Public Executions
Public executions were common during the French Revolution.
Often, people were executed simply for disagreeing with what the
leaders of the revolution said. The first leader of the revolution,
Maximillon Robespierre, was executed, as were the King and Queen of
France, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
The oldest person executed was 92 years old, while the youngest
was only 14. On Christmas day, 1783, 247 people were executed
throughout France. In Paris, just one city, July 27th, 1794, 136 people
were executed. It is estimated that over 20,000 people were executed
during the French Revolution.
Executions were an event. Many people would not work on that
day, just to be present to witness the execution of certain people.
While they were certainly often not popular with the people, many of
the people executed were simply in the wrong place, at the wrong
time. Executions were also used by the leaders of the French
Revolution to try to use fear to silence their critics and intimidate
people to go along with their ideas.
The French
Revolution
The French Revolution describes the time between 1789 to 1799
when the French people were demanding a change in their
government. During this time, the people, and part of the army, began
to fight against the king, and the rest of the army.
Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau were living in
France and writing about natural rights, like freedom of speech, and the
right to have liberty. The king, and many of the nobility during this time
maintained that God wanted them to be the leaders of the country, and
that they deserved the what they got.
The poverty in much of the country was a huge problem. Most
people’s standard of living was so low that they could barely afford to
put food on the table. The king and queen were not rich because they
had their own businesses or came up with new ideas, they were rich
because they took it from the peasants in the form of taxes. Because of
this, the peasants were willing to fight to try to be able to have some of
what the king and queen had in order to be able to pay for their own
food.
Poverty Vs. Opulence
Opulence describes people who are so rich, that money is no
object whatsoever. King Louis the XIV (14th) built a palace called
Versailles. This palace was so over the top rich, that they used solid
gold in a lot of their fixtures. They also used solid gold to decorate their
mirrors, chandeliers, and ceilings.
By the time Louis the XVI (16th) was king of France, the word had
gotten out about Versailles, as well as how the king and queen were
using the taxes paid by the peasants for the expensive palaces they
were living in.
Trust had so badly been damaged, that many of the peasants no
longer believed anything that the rulers of the country said. People
cheered when the King and Queen were beheaded in public executions.
Bastille
The Bastille was a converted castle used to hold political
prisoners. The King and Queen of France firmly believed in divine right,
that they were the leaders of their kingdom because God wanted them
to be. Of course, the number one reason why they probably believed in
this was because it happened to work out very well for them.
During the Enlightenment, people like Voltaire and Rousseau
started to write things in plays, letters, and books that questioned the
King and Queen’s rights to rule. They began to point out that if 90% of
the people in the country are very poor, and it’s the king’s fault, maybe
a monarchy wasn’t a good system of government. The king could not
allow people like this to continue to be free, but nor had they broken
any laws, so he would either exile them (kick them out of the country
for good) or he would put them in the Bastille.
Voltaire and many others continued to write despite being put in
prison. Most of them were not housed in the Bastille at the time it was
attacked, but to the French peasants, it was a symbol of the tyranny of
the French Kings. Attacking, and taking it over, as they did was
important to them because it made a statement, that they would not
put up with the king’s brutal policies anymore.
Guillotine
The guillotine became famous during the French Revolution as the
preferred way to execute people. It was a dramatic and gruesome way
to make sure that everyone was able to witness the killing of a prisoner.
The guillotine continued to be the main method of public execution in
France until 1981, when all public executions were outlawed. It was
also used in many other parts of the world, including being a very
common form of execution during the Third Reich in Hitler’s Germany.
At the beginning of the French Revolution, many different forms
of execution were employed, including beheading by a sword or axe,
hangings, burning at the stake, etc. These forms of execution often
were cruel, painful, and could take several minutes or longer to
complete. Since so many people were being executed during the
French Revolution, they began to seek a quicker, more efficient, and
also more humane way to execute prisoners. The National Assembly
argued that the point of execution was to end life, not to cause pain to
the prisoner. It was also important to them that all people, regardless
of class, were killed in the same way.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the few historical figures who is
more commonly referred to by his first name, was a general, French
Revolution hero, and French Dictator.
Napoleon became a famous general during the French Revolution,
fighting against foreign countries. When he saw that the government
was falling apart, he recognized it as an opportunity to go and take
control of France. In 1799, he and two others named themselves the
leaders of France, with Napoleon being the “first consul.” Two years
later, he declared himself the emperor, and became the dictator of
France.
Early in his rule, many people in France supported Napoleon
because he continued to lead his people in battle, and France became
one of the biggest and most powerful countries during his rule.
However, as he continued to gain more power, he re-established the
aristocracy (nobles) which the people had fought hard to eliminate
during the French Revolution.
He was defeated by the British in 1815 and sent into exile, but
returned later that year after escaping the island he was put on just
outside of Italy. Napoleon would again raise an army, and have brief
military success before being beaten again by the British at Waterloo.
This time, he was exiled to an island far away from Europe where he
would die about 10 years later.
Robespierre
Maximilien de Robespierre was lawyer and politician during the
French Revolution, and is probably the most famous person specifically
connected to the Revolution itself. Robespierre himself is a very
controversial figure, and it’s difficult to make a totally accurate
judgment of him because of how strongly people felt about him. His
supporters called him “The Incorruptible” but those who were opposed
to him called him a “bloodthirsty dictator.”
Robespierre talked numerous times about being against the death
penalty. However, since the King refused to give up and continued to
call the French people traitors, Robespierre argued that either the king
or the republic had to die. He is given credit for being an excellent
speech-giver, and could change almost anyone’s mind simply by
speaking.
After his life was directly threatened, Robespierre allowed laws to
be passed that allowed the government to execute people simply
because they were suspected to be against the French Revolution. This
led to many people not trusting him, and eventually to his arrest. Some
people claim he tried to kill himself, others that he was shot by another
person. Either way, he was not killed, and eventually executed by
guillotine on July 28, 1794.
Outside Ideas
There were two main historical movements that strongly
impacted the French Revolution. The first of these was the
Enlightenment. This was when, for the first time, men began to the
question the authority of the king, and suggest that if a government
wasn’t working for most people, they should start a new one. This idea
was obviously very popular among most of the peasants in France at
the time, since they were living very poor lives.
At the time, France was one of the most powerful and influential
countries in the world, and many of the people didn’t appreciate living
in such a great country without having any of the benefits of it.
France’s rival at the time was Great Britain. When the British colonies
(America) started to openly revolt against Great Britain, it was natural
for the French to support them. The king supported them as a way to
stick it to the British. The French people supported the Americans
because they liked the ideas of liberty, freedom, and having a
government where they people, rather than a king have power.
The connection between France and America became so strong,
that in the end of the Revolutionary War, the French were openly
supporting the Americans and actually fighting with them against the
British. After the war, the French gave a present to the newly formed
United States, known today as the Statue of Liberty, to remember their
accomplishment. These ideas would quickly lead to a French
Revolution as well, with a very different result.