]] (From French frimas, "frost")[[/note]]), Winter (Nivôse [[note]] from Latin nivosus, "snowy"[[/note]], Pluviôse [[note]]from Latin pluvius, "rainy"[[/note]], Ventôse [[note]](from Latin ventosus, "windy")[[/note]]), Spring, (Germinal [[note]]from Latin germen, "germination"[[/note]], Floréal [[note]]from Latin flos, "flower"[[/note]], Prairial [[note]](from French prairie, "pasture")[[/note]]) and Summer (Messidor[[note]]Harvest[[/note]], Thermidor[[note]]summer heat[[/note]], Fructidor[[note]]Fruitful Month[[/note]]). There is a conversion table [[http://www.shtukoviny.ru/calendar/index.html for contemporary dates into the French Calendar]].

Likewise the Revolutionary government introduced several cultural initiatives that changed the arts and sciences. The most successful were a [[TheMetricSystemIsHereToStay bunch of units]] introduced by the National Convention in Year 3 (1795) like the meter[[note]]The meter was originally defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the north pole to the equator, on a line ''running from Dunkirk to Barcelone through Paris''.[[/note]] for lengths, the liter for volumes of liquid, the gram for mass, along with multiples of these units by factors of 2 and 10 like the kilogram (1000 grams), double decaliter (20 liters), or the centimeter (0.01 meters). It since has become quasi universal. It was during the Revolution that the Louvre Palace, already used as a warehouse for the Royal Art collection and a residency for artists patronized by the throne, became the Louvre Museum, opening it to the public and declaring it part of the cultural patrimony. Likewise the Royal Garden became the Jardin des Plantes, headed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who would eventually become a key pre-Darwin evolutionary theorist. Other long lasting changes include the departments -- the borders of which have changed little since 1789 -- and the tricolor flag. Not the government was entirely a bastion of freedom, during the Reign of Terror, the likes of Chateaubriand (who was a fierce royalist) and Beaumarchais were forced into exile and one of the victims of the Terror was the father of Modern Chemistry, Antoine de Laurent Lavoisier himself, because of his past as a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferme_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale tax collector]].

** The calendar entirely operated in decimal measures. Each Day had 10 Hours, Each Hour Had 100 Minutes and Each Minute Had 100 Seconds. Each month had thirty days organized in three weeks called Decades, the tenth day of each week was called the decadi and a public holiday. A leap year likewise had five extra days. They still kept months to reflect the four seasons of Autumn (Vendémiaire [[note]]from Latin vindemia, "grape harvest"[[/note]], Brumaire [[note]] From brume, French for "fog"[[/note]], Frimaire [[note]] (From French frimas, "frost")[[/note]]), Winter (Nivôse [[note]] from Latin nivosus, "snowy"[[/note]], Pluviôse [[note]]from Latin pluvius, "rainy"[[/note]], Ventôse [[note]](from Latin ventosus, "windy")[[/note]], Spring, (Germinal [[note]]from Latin germen, "germination"[[/note]], Floréal [[note]]from Latin flos, "flower"[[/note]], Prairial [[note]](from French prairie, "pasture")[[/note]] and Summer (Messidor[[note]]Harvest[[/note]], Thermidor[[note]]summer heat[[/note]], Fructidor[[note]]Fruitful Month[[/note]]). There is a conversion table [[http://www.shtukoviny.ru/calendar/index.html for contempoary dates into the French Calendar]].
** The reason they still remain well known is that it was introduced in the famous year of 1793-1794, the year of the Terror, and several months and dates, became associated with momentous events. The most well known dates on the calendar is 9, Thermidor, the Fall of Robespierre and 18, Brumaire, the Rise of Napoleon.

Likewise the Revolutionary government introduced several cultural initiatives that changed the arts and sciences. The most successful were a [[TheMetricSystemIsHereToStay bunch of units]] introduced by the National Convention in Year 3 (1795) like the meter[[note]]The meter was originally defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the north pole to the equator, on a line ''running from Dunkirk to Barcelone through Paris''.[[/note]] for lengths, the liter for volumes of liquid, the gram for mass, along with multiples of these units by factors of 2 and 10 like the kilogram (1000 grams), double decaliter (20 liters), or the centimeter (0.01 meters). It was during the Revolution that the Louvre Palace, already used as a warehouse for the Royal Art collection and a residency for artists patronized by the throne, became the Louvre Museum, opening it to the public and declaring it part of the cultural patrimony. Likewise the Royal Garden became the Jardin des Plantes, headed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who would eventually become a key pre-Darwin evolutionary theorist. Other long lasting changes include the departments -- the borders of which have changed little since 1789 -- and the tricolor flag. Not the government was entirely a bastion of freedom, during the Reign of Terror, the likes of Chateaubriand (who was a fierce royalist) and Beaumarchais were forced into exile and one of the victims of the Terror was the father of Modern Chemistry, Antoine de Laurent Lavoisier himself, because of his past as a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferme_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale tax collector]].

Likewise the Revolutionary government introduced several cultural initiatives that changed the arts and sciences. The most successful is the Metric system, which has become [[AmericanCustomaryMeasurements quasi]] [[TheMetricSystemIsHereToStay universal]]. It was during the Revolution that the Louvre Palace, already used as a warehouse for the Royal Art collection and a residency for artists patronized by the throne, became the Louvre Museum, opening it to the public and declaring it part of the cultural patrimony. Likewise the Royal Garden became the Jardin des Plantes, headed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who would eventually become a key pre-Darwin evolutionary theorist. Not the government was entirely a bastion of freedom, during the Reign of Terror, the likes of Chateaubriand (who was a fierce royalist) and Beaumarchais were forced into exile and one of the victims of the Terror was the father of Modern Chemistry, Antoine de Laurent Lavoisier himself, because of his past as a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferme_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale tax collector]].

Lastly, we can't discuss La Revolution without talking about the Republican Calendar. Wanting to eliminate Christian influence, the French reset their calendars based on the new French Republic. 1792 (the year the Republic was founded) was now Year I (years were written in Roman numerals), and September 22 (the official beginning of the Republic) marked the beginning of the year. But it didn't end there. Years were divided into 12 months...but each month had 30 days (months were renamed after the common weather conditions of Paris), and each week had 10 days. A mostly decimal-based calendar looked good and orderly on paper, but in practice was [[MindScrew somewhat more complicated]]. For instance, there would first be five-year intervals between leap years, followed by four. Even so, the French and eventually Napoleon persevered at it before giving up in 1805. The revolutionaries even tried to institute decimal ''hours, minutes, and seconds'', but this proved even less popular. However, longer lasting were a [[TheMetricSystemIsHereToStay bunch of units]] introduced by the National Convention in Year 3 (1795) like the meter[[note]]The meter was originally defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the north pole to the equator, on a line ''running through Paris''.[[/note]] for lengths, the liter for volumes of liquid, the gram for mass, along with multiples of these units by factors of 2 and 10 like the kilogram (1000 grams), double decaliter (20 liters), or the centimeter (0.01 meters). Other long lasting changes include the departments -- the borders of which have changed little since 1789 -- and the tricolor flag.

Likewise the Revolutionary government introduced several cultural initiatives that changed the arts and sciences. It was during the Revolution that the Louvre Palace, already used as a warehouse for the Royal Art collection and a residency for artists patronized by the throne, became the Louvre Museum, opening it to the public and declaring it part of the cultural patrimony. Likewise the Royal Garden became the Jardin des Plantes, headed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who would eventually become a key pre-Darwin evolutionary theorist. Not the government was entirely a bastion of freedom, during the Reign of Terror, the likes of Chateaubriand, Beaumarchais were forced into exile and one of the victims of the terror was the father of Modern Chemistry, Antoine de Laurent Lavoisier himself.

** During his notorious argument calling for the death of the King, Saint-Just, backed later by Robespierre, stated that the King was essentially "Dehors le loi!"(Outside the Law, or outlaw) by his actions in the Flight to Varennes and his former constitutional immunity and therefore can be killed without trial. Come Thermidor, and the brief flight of Robespierre, Saint-Just and Couthon, the National Convention declared them outlaws and executed all of them without a trial using the exact line of reasoning made by Saint-Just.

** The Jacobins also get this in the Soviet and Communist media as well as leftists who see them as precursors to 20th Century radicals which in turn led to their Villain upgrade in the West. In actual fact, the Jacobins were predominantly middle class, albeit highly radicalized, and certainly favored the free market with a view, however, of providing wealth redistribution and social welfare [[notes]] Which by the way, most Marxists don't like, they see it as a bourgeois compromise[[/note]]. They only got the support of the sans-culottes and the Paris sections for a brief period during the Girondin crisis and during the Terror, they exerted control and suppressed the sections meetings and assemblies, neutralizing the popular movement which neither the Royalists or Girondins succeeded in doing. The Jacobins were not truly representative of popular consensus at the time of Thermidor. What the Jacobins actually ''did'', as per Alexis de Tocqueville, was stabilize the government and centralize authority, completing a process started by UsefulNotes/LouisXIV and continued later by UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte.

** The Girondins in the Anglo-American media at least, such as Brissot, Monsieur and Madame Roland are regarded as more positive expressions of Revolution than the Jacobins, citing their moderate constitutional framework and their favoring provincial cities like Lyon and Bordeaux over a centralized Paris. What is usually glossed over is their high level corruption, their elitism, their laziness in pushing proper reforms and finally their belief in WarForFunAndProfit in the name of "spreading the revolution", an action which unleashed 20 years of warfare, which Robespierre had furiously denounced as a BreadAndCircuses distraction. When the war they unleashed went south because they didn't do a great deal in restructuring the army, the people in France rose in revolt bringing canons to the National Convention. They messed things up so badly that for the first 7 months or so the ''ReignOfTerror'' was highl popular among Parisiens.

** [[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.

* WrittenByTheWinners: During the Revolution, every side were busy engaging in a propaganda campaign against the other side, while the Coalition conducted their own campaign against the Revolution. In a way, it still goes on today, depending on the political perspectives of people who control the media industry:
** The Jacobin Party as a whole were vilified for the longest time in the Anglo-American press and media, and likewise got much bad press within France for being too extreme in pushing for demands. The tendency is to be more sympathetic towards constitutional monarchy and the moderates who came back to power after the Thermidorian reaction and discredited several Jacobins (as well as conducting their own purge against them). The Jacobins were far from innocent but their actions weren't un-justified. The Girondins were engaged in high level corruption and behind the scenes dealing with Austria and England, they later declared a war against Austria, which Robespierre denounced as a BreadAndCircuses move to divert away from the reforms they had consistently failed to uphold, and when the early phase of the war had started going against France leading to Austria coming in hair's breadth of occupying Paris, the Jacobins supported by the Paris crowd went in open insurrection to protect the Revolution and the French people. It was the Jacobin party that led France to victory in the early stages of the Revolutionary Wars thanks to their open meritocracy, their culling of aristocratic nobles and royals from army positions and introduction of {{Conscription}}.

** UsefulNotes/MarieAntoinette is portrayed as more of a naive but good natured woman recently, with films like Sofia Coppola's and Antonia Fraser's biography citing the horrific smear campaign she endured. In truth, the smear campaign by Jacques Hébert while exceptionally vicious by any standards (going as far as false accusations of incest during her trial) was part of a political strategy to criticize the Royalist government since the 1791 Constitution refused to allow criticism of the King but left his family members [[LoopholeAbuse an open target]].
*** Likewise the people of France didn't turn against ''"L'Autrichienne"'' for being a lesbian foreigner who hated the poor, they primarily did it because she was extremely capricious and spendthrift in the first years of Louis XVI's reign, wasting ''loads'' of public money in gambling and for people she liked. Among other things, she forced the French Treasury to pay for the debts of the Polignac family, which cost 400,000 ''livres tournois'' (roughly ''five millions'' of 2014 euros). No wonder Marie-Antoinette got nicknamed ''"Madame Déficit"'' (Mrs. Deficit). Ironically, she had largely reformed when TheAffairOfTheNecklace happened and discredited her even more while she was completely innocent.
*** Later she was actively involved in the Flight to Varennes, where she and the King planned to go to a royalist territory and with support from the Austrian army attack France and re-install the Ancien Regime (which she supported). Supporters of constitutional monarchy tried to RetCon it by putting all the blame on Marie-Antoinette, while Louis XVI was as much, if not more, behind it than her. Few people were fooled, though. And it is this action, not unjustifiably regarded as an act of betrayal by the public, that turned people's attitude towards the Queen, from general dislike or a LoveToHate ButtMonkey, to outright hatred, with people calling for the heads of the King and the Queen. Indeed Danton and Robespierre had delayed her trial and execution because they still hoped to ransom her as a bargaining chip for peace, but the French public put considerable pressure on the Committee calling for her death.

** 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. During the Revolution, David served on a committee overseeing executions and signed the death warrants of several people.

* 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.

** Louis Antoine De Saint-Just is often portrayed in fiction as a violent extremist who wanted anyone of noble birth, even the ones on his side, wiped off the face of the earth. Now, while he did actually say this, he did so in the final years of his life (during the height of the Reign of Terror when they started executing people left and right), and for the most of his life had pretty moderate views. Tell that to fiction.

* HitSoHardTheCalendarFeltIt: As noted above, the revolutionary government made 1792 the Year I, and France counted years that way for a while thereafter.

* DarkActionGirl: Charlotte Corday, who assassinated Jean-Paul Marat, a key revolutionary and leader of the Reign of Terror.

--> ''"O Liberté, que de crimes on commet en ton nom!"

* ForeignCultureFetish: Ancient Rome, especially the Republic, Sparta and Greece were as obsessed over during the Revolution as it was during the Renaissance. Brutus, both the founder of the republic and his notorious descendant, were regarded as heroes and during Dechristianization (while Julius Caesar was denounced as a tyrant and his assassination praised as an act of justice), men were given names like Grachhus or Spartacus.

** 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.

* MoreDeadlyThanTheMale: That was the ''tricoteuses''' reputation, anyway. In truth, they were among the earliest agitators of the Revolution who later felt marginalized by the politicians who claimed to "lead" the Revolution. They took the weaving among the guillotines as a form of passive-aggressive protest.

** Jean-Paul Marat perhaps got it worse than anybody else from that period, and went from being an almost godlike figure whose bust replaced crosses in churches to be described as an "angry monster insatiably hungry for blood" after the Reign of Terror was pretty much done and finished.

* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: The overwhelming conservative opinion. And for that matter, most liberals and leftists who felt that the Terror set a monstrous precedent for succeeding revolutions.

** Of course, for the working class, especially the sans-culottes and the village peasants (who were still bound by old feudal customs and traditions) there, initially, wasn't a great deal of change between Royal and Republican France. The revolution as some Marxists keep pointing out is the moment where the Middle Class, or the bourgeosie, first became the ruling class of Europe bringing us such joys as capitalism, war-profiteering, stock-jobbing, conspicuous consumption, Total War and general hypocrisy. For general leftists, the Revolution was the first time a bunch of ordinary people without a voice, and general people of principle found a voice in government and bringing forth such ideas as public welfare and wealth redistribution.

* ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules: The reason why Robespierre was nicknamed ''L'Incorruptible''. Even more so given several high profile revolutionnaries were corrupt, notably Danton and Mirabeau.

** 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. The Revolution would eventually bear lasting fruit with the formation of the French Third Republic that lasted for 70 years, many of its reforms were based on ideas introduced during the revolution.

** Revolutionary and Napoleonian armies owed their edge in artillery[[note]]Notably at Valmy[[/note]] to the Gribeauval canon, which was developped under LouisXV and [[{{Irony}} definitively adopted few months after the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI]] after some Court shenaningans.

** Revolutionary and Napoleonian armies owed their edge in artillery the Gribeauval canon, which famously played a key role at Valmy, was developped under LouisXV and [[{{Irony}} definitively adopted few months after the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI]] after some Court shenaningans.

** Danton was called ''[[BoisterousBruser The Titan, Jove the Thunderer, Mirabeau of the Masses]]'', Lazare Carnot was called ''[[BadassBureaucrat Organizer of Victory]]'', Robespierre was called ''[[ScrewTheMoneyIHaveRules L'Incorruptible]]'' almost to the point of being used nearly as often as his real name.