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The French Revolution: Difference between revisions
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[[File:bast.jpg|frame|<small>Their battle cry will never be forgotten:"You went the wrong way, Old King Louis..."</small> ]]
{{quote|''"Too soon to tell."''
Era in French History when [[Marie Antoinette]] [[Beam Me Up, Scotty|tried giving her subjects a little dietary advice]], who responded by storming Versailles and putting her and her brave husband Louis XVI to death by the guillotine. Their son, the Dauphin, makes it out of France alive, though, thanks to the tireless efforts of that "demmed elusive [[The Scarlet Pimpernel (novel)|Pimpernel]]". Everyone in this time period wore pastel-colored satin, big fancy wigs, fake beauty marks, and snorted snuff like it was cocaine. Unless they were poor, in which case they wore trousers with tricolor badges and sung "String the aristocrats from the lamp posts!" whilst [[Torches and Pitchforks|waving their pitchforks]] and gnashing their rotting teeth. Don't forget about taking down ''l'ancien régime''.
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Simmer for a few years, then let the poor boil over, form mobs called the sans culotte (lit without knee breaches, as in they wore pants), 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'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. 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.
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 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. Moreover, 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 disliking it but working within the structures it creates; 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. [[Red October]] and [[World War II]] changed these positions (for instance, the latter added fascism, a combination of socialism's revolutionary spirit with a conservative/reactionary opposition to its ideals), but did little to alter the overall orientation.
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See also [[French Political System]], for all the bizarre things that have happened in France since then.
{{
* [[The American Revolution]]: Whatever one may say, the two are linked together as contemporary events inspired by similar ideals. France's support of America during the Revolutionary War was one of many reasons France went bankrupt while many French revolutionary leaders were at least partly inspired by events across the pond; many, like Thomas Paine and Marquis de Lafayette, participated in both. Americans were nonetheless disgusted at the bloodshed of the French Revolution; death is inevitable in such things, but a lot of what was happening in France was so gratuitously cruel that there was little excuse.
* [[Angry Mob Song]]: ''La Marseillaise'', now the French national anthem. See also ''La Carmagnole'' and ''Ah ca Ira.''
** The Vendée peasants came up with a good [[Filk Song]] version when [http://takimag.com/article/the_real_bastille_day/ they rebelled against the Republic] (mind the massive [[Author Tract]] ranting before the lyrics).
* [[Aristocrats Are Evil]]: A very influential trope.
* [[Black and Grey Morality]]: Whether your sympathies are royalist or republican, neither side comes out particularly well.
* [[Boisterous Bruiser]]: Danton, by all accounts.
* [[Conspiracy Theory]]: There are claims that [[The Illuminati]] have secretly orchestrated the French Revolution despite their official disbandment years earlier. Note that this was two centuries before the [[Cold War|McCarthyist "Soviet conspiracy" theories]].
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** Another variant, apparently popular among hardline royalists and later ultraconservatives, involved the Revolution being an anti-Christian conspiracy to destroy the "proper order" of the ''Ancien Regime'' and bring about the End Times. Coincidentally, the same theory is more or less used for other events and trends, ranging from the [[American Revolution]] to Vatican II.
* [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]]: The Battle of Valmy. With a [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits|Ragtag Army of Misfits]], too. Ask Goethe, he was there. They ''did'' bring a poet.
** More generally, the [[wikipedia:French Revolutionary War|French Revolutionary Wars]] stand as a Crowning Moment for France as a whole. The brand new republic is in chaos, its treasury is empty, and it's surrounded by hostile powers who want to destroy it. What does it do? Get some help from Poland, Denmark and Norway, and proceed to kick the asses of Germany, Britain, Spain, Russia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Austria, Turkey ''and'' Italy, expanding its territory in the process. This was also where [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] earned the reputation that would eventually lead him to found the French Empire.
* [[Decapitation Presentation]]: [[wikipedia:File:Hinrichtung Ludwig des XVI.png|Look!]]
* [[Decided by One Vote]]: Louis XVI's [[wikipedia:French Revolution#Execution of Louis XVI|execution]]. Sort of.
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** 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 [[Critical Research Failure|considered extremists like Hebert to actually be counter-revolutionaries]].
* [[Eat the Rich]]: The [[Ur Example]] for this [[Stock Phrase]] came about during this time when Jean-Jacques Rousseau reportedly said, "When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich," which would make an interesting corollary with Marie Antoinette's alleged "Let them eat cake" comments.
* [[Everyone Went to School Together]]: 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.
* [[Evil Cripple]]: Georges Couthon was condemned by Thermidorians [https://web.archive.org/web/20090106160432/http://www.saint-just.net/movies/napoleon/original/napoleon-7.html because of that].
* [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]]: The instigators of the Reign of Terror actually ''called it that''.
* [[For Want of a Nail]]: Some experts believe that the famine that was one of the primary catalysts of the Revolution might not have been so bad, or even been averted completely had the French public had not been so resistant to earlier government efforts to introduce a crop from the New World know as a ''pomme de terre'' or in English, a potato.
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* [[Off with His Head]]: The guillotine was extensively used, during the [[Reign of Terror]] in particular.
* [[Reign of Terror]]: The [[Trope Namer]].
* [[The Remnant]]: The Royalists of Vendée and the Chouans saw themselves as this, along with [[La Résistance]], in their uprising from 1793-1799. Their defiance and utter zeal caught the admiration of [[Napoleon Bonaparte]]. [[Never Live It Down|But even to this day, many of their descendants don't take to the Republic well.]]
* [[The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized]]: The overwhelming conservative reaction.
* [[The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified]]: That [[Angry Mob Song]] is now the French national anthem because of this.
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* [[Self-Made Man]]: Arguably, [[Napoleon Bonaparte]]. 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.
* [[Wooden Ships and Iron Men]]: The Revolution helped create this trope - the Ancien Regime had sometimes managed to defeat Britain at sea (most notably during [[The American Revolution]]) but the loss of France's best naval officers (as they were aristocrats) left Britain facing a weakened opponent and led to the string of victories that created Britain's naval mythos.
* [[Wouldn't Hit a Girl]]: [[wikipedia:The
** Also [[Amazon Brigade]]: the Revolutionary Republican Women [[Blonde Republican Sex Kitten|(NOT to be confused with...)]].
* [[Upper Class Twit]]: Whatever else you think about Marie and Louis, it's pretty obvious they had no clue what they were doing. The other French aristocrats weren't much more efficient, and [[Aristocrats Are Evil|most higher clergy and nobles constantly blocked any economic reforms that would help the country]] ([[Money, Dear Boy|since said reforms would also require them to give up some of their cash and nobility privileges]]). Others (usually poorer ones) supported them, some because they sincerely believed the country needed change. Others opposed reforms just because they hated Calonne.
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* ''[[Le Chevalier d'Eon]]''
== [[Fan
* ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'' [[Dark Fic]] involving France tend to use this as the backdrop.
== [[Film]] ==
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* The novel ''A Place of Greater Safety''
* ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' takes place in the Napoleonic Wars [[In Space]] and thus has the entire plot in the background.
* ''[[The Woman with the Velvet Necklace]]'' takes place during the Terror. In reference to [[Moral Event Horizon]], it mentions the execution of King Louis as "the single most important event in human history to date."
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
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== [[Music]] ==
* [[Voltaire (
* Allan Sherman's song "You Went the Wrong Way Old King Louis"
* Fireaxe's ''[[Food for the Gods|Raise the Black Flag]]''
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== [[Theatre]] ==
* ''Danton's Death'' (play by Georg Büchner)
* ''[[Marat
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[Bite Me! (webcomic)|Bite Me]], [[Either
* ''[[Hark! A Vagrant]]'': [http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=273 "Yoo hoo], [[Black Comedy|does this pike make me look fat?"]]
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[[Category:Historical Domain Character]]
[[Category:The French Revolution]]
[[Category:Pages with working Wikipedia tabs]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:French Revolution, The}}
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