The French Revolution: Difference between revisions

[[File:bast.jpg|frame|<small>Their battle cry will never be forgotten:"You went the wrong way, Old King Louis..."</small> ]]

 

 

 

Then Napoleon took over, and marched across Europe, stopped only by Richard [[Sharpe]] or the [[War and Peace|Russian winter]], depending on your nationality.

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.

 

 

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.

 

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.''

* [[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]].

** 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.

* [[Decapitation Presentation]]: [[wikipedia:File:Hinrichtung Ludwig des XVI.png|Look!]]

* [[Disproportionate Retribution]]: During the Terror, you could be convicted as a counter-revolutionary on the slimmest evidence, leading to people being executed for some pretty ridiculous things.

** 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]].

* [[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.

* [[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.

* [[God Save Us From the Queen]]: [[Incredibly Lame Pun|L'autrichienne]].

** On the other side, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette got this, especially during the Revolution. Marie Antoinette did not actually say the infamous line, "Let them eat cake", and Louis XVI was [[Hanlon's Razor|not tyrannical, just incompetent]]. His two immediate predecessors, on the other hand...

* [[Hit So Hard the Calendar Felt It]]: As noted above, the revolutionary government made 1792 the Year I, and France counted years that way for a while thereafter.

* [[List of Transgressions]]: King Louis received one.

33 - [[Department of Redundancy Department|You caused the blood of Frenchmen to flow]]. }}

* [[Mind Screw]]: The Revolutionary period is often cited as one of the most complex and confusing areas of historical study, and is sometimes memetically invoked as something that drives people mad or puts them to sleep.

* [[More Deadly Than the Male]]: That was the ''tricoteuses''' reputation, anyway.

* [[Reign of Terror]]: The [[Trope Namer]].

* [[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.

* [[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.

** Also [[Amazon Brigade]]: the Revolutionary Republican Women [[Blonde Republican Sex Kitten|(NOT to be confused with...)]].

 

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* ''[[Rose of Versailles]]''

 

 

== [[Film]] ==

* ''[[Orphans of the Storm]]''

* ''[[The Affair of the Necklace]]'' film about a scandal involving Marie Antoinette. Pre-revolution.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* ''[[A Tale of Two Cities]]''

* ''[[Scaramouche]]''

* The ''Pink Carnation'' book series.

* The novel ''A Place of Greater Safety''

 

== [[Live-Action TV]] ==

 

== [[Music]] ==

* Allan Sherman's song "You Went the Wrong Way Old King Louis"

* "Bastille Day" by [[Rush]]

* [[Queen]]'s "Killer Queen" namechecks [[Marie Antoinette]] and the "let them eat cake" misquote in its opening lyrics.

 

== [[Theatre]] ==

* ''Danton's Death'' (play by Georg Büchner)

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

 

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[[Category:Historical Domain Character]]

[[Category:The French Revolution]]