On this day in History (August 10) the French Revolution triumphed. Good or bad?

[mayfly13]

Louis XVI of France imprisoned
"As the French Revolution (1787–99) continued, the country's monarchy was effectively overthrown on this day in 1792 when King Louis XVI and his wife, Marie-Antoinette, were imprisoned (they were eventually guillotined)."

"The crisis of the summer of 1792 was a major turning-point of the Revolution. By overthrowing the monarchy, the popular movement had effectively issued a challenge to the whole of Europe; internally, the declaration of war and overthrow of the monarchy radicalized the Revolution."
https://www.britannica.com/on-this-day/August-10



The French Revolution changed the Western World as we know it.
What do you think were the good's and the bad's of this transformation?
How do you think that our lifestyles and mentalities would have different, had it not happened?

 

[pecksniff]

"No one born since the Revolution can truly know the sweetness of life."

-- Talleyrand

Of course, he meant the sweet life of the nobility, living in luxury at Versailles and enjoying an endless round of banquets and balls and operas and state ceremonies. The life of the peasants was not so sweet. And did not start to get any sweeter until the industrial revolution.

 

[OldJourno]

"No one born since the Revolution can truly know the sweetness of life."

-- Talleyrand

Of course, he meant the sweet life of the nobility, living in luxury at Versailles and enjoying an endless round of banquets and balls and operas and state ceremonies. The life of the peasants was not so sweet. And did not start to get any sweeter until the industrial revolution.

I thought the peasants ate a lot of cake.

 

[pecksniff]

I thought the peasants ate a lot of cake.

A mistranslation of brioche.

 

[OldJourno]

A mistranslation of brioche.

"Let them eat brioche" just doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?

I'd heard second hand that Marie Antoinette really said "they can eat my ass" and that there were several takers.
That's the French for you.

 

[pecksniff]

"Let them eat brioche" just doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?

Apart from the name for a kind of bread, it was a slang term for the ash lining bakery ovens, and that's how the people interpreted it -- only, they didn't, because the queen never said anything of the kind.

Also, historians believe Marie Antoinette only ever had one extramarital lover, a Danish nobleman, which made her practically a nun by the standards of 18th-Century European royalty, but the revolutionaries made a lot of propaganda about her supposed sexual excesses.

Thomas Jefferson, who spent some time in France as the American ambassador, said of Marie Antoinette, "She is extravagant. She has no other vices or virtues worthy of mention."

 

[pecksniff]

There were only seven prisoners in the Bastille when the Paris mob stormed it -- but, they weren't there for the prisoners, they were there for the gunpowder stored in the castle.

Though, no doubt, they were partly motivated because the Bastille was a symbol of the whole royal-absolutist system, under which the king (or any of several dukes) could order anyone imprisoned indefinitely, without charge or trial, just by signing a lettre de cachet.

 

[pecksniff]

Allons enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé !
Contre nous de la tyrannie
L'étendard sanglant est levé, (bis)
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats ?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras
Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes !

Aux armes, citoyens,
Formez vos bataillons,
Marchons, marchons !
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!

 

[Healwsteel]

Violence is always regrettable.

 

[oggbashan]

The lot of the French peasantry before the Revolution was appalling. The principles of the Revolution were amazing and still form the basis of human rights today, including the UN and EU declarations of human rights. They freed slaves, gave women equal rights with men - in the 18th century! (But they rescinded both later...)


But the terror, and their wars against other countries killed too many.


The ideals were amazing. The execution (sorry - horrible pun) was
unnecessarily bloody.

 

[WillJ8787]

The lot of the French peasantry before the Revolution was appalling. The principles of the Revolution were amazing and still form the basis of human rights today, including the UN and EU declarations of human rights. They freed slaves, gave women equal rights with men - in the 18th century! (But they rescinded both later...)


But the terror, and their wars against other countries killed too many.


The ideals were amazing. The execution (sorry - horrible pun) was
unnecessarily bloody.

Yes, the rising up of the peasant class was a tremendous event for the better of French citizens of the future as it was in Colonies just a few years prior and that sentiment swept through many places as peasants and the slave class got wind of those events.

Our freedom and liberty of today is a direct result of those events.