S3 E7: Drain the Cup to the Dregs - The French Revolution, Part III

[MUSIC] It's story time with the history of when you're close. Matt O'Rea and Jen Jumon. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] Hey everybody, this is your host Jen Jumon along with fellow host Matt Breen and you're listening to story time with the history. The podcast focused on world history stories that are sometimes bizarre, often entertaining and always factual. Today we're going to continue our discussion on the French Revolution, focusing on the disastrous plan to escape Varenes. And this is the last part of it, right? >> This is it, this is a three part series so we highly recommend if you've not checked out the first two episodes, check those out because word is hop and right into this thing. >> Yeah, this is where King Louis is going to get it, so quite interesting. >> All right, so where we last left off basically the royal family had been captured after failing to execute their half-ass escape plan. Which it was, like, I'm sorry, the picnicking visuals literally, I could not get away from them, it's just horrible, right? >> It's the setting up of all of the accoutrema, all of it is just insane. >> It's stupid, there's no other word for it, anyway, all right, so they don't escape Varenes because they don't know what they're doing. And then there's this huge tent standoff that occurred between the troops who were loyal to the King and the militia groups who were loyal to the revolution and they're, you know, going at each other. But we do know when it's all over, the King does end up in custody of the revolutionaries and they're going to return the entire family of idiots to Perry, right? >> And it's not good, this is not like a, hey, let's go back to Paris and calm down and discuss this, figure a common grand out, this is going to get dark. >> Yeah, this is a newer, darker chapter of the revolution, that's for sure. And, you know, like, justifiably, many of the revolutionaries, as well as a large portion of the peasantry in all of France had lost their collective faith in the King. >> Yeah. >> The distrust that was garnered by the escape was exacerbated by the fact that a rumor possibly started by the King himself began to circulate that the King had not gone willingly along with the fated failed escape plan. >> Wait, that he didn't want to escape that he. >> No, no, no, see, now, here's the thing, this feels to me again like we're placing a lot of blame on Mournant and her Austrian family. The effect of this though was that many people now questioned whether the King was even, like, should be keeping any sort of power at home, right? >> Can't be trusted. >> No, no, exactly, right, and furthermore, the note that the King had left behind, you know, more on that in our first episode if you need a reminder on what he wrote there. When he, quote, unquote, escaped, first began to lead many people to believe that he no longer intended to honor the Constitution, and that the positive gains of the revolution made thus far were in absolute and real jeopardy. In short, the King had failed to escape but had succeeded in radicalizing the revolution. >> Which makes complete sense, right? >> Yeah. >> Because they talked about, you know, we're going to work together, we're going to have a constitutional monarchy. And now all the stuff that he's done, whether we blame Marie or Hammer or whoever else, if I was French I wouldn't trust him, I'd be like, no, we're done. >> How could you? I mean, even if he doesn't write that note, even if it's not like 100%, like, there's just no way you get past the optics of he was running to Austria with his wife with the intention clearly of starting some sort of war. Oh, totally. Against his own people. >> Yeah. Yeah. There was no way around that. And then Austria invades. And so what are you going to say after that, like, you know, you could do that on their own? Yeah, exactly, right? >> Well, and the killer part about all of this is when they originally did this, when we had the National Assembly, you know, their goal was not to get rid of the monarchy. Their goal was just to create this constitutional monarchy that was going to limit the power of the king and give actual rights to the people. >> Yeah. >> That's all they really wanted when all of this started. >> Yeah, I mean, it was a very limited liberal reform system. >> Yeah. And so, but then we got some issues, right? And we can't go too much, we can't go too deep into constitutional politics because it's a nightmare, but there wasn't a group that had been working since about 1789 to create a strong constitution that would still leave the king charge of the country, but like we said, give checks to the power. But the group also issued a bad faith proclamation that's going to kind of further the rumor that the king had not willingly gone along with the plot. >> So this proclamation happens after they try to get to her ends and they get propped back and all that sort of, okay, gotcha. >> And so here's a little snippet of the proclamation. The assembly issued a proclamation on June 22nd, which contained the transparent fib that Louie did not voluntarily try to flee, but was kidnapped by sinister mustache twirling counter revolutionaries, because you can't obviously be sinister without mustache twirling. >> Got you. >> By insisting on the king's loyalty to the nation, the assembly, what they really wanted to do was to suppress a pro-Republican sentiment, because not everybody in France wanted a Republican government. >> No, definitely not. >> They thought it was too much, way, way too liberal, and so we're adding this to the big fat fire of disaster that this revolution has become, and it's only going to make it worse. >> Right, and in fact, the people who want republicanism, who want more of a radical revolution, they seize this moment, right? >> Yeah. >> The desire to leave the king and get rid of the monarchy, split many of the coalitions that had existed during that time period. >> Yeah. >> Again, we can't get too deep into the weeds, but I do think a little bit of clarity here would help kind of understand what it's going to end up happening to the royals, right? >> Very true. >> So essentially, in 1791, there's this group of people, their name, the social circle, who emerged and were attempting to radicalize the revolution, right? The group sought the abdication of the king after the flight of Rennes as they viewed him as having been too grave of a threat to the revolution from this point on, and they issued a petition calling for it as much. Now, this petition that they issued creating chaos amongst the broader coalitions that were making up this liberal reform system that you talked about, right? The main revolutionary faction, this group called the Jacques Ben Club. >> Oh, we love you some Jacques Ben, yeah. >> That's right, it's those guys, right? And they get fractured when some who viewed the current king as a moral threat, and this other group who wanted to kind of keep the king in power, right? Now, the Jacques Ben group that is like the more radical revolutionaries, they're called the quarterly heirs. So, basically, we have this group that are like monarchists, right? They want to keep the king in power, and they're the minority group. You have a moderately like revolutionary group, then you have this radical group, the Jacques Ben, and then you have these ultra radicals, and they're the quarterly heirs, right? And all of these groups are now swirling around, they're like sharks with blood in the water, and the king is the one who has inadvertently bated them all in, right? >> So, basically what it is, is they've got the king back in Paris, whatever ends up happening to Louis is going to determine the fate of the revolution, or at least the new path of the revolution, and they all have very clear different ideas about what they want done. >> Exactly, right? And the groups that's starting to gain the most power are these ultra radicals who want to continue to liberalize or push the revolution further down this liberalizing path, right? Now, the only way the king would remain on the throne was if there was some sort of national vote that were taken, that's kind of the compromise that was set forth, right? >> Other wise, there would be either a new king, right? Which like, I don't know if anybody's going to go for that, more likely we're looking at a new government that would be created in France all together, and this one BAM, is going to be Republican, right? >> Now, lest you think that we're going into all these details and everything, all this like vote getting and petitions and everything else, we're not just going down this path for no reason, because this whole thing pushes this debate, I should say, pushes the radicalization of the revolution forward, right? >> Uh-huh. >> So essentially here's what happens, right? There was this petition that was going to be publicly placed on an altar in the shop de Marz, the modern day home of the Eiffel Tower, if you can think about the geography of Paris, for all the public to read and potentially sign. Now, 50,000 Parisians gather to sign this thing, right? >> That's pretty good. >> Jammed into this public square, everybody waiting their turn to get this petition side to create a new, some sort of new government, right? Again, likely some sort of radical Republicanism. This is when things go completely off the rails. Some might say permanently for the revolution. Now, check this. Underneath that altar, there are these two guys, they crawl underneath, this is like a looney to a scar tin, right? And they're hanging out underneath the altar, right? To try to look up women's dresses and tie the shoelaces together, they're just pranksters. >> So this literally has nothing to do with trying to alter the outcome of this process. They're literally perverts. >> Yep. And they're just hanging out doing their thing underneath the altar. They're discovered, though, by a group of men. And this group of men immediately believes that these two guys are there, they're monarchists, they're going to steal the petition and destroy it, right? And so immediately this crowd gathers around, grabs these guys, 50,000 strong in the square, and they start chanting like, we should kill them, we should kill them, we should kill them. >> Yeah. >> And the crowd does. They literally tear these guys to the sun, they beat them to death right there in the shop tomorrow, right? Things start going crazy. The riot breaks out in the shop tomorrow. The mayor of Paris, who's worried that things are going to get really out of hand. >> Right. >> This is 50,000 people who think their revolution is under threat, exactly, right? >> Mob justice. >> Right, yeah. >> It's the type of people who are showing up to sign a petition to radicalize the revolution. These are not exactly- >> They're searching for a fight, yeah. >> Yeah, they're hot heads, right? We'll be understatement there, right? >> Yeah. >> So what ends up happening is the mayor of Paris calls in the National Guard. We talked about them in the last episode, this revolutionary sort of Vanguard group that's loyal to the government, this constitutional monarchy government, right? They're led by the Marquis de Lafayette. >> I know him. >> Yeah, he's the guy who went down with George Washington and had that forge to help them out. Did you know this was like quick aside on the Marquis de Lafayette and the Valley Forge? That Washington had him in his French guys in because things were so bad that there were two to three shooting incidents where guys were just getting drunk or dropping their rifles and shooting themselves or each other a day at Valley Forge. >> Are you kidding? >> Yeah. >> Does it ever- do you ever just cease to- you're like, how in the hell did we win the revolution? >> I feel like the British just kind of quit on it. >> Right, it happens. There's no way. >> Yeah. >> I mean, was it like- was it just not worth it? Like- >> Yeah, I think the one that had India. >> That's true, that's true. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Once they got India, they didn't care about it, yeah. >> Exactly. So anyway, back to the Marquis de Lafayette, right? >> So he's leading this group of national guards, right? And these guys show up to the Shantamar. They're armed to the teeth, right? And they descend upon the Shantamar. >> Okay, so everybody's like, okay, maybe we took it a little too far. We got our little vigilante justice. Let's go ahead and head on home. >> Really? >> I mean, you- no. No, they didn't. Okay. >> No, no. In fact, instead they started- the crowds started those stones at the troops and they paraded around the dead bodies of those two perbs that we were talking about. So the troops responded by opening fire on the crowd, cutting down an estimated 50 people in a punishing series of like full-on military-style volunteers. >> What? >> Yeah. I just don't get the- I do get the French Revolution. I just don't understand how anything was accomplished at any point, because it is literally seems like a comedy of errors every step of the way. >> Yep, and it really is. I mean, this incident, which is known as the Shantamar massacre, really radicalizes the revolution, right? And like, after this point in time, like the monarchists, they've lost faith, the constitutional monarchists, they've lost faith. The people who are the moderates, right? Like the Jiranda, they have lost faith as far as the crowd is concerned. The only group that emerges from this, who looks like they're on the side of the people, are the Jocoban and the Corneliers. >> Or the crazies. >> Yeah, that's great. That's an understatement. >> Yeah, and they're the only legitimate group left. >> You kind of- you know how during the COVID pandemic, you kept like- you know, first it was the Australian wildfires, and then it was the pandemic, and then it was the- wasn't there like a killer murderous beefing, or- >> No, yeah, the super hornets, or- >> Yeah, the super hornets, and eventually- >> And eventually- >> Got to the point where like nothing surprised you anymore. You're like, yep, that makes complete sense now. >> No, it was like when something went well, you're like, wait, what? >> Well, what? I think that's the moderates are like, I don't know what the hell has happened, but I'm out. >> Can you imagine being at that meeting and being like, yeah, dude, I think the revolution is in real threat, and people are like, why? And they're like, this guy was trying to look up this lady's skirt, and now the whole city of Paris is on fire. >> Yeah, I mean- >> You're like, I'm done, I don't care. At this stage of the game, I'm leaving Paris. I'm out, I'm going to Britain, yeah. >> You have to. >> Oh, seriously? So what we're seeing is by 1792, the riding is on the proverbial wall for the king, right? It's not looking good. You now have the radicals who are in charge of Paris. You have the flight to Varence that was disastrous. Now you've had this massacre where you've got your own military firing on its own people, and the radical factions are now pushing for even more radicalization and the actual overthrow of the king. Like, there's no good ending for him here. There is no path that is going to end up saving him in terms of either his life or not in jail or something. Like he has no hope at the stage of the game. >> None. >> And so, yeah, I mean, there's none. So, we also, though, on a good note, we do have a constitution of 1791 that's been created, and you're like, all right, that's awesome. It's a great constitution. People have rights, and the king is still part of the French people. It's just, it's a disaster right now because it just, it's chaos. >> Yeah, right. >> And no matter, we have some good things, but every time we have a good thing, then we have a bad thing. And the bad things just keep getting worse, and the radicals just keep getting more radical, and it's going to seal the fate of Louis. >> Yeah, I mean, this is, and this is where we see that in 1792, the radicals really jump at their opportunity, right? >> Oh, yeah. >> Because if we go back again to 1791, we know Louis left this note that he was going to destroy the revolution, but he gives this statement to the assembly in 1792 after the fact, right? >> Mm-hm. >> The same year that that constitution you just said was ratified that it leads thusly, right? The motives of my departure were the insults and outrages I underwent on the 18th of April. When I wished to go to St. Cloud, these insults remained unpunished, and I thereupon believed that there was neither safety nor decorum in my staying any longer in Paris. Unable to quit publicly, I resolved to depart in the night and without attendance. My intention was never to leave the kingdom. I had no concert with foreign powers, nor with the princes of my family who have emigrated. My residence would have been at Montembe, a palace I had chosen because it is fortified, and that being close to the frontier, I was more ready to oppose every kind of invasion. I have learned during my journey that public opinion was decided in favor of the constitution, and so soon as I learned that the general wish I have not hesitated and has never, have I ever hesitated to make this sacrifice of what concerns myself for public good. Oh my god, he's such a liar. The amount of evidence they could present against him about, yeah, that's not true. I was insulted, so therefore I had to leave. And then when I heard that people wanted me to come back, I totally came back. I totally came back because I only care about the good for my people, and I only care that I can do what's best, what a bunch of crap. And again, everyone knows it, and now everyone's really pissed at him because he's flat out, huge lying here. Radicals, even though they hated him to begin with, now they never gonna trust him, he's a super liar. They know it, they can't back him, the royalists thought he looked weak, you're like, dude, you're the absolute monarch, don't sit there and cow-tow to the audience. So that the monarchists don't like him, the radicals don't like him, and the peasants, poor peasants are like, we're just starving, can we get some food? Can we just get some food? They could care less. They could care less than he has to say. They just want to eat. Like, I don't even, you know the peasants are like, I don't care what government you put in place at this stage of the game, as long as I have a job in some food. You pick, just get it done. And then there's the last groups of people, right? The nobles and the clergy, right? And they've lost faith in the, in the king now too, they think they're gonna lose all their privilege and be sold out completely. So everybody's unhappy in France. Great state, man, Louis. Now, you know, now, on a positive note, usually when everybody's angry of all the different social classes, revolution tends to succeed, but that's not gonna be the case in France. Because what? Well, in large part, what we start to see is this sort of like, what marks, I guess we'd call class consciousness or emerge, right? So, you know, there's this idea that like really comes out of the American revolution and philosophers like Thomas Payne, who believed that since the government, which was, you know, like always going to be bad, right? If it can't be the needs of the people, then the people would thus be like authorized to overthrow, right? And the group of people who like are starting to like really radicalize themselves and who are finding more and more sponsorship via the Jacopan and the court of liars are the son's coulots, right? And these are the people who are going to really start to turn things upside down. So, yeah, it's going to get nasty. Talk about, it's just a crazy revolution in general. So, the radicals are now ready to go, right? So, they're ready. They did point them at something. That's all they need right now. So, what they're going to do is the son are going to attack the king's castle. The one that he's being arrested right now. Yeah, the one he's into there. And why not? Because it's a radical phase. Now, and they're going to kill several hundred Swiss guards. Whoa. That's no joke. No, like we're really ramping it up. Dude, okay. You know, you see that you had the Shomsdamar massacre and you're like, well, hey, if we can kill 50 people, let's not ramp it up and kill even hundreds, right? Yeah, they're in it to win it for blood right? It's Chicago rules, right? Yeah, like you put one of my in the hospital, I'm gonna put five years in the morgue or whatever that line is. Yeah, I did. I'm feeling okay. Good job. Good on you. Sounds cool. Lots of I mean, not like this podcast doesn't sponsor. Yeah, like, but I feel I feel where they're at. They've got some conviction in a running with it. So, obviously, can't. Can't Louis and Marie are going to flee the castle? Oh, that's a horrible move. It's a terrible move, but you get it. Do you think it's killed hundreds of your guards? You know they're coming after you. No, no, no, it's not. It's not good. It's like electric boogaloo, the movie and that electric boogaloo too is the exact same movie. Like this is the same thing. I know it's so bad. You don't get them on our side as we'll flee the castle again. Yeah, they'll totally believe us after this. And so they tried to they hidden the revolutionary assembly because they thought that the government would protect them. That's not going to happen. No, because the government's full of all the jocoban in the radical court of the air. I know what you're like. What are you? At this stage of the game, I'm like, maybe there was like some kind of brain eating a meat bug going on in Louis. Something where he literally could not think anymore. Nothing was great to begin with, but this is the best option. Top advisor had to have been like a houseplant or something. That's right. And I'm telling you, the green matter was gone. So obviously a result of this is that he's not going to get protection. He's going to be placed under house arrest. And he has now, they officially strip him of all his political functions. Not that he had that much to begin with at the stage, but anyway, now it's technically the monarchy is gone. Oh, man, dude. So as the summer ended in turmoil in Paris, like everybody is angry and upset, right? All right. It's like that. Did you see the last version of the Batman movie? The city is eating it. So you get it. Like I get it. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. You got the songs cool. I'd say broken into the prisons. They're freeing prisoners. Many of whom were not political prisoners. They were like, everybody's free. Everybody's free. Yeah. So now the streets are being jammed back with the worst type of person. Like cutthroats and brigands and robbers and all that. There's basically chaos on the streets of Paris, right? To the point where like all law and order breaks down the revolutionary guard, they've lost control of the city street fights break out. There's like games that are moving around. Like the city literally becomes like these like series of like fortified like districts and neighborhoods. And this is old Paris with its narrow streets and tall buildings. You have these really condensed spaces, imagine the city smell like like filling with smoke and fire and and no more public services. Like it's just a hellscape, right? Batman. It's like a post-apocalyptic world. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Right. So eventually the government, what's left of it anyway, needs to try to seize control, tries to throw a little red meat out there to the sansculats and the radicals. And on September 21st and 22nd, they officially do abolish the monarchy, right? And they announce that the king and the queen will be put on trial for crimes against the newly minted republic. Yeah. It's interesting how they feel like gang violence and street warfare is a republic, but you know what to use their own definition. It's like that, it's like if you went to play those cave and you unchained all the people who've been viewing the world on the shadow wall and then saying like, well, they'd seen everything on the wall. So they probably know how to self-reliate. Oh my god. It's out of control. It's out of control. It's out of control. So the trial does start, but it's actually pretty lengthy, which even when I first read about it, surprised me. I'm like, how how lengthy does it has to be? He literally was sicking another country on his own people, but after the trial, the king was sentenced to death on January 15th of 1793. And then they'd carried out the execution on January 21st. Oh, that was the plan, right? You're like, you found guilty. Now you got six days to think about that we're going to execute you and what can we say, Louis? Your time is limited. You got a three month trial though. That's not bad for a show trial. No, that's not bad. That's not bad. You know, good for them. So the king is going to be sent to the guillotine, right? He's going to be in his carriage. Oh, that one. He just got into barrens. Yeah, he's like, oh, can I use it just one more time? Thanks. Maybe I'll stop and have some accruements on the side again really quickly. It's a pate. He did. No, in all fairness, he did retain his dignity, right? He was not going to sit there and do like this full on beg plea thing. He's not he's going to kind of stick it to the executioners, right? He won't let people take off his code. He's going to take off himself. He doesn't want to be tied up. He's like, no, I'm going. I'm walking to the guillotine. I mean, so good for him. A little late to be shown the dignity, but you know. Hey, he had a long time to think about how he played this last act. Yeah, like it's just terrible. So tell us a little bit more about why they thought the guillotine was going to be humane. Because this cracks me. It doesn't crack me up. It's actually really sick. But they thought the guillotine is a humane way to be executed. Right. So like basically like the history of executions have been awful. Like to be had someone was really, really hard to like to go to the Ravenstone, which is where most like the name where people would be headed in like German principalities, for example, was like a really like no pun intended here, hit or miss proposition. You could literally get somebody a headsman who shows up and one good swing takes your head clean off. And you're dead. Yeah, but that's not like that's like a one in one hundred sort of like usually it's a couple of hacks for the sword or an axe. And here's where you got to think about this. If you had an executioner who's been at the game for a long period of time, they probably have a lot of post traumatic stress. And they're probably dealing with it in the 18th century by self-medicating with heavy amounts of alcohol. Yeah. Which means that your headsman's going to show up drunk, seeing double. And who knows what they hit. There's a crazy story of a headman in Germany who like took the first swing, hit the person in the shoulder. They're sitting in a chair by the way, just like a regular chair. The next swing hits the person in the top of the head and takes the top of the head off. The third swing comes in walkie, takes the ear and breaks the jaw. And the fifth swing just missed completely. Oh my God. The point in time, the executioner kicked the person out of the chair and just hacked their head off. Right? Oh my God. That's while the cease was screaming and the crowd is jeering. And yeah. And people still thought the guillotine was the humane way to go. So well, yeah, because the guillotine. If it's done right. Right, if you are seeing it, it's got this giant scaffold. You have this weighted blade. And it is dropped. Gravity propels the blade down really, really quickly. The blade is extremely sharp. It's aligned to the vertebrae, right? So everything's going to just take the head off real clean, right? Which was meant to be less painful. It was seen as part of this enlightenment tradition that was pushing the revolution forward. Like hey, we can do things better. And so the guillotine was seen as an improvement to that or getting burned alive or hanged by the neck. Which by the way, hangings at that time were not like you drop in your neck breaks. It was like your throttle, which could take 20 minutes or more. So this was seen as an improvement. And this is what King Louis is basically walking up to, right? Yes. And so he was told he could refute as he's walking up to the scaffold. He refute the orders of the executioners. The executioners actually still called him sire. Like it's just a weird bizarre way to go. But I was picked by God, they all thought like nearly two years before this or like God chose that guy to rule us. That's where we were at. And now let's chop his head off with a giant razor. A razor. And so as he's walking up, he just, he eventually just loses all his fight. Like he's just, he's got, he's like, I got nothing left in me. I don't. And so one of the last I heard here, I got a little one for you saving this detail. Well, I had read and one of our sources that was linked to that, that Reddit post was that he not just lost his composure. He like fell to the ground, crying and shed his pants. And then they had to lift him back up, which like, listen, he's getting it publicly executed. Yeah, but like he went from five minutes ago, like he was going out like a shot collar, exactly taken off his coat. People are calling him sire. To now he's like literally being dragged like poopy pants and all to the national razor to have his head taken off. But I get, come on. I can't, I can't judge him. Yeah. I'm sorry. Right. I can't. But that's what God, that's horrible. I just makes it even worse, but he does kind of redeem himself because he has some of the best last words of all time. He does. He basically says this, do what you wish. I will drain the cup to the drugs. Oh, dude, that's so metal. Like, isn't that good? It just didn't have a pants full of poop. That would have been so good. So metal, instead he's just like France's 1700s version of GT Allen, which is not so cool. But still, what a great line. What a great line to go out on. And that's basically what he, what he goes out on. And so, so they're leading up to the scaffold. They're extremely steep these steps because you know, that's just what they did. They had, they basically, people had to help him get up with, you know, he's holding onto people's arms to get up the scaffold. He eventually does regain himself a little bit because he was able to cross actually the scaffold with what they call a firm step. Oh, it's good. Which, you know, good for you. I don't know how you would possibly have dignity after you've just crapped your pants, but whatever. There's like 10 to 15 drummers who are in front of them. They're, you know, the dawn, dawn, dawn, dawn, you know, terrible. And that, but with a strong voice, here's, here's going to be some last words you ready. Okay. I die innocent of all the crimes imputed to me. I pardon the authors of my death and pray God that the blood you are about to shed will never fall upon France. Oh, that is it. Man, where'd it go out like a shot? He pardons them. Like some, he's like some benevolent. Come on. It's a little late in the game to start acting like a king. Like he cares. Yeah. But he did. I got, I got to hand it to him on those last set of words. The, the train the cups of the drags and then like I pardon you. Dude, the authors of my death, I pardon you. That's pretty baller. That's a classy move. And it wouldn't have been even classier had he not said right before that. I am innocent of all these crimes. Yeah, that part wasn't cool. I feel like it takes a little shine away from the. Yeah, I am with you on that one. So then anyway, he says that he sees by three executioners. He's forced under the blade of the guillotine. His head fell at 15 minutes after 10. Oh, good. And then the exit, this is the worst part. I'm like, God, nobody's classy in this country at the stage of the game. The executioners basically seized Louise head by the hair. And they show it to the multitude of crowds. We cry, long live the Republic. That's gross. Just holding it out there. Yeah, man. Come on. That's a tough way to go out. That's not cool. But with that, at the age of 38, Louis, the 16th. And his whole family who had rained for what centuries for France previously, it's done. Dude, dude, they're dead. Now, Marie Antoinette was not with the king during any of this, right? Right. The resolution of her fate lingered on for almost an entire year after Louis's execution. Crazy. She had been held in prison in a tower for much of that time after Louis the 16th execution. Uh-huh. Here, she was no longer called queen, but rather the widow cappette, which really is kind of like a cruel joke regarding the diagnostic name of the royal lineage that had just been brutal and dead. Yeah. They are mean. Like you said, they're not a classic group, but they're not a classic group, right? No, definitely not. So she's basically held in this form of solitary confinement in this tower for the duration of this time. Now, if you know anything about 1793 and the French Revolution, you know that this period is called the reign of terror, right? Specifically. Yeah. You don't think it can get worse, but it does. Yeah. There's this group called the Committee on Public Safety. And the Committee was basically trying to root out all of the so-called reactionary anti-revolutionary forces and was killing them, right? They're trying to like, all revolutions go through this sort of like radical sort of phase. And this revolution like started to really steep itself in 1793 and the work of Jean-Jacques Russo. We're not going to get too deep into Russo. We talk about him in our social contract episode, but essentially Russo wanted to create like a uniform society where everybody agreed with everybody else, the work for the general well is what Russo called it. That was Robespierre's thing is the only way that a republic was going to be capable in France as if everybody was on the same page and everybody agreed. And what he meant was agreed with the way I want to do it. And even if even if you agreed with the republic, but not the way that Robespierre wanted it, you were still seen as an enemy of the republic. Right. So I thought that like the creation of like the national sovereign or the body sovereign is what he called it and the national will or the general will, which is what all the people wanted. Russo thought that that would take like maybe a generation. And then you'd have to have like a whole group of people, maybe some sort of oligarchy or something to execute what the general will wanted. Russo here just wanted to like circumvent all of this and just go from like eight to z. Which by the way is the same thing that like Lenin tries to do with Marx's theory during the Russian Revolution too. Right. Let's skip all the big mental parts or now does the same thing in China. Oh, I know. These guys just want to skip all the boring details, right, which makes Robespierre not that much different than Louis, right? Yeah. Not a details guy. So anyway, in order to continue to give the the sans koulat and the crowds what they want, which is blood. Right. A trial is called for Marie and she is going to be paraded out, right. This is not a humanitarian move. They wanted to kill her and give the blood thirdsy radicals more to consume the revolution by this time was truly out of control and people were being executed by the tens of thousands. Oh, yeah. A slew of charges were brought against Marie Antoinette. Many of them overtly misogynistic and hyper sexualized so as to help her as a very horrible person. And listen, right, we're not going to platform any other trash, we're not going to read those things out. They're all false, right, her trial was not about ending her solitary confinement. It was about giving the crowd blood, right. So listen, here's the thing. We know Marie was certainly not a sympathetic characters through any of what we've talked about in the previous episodes, right. She was a particularly a loop ruler of a particularly cruel system, even some of the revolutionaries at her trial, though, when the salacious indictments were read, reacted angrily towards the charges and sympathetically towards Marie, because it is the horrible radicals. Yeah, they went too far with this. She was eventually found guilty of three charges, all of which which are likely true. So treason, overspending or giving money to Austria and conspiring to overthrow the revolutions. That's what it is. That's what it is. That's stupid note that Louie left those things and pretty likely, right. So we should know that her trial, though, was likely a show trial. And her fate had long been sealed prior to the first witness, the first indictment being read, right. Here's the thing. The lawyers from Maria Antoinette because she did have lawyers that this thing was supposed to look like a real trial had figured that when the trial began, she would be found guilty. But at worst, they thought like even if the charges were these absurd charges that they were, she would receive like life in prison. That's the worst case scenario. That surprises me. They would think that, though, because she's not French by birth, right. I think that's hard. Why they thought that, though, because she's, yeah, like, yeah, France is already at war with Austria. Don't make Austria any more, Matt. Yeah, we're talking of regicide, yeah, that's bad, yeah, yeah, you've already, you killed your king, but that was your king. She's a foreigner, right. And her father is the king of Austria. Yeah. Right. So when the guilty verdicts were quickly returned, though, and the shocking sentence of death was determined, Marie and everybody else realized that this had all just been a cruel game, right. On the day of her execution, Maria Antoinette suffered many indignities. She was forced to change in front of her guards, right. She was forced to wear like a white dress, which is though the official like the widow or morning color for French queens, right. Her head was shaved. She was bound. She was put on a rope leash and forced to sit in an open cart as she was transported to her death, right. Good God. Now, she also is rumored to have fallen to her knees and soiled herself. However, nobody helped her up. She was given no hand, nobody helped study herself. She had to pick herself back up off of the concrete and walk to this open cart, like just like a turn up cart sort of thing, right. And then she was taken for an hour through the city, making this trip all while people through rotten food and pieces and rocks at her, right. She never said a word. She was reported to have never said a word and she never shed a tear, right. Okay. I'm kind of proud of her for that. Yeah. That's right. Don't. Next part we have on pretty good sources as well because the revolutionary artist David created a sketch and left this and David, he does like the death of Marat and Nicole Napoleon crossing the Alps, like the epic painter of the ending stages of the French Revolution, right. So he relates that upon reaching the execution scaffold that you described above, she is said to have stood in a dignified manner and walked without assistance to her death, right. David made a quick sketch of her during her last moments. He depicted her sitting hands behind her back, sitting up straight, chin high and a defiant look across her face. Her last words were to an executioner. This was an apology for accidentally stepping on his shoe. We know this was an accident as Marie said, quote, I did not do it on purpose. She then laid herself down under the blade. The crowd cheered her death. What's the national razor fell? Her head was also pulled out of the basket. Her's was raised on a pole and paraded out into the crowd. Later when they got back to the scaffold, the executioner slapped her face, right. Are you kidding me? Yeah. Now this was pretty crazy, right. It is said that her face then blushed a furious red and a scowl drew across her lips. The crowd was terrified by the fact that this, now here's the thing. We talked about the guillotine. When the blade severs the head, it's not an instant quick death. There can still be blood and neural lots of reactions. Yeah, and so it's possible that the slapping of the face, she may have still had brain activity. Oh my gosh. I know, right, which is totally crazy, right. The crowd screams the executioner throws her head into the basket, right. And then as if there hadn't been enough indignity from Marie Antoinette, right. Her body was then, excuse me, her face was delivered to Madame Tueso, right. The lady who made the death masks out of wax, right. And her body was dumped into a mask grave in the city. She wasn't given a royal burial. She wasn't given any of what her husband, Louis, the 16th received, right. He went to like the royal crypt and then got the full thing. Her head was just taken and lost after Tueso. We don't know what happens to it. And her body was just dumped with many of the other people who were executed on that day in Paris, right. Thus concludes the fallout from our fateful flight to Verens. I didn't think I could ever feel sorry for King Louis and Marie Antoinette and now I feel sorry for them. I know, right. Especially Marie Antoinette, that is that is horrific behavior. And I'm not saying like I get it, like her being executed, she did commit treason against the country. I get that. But my God, what is wrong with people? I know, right. It's, it's totally insane. You can totally understand why this revolution got capture so many people's like attention and this story that we told is this one of like a hundred stories, a thousand stories inside of this revolution that are, that are harrowing and full of like, you know, a Hollywood script writer, like a screenwriter, it couldn't come up with some of this sort of stuff like this it is, this is just, it's truly amazing. It's, it's, it's, uh, whatever, you know what? That's it. That's what happens. It wasn't a successful revolution anyway because you end up with a dictator and then you're going to go through it again in about 50 years. So good for you. Hey, hey, with more horrors to come, right? I know. Hey, that's what keeps us in this podcasting game. I know. It's true. Thank God we have horrific but interesting stories. That's right. Well, that is going to do it for us tonight, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us on our final part of the fateful flight to Varenz. As always, if you enjoyed us, go ahead and give us a like, bring and hit us up with where they can find us. You can find us on Apple Spotify's where most of our listeners find us. We're all on anchor, which is now a Spotify podcast. It's gone through a rebrand so you can check us out there as well or pretty much anywhere that you get a podcast. We love a sub. Hit us with a five star review, leave a comment, make it easier for people to find. You know, if you write something, just get us to, you know, for the algorithm or something like that. And that'd be awesome. But yeah, we appreciate all the love and support. We've seen a huge uptick in streams and downloads here over the last couple of months and we just really appreciate all of our students and listeners out there for supporting the pod. All right, ladies and gentlemen, until next time. See you later. Bye. [Music] (upbeat music)