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- [00:00]
Dominic Sandbrook
Thank you for listening to the Rest is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad free listening, early access to series and membership of our much loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club that is the rest is history.com.
- [00:19]
Tom Holland
This episode is brought to you by Zip Recruiter. Now Dominic, if you look at most successful businesses, you will notice one thing they all have in common. They all took a lot of hard work. Would you say that's true of us? Would you say that's true of the Rest is History?
- [00:33]
Dominic Sandbrook
I think that is true actually, Tom. I think we both do work quite hard on it, don't we? We spend a lot of time preparing the episodes. It's not quite the effortless superiority that everybody imagines, but I have to say it does help to have a good team.
- [00:45]
Tom Holland
It's a challenge, isn't it, that all companies face hiring. So this can be a daunting task. Especially when you need to find someone right away and you have too many or too little options to choose from.
- [00:56]
Dominic Sandbrook
That's right. But Tom, there is a place where people can go to for help and that is ZipRecruiter. Now ZipRecruiter does the work for you to make hiring fast and easy. And one reason it works so quickly is because of ZipRecruiter's invite to apply feature. So that lets you personally connect with your top choices to encourage them to apply for the role sooner.
- [01:17]
Tom Holland
Experience faster, easier hiring with ZipRecruiter. Try it free at ZipRecruiter.com history that's ZipRecruiter.com h I s t o r.
- [01:30]
C
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- [02:02]
D
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- [02:43]
Tom Holland
The audacious satellites of despotism carrying 15 centuries of pride and barbarism in their feudal souls, are now demanding in every land and from every throne the gold and soldiers to reconquer the sceptre of France. You have shaken off the yoke of your despots. But surely this was not to bend the knee before a foreign tyrant. So now, led by the most sublime passions, beneath the tricolour flag that you gloriously planted on the ruins of the Bastille, follow the course of your great destiny that beckons you on to the punishment of tyrants. Union et courage. Glory awaits you. To arms. Two arms. The honor and the salvation of the nation demand it. To arms.
- [03:36]
Dominic Sandbrook
To arms.
- [03:37]
Tom Holland
So that, Dominic, was exceptionally rousing rhetoric. I think brilliantly ventriloquized by me, Pabois. And it was Pierre Venio who was addressing the Legislative assembly in Paris on 3 January 1792. And what he was doing there was saying, let's have a crack at the Austrians.
- [03:56]
Dominic Sandbrook
He was indeed. So Vegno was a brilliant speaker.
- [03:59]
Tom Holland
Well, as the listeners will be able to tell from that rendition, I mean.
- [04:02]
Dominic Sandbrook
That was very rousing, Tom. If I were a Frenchman, I'd be on my feet.
- [04:05]
Tom Holland
Should we go and invade Vienna?
- [04:07]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right, exactly. So he was thought of as the best orator of the entire French Revolution.
- [04:12]
Tom Holland
The Cicero of the Republic.
- [04:13]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, we haven't mentioned him before, but he was one of the leading lights in a new faction which would appear in today's episode.
- [04:20]
Tom Holland
Waves of factions.
- [04:22]
Dominic Sandbrook
We've got factions. We've got so many factions. So they were called the Girondins, and they're really the party of war. And this is going to be a transformative moment in this whole story and will change the course of the Revolution completely. But not merely a transformative moment for the French Revolution, this is a transformative moment in world history because this is the beginning of a war that they all think, everybody thinks will be home by Christmas. And actually it lasts for almost 25 years, off and on. Totally redraws the map of Europe and costs millions of lives. It's not just Europe, actually. I mean, it's a genuine world war.
- [04:59]
Tom Holland
Yeah. So this is the road to Waterloo.
- [05:02]
Dominic Sandbrook
It is the road to Waterloo, yes. That's how we should brand this series, the Road to Waterloo. And nobody in the assembly that day listening to Vegno speak has the slightest semblance of an inkling of what is coming.
- [05:17]
Tom Holland
Because what people often think about the First World War, that people went to war with great enthusiasm and hurrah. And let's do It. This is actually true of this, isn't it? There's great enthusiasm for it.
- [05:29]
Dominic Sandbrook
Far more so. I mean, there's none of the foreboding that you have in the roads of the First World War. There is none of the sense of apocalyptic doom.
- [05:36]
Tom Holland
Well, there is a sense of apocalypse, I think, a sense that good and evil will be engaged in a titanic confrontation and that the forces of good will triumph. And that is what is animating Vernier's language. I mean, he thinks of himself as a Cicero, but he is also absolutely part of that kind of apocalyptic Christian tradition.
- [05:54]
Dominic Sandbrook
You're not wrong, Tom, you're never wrong when you bring out the being part of a Christian continuity, are you?
- [05:59]
Tom Holland
I mean, yeah, but. But it's. It's the fusion of the classical and the Christian, I think, does so much to explain what makes this revolutionary tradition so instantaneously potent.
- [06:09]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, I think you're right.
- [06:10]
Tom Holland
Talk about it being new. And it is the sense of novelty is part of the excitement, but it's a novelty that people have been conditioned to accept.
- [06:19]
Dominic Sandbrook
So how do we get there? How do we get to war? Well, remember where we ended last time? We ended on 30 September 1791. The Constitution has been agreed. The national assembly has met for the last time and gone home. And Louis has promised to knuckle down as a constitutional monarch, a promise that, as everybody listening to these podcasts will know, he fully intends to break. Meanwhile, the great revolutionary club, the Jacobin Club, has split into two. The Moderates have all walked out and set up their Foyon Club under Antoine Barnave and his friends, who appear to be the people in charge. And that has left the Jacobin as a kind of rump club. And its big star is Maximilien Robespierre. So let's pick up straight away the new assembly, voted for by sort of taxpayers, property owners, meets for the first time at the beginning of October. It's got 742 members, and they're all new people because the old people have said they're not going to stand for the new Assembly. So these people are even younger than their predecessors, even less experienced and more likely to not come from Paris, but to come from small towns. Only a tiny fraction of them live in Paris, so they are outsiders. That's a bit of an obstacle when you're in the middle of this capital seething with tension. Another big handicap for them. They've only been elected by a tiny, tiny turnout. So there were sort of strict property thresholds for who could vote. And the turnout anyway was terrible. So in some areas it was only 10%, 11%. In Paris it was only 14%. So actually they have not got much of a mandate, you would say, not much of a popular mandate. So in they go. And straight away, the factionalism. You were kind of chuckling when I said we were about to introduce the Girondins as a new faction. The factualism starts straight away. They arrange themselves very self consciously. The radicals on the left, the more conservative on the right. This is obviously the French Revolution, the first time this has ever happened. About four out of ten of them, historians think, are follons, moderates who back Barnarve and co. Another four out of five are in the middle. People call them the plain because they sit in the kind of the bottom of the assembly and they can be swayed one way or the other. And that leaves about 2 out of 10 maximum, who are radicals, members of the Jacquemin Club. And the big difference is not one of background and social class and that stuff. It's actually kind of temperament and ideology. The Foyants think basically anarchy is very dangerous, the streets are dangerous, moderation is all. And the Jacquemin think the common people are the incarnations of virtue. Poor people have wisdom, you know, and decency that richer people don't have, and we should embolden them and enfranchise them as much as possible. So they're populists and this is a.
- [09:23]
Tom Holland
Reversal of the traditional way of understanding things, isn't it, that it is wealth and education that brings you the expertise that enables you to run a government. And the Robespierre position, the radical Jacobin position, is that it's precisely the lack of that makes the poor more honest in a kind of Rousseauist manner. They look into their souls and what is written on their souls is worth a million times what people have learned in, you know, salons and so on.
- [09:52]
Dominic Sandbrook
So they've obviously got this from Rousseau and Russo, obviously got it from a bloke in the Middle east in round about the turn of, you know, the reign of the Emperor Augustus, didn't he, Tom? Is that correct? The last should be first and the first should be last and all that kind of business.
- [10:06]
Tom Holland
Clearly there are elements of that.
- [10:07]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, so there's this idea. I mean, they're all idealistic, by the way, in different ways. I mean, you could be a moderate or a radical, you're still. They're all pretty idealistic, but from the moment they sit down, they're facing massive, massive challenges. I mean, France is in an absolute mess. Let's not underestimate that in the autumn of 1791, half of the clergy are effectively in open defiance of the civil authorities because they have refused to swear this oath, the civil constitution of the clergy. Mass eruptions in the countryside. Peasants refusing to pay their feudal dues to their seigneur and saying this is completely legitimate and kind of attacking chateau and kind of destroying documents and things. Hard currency in France by this point has virtually disappeared. And the French economy is afloat with paper money, which a lot of people find deeply suspicious and dodgy. I don't trust paper notes and they're called assignat, and they are plummeting in value. So that means prices are going up.
- [11:07]
Tom Holland
And classically, traditions like that foster conspiracy theories, don't they? It's all being manipulated by speculators, speculators and hoarders. So that's not helpful either.
- [11:16]
Dominic Sandbrook
Not helpful at all. And in Paris, there is a growing sense of militancy and disorder because people can't afford to buy bread. And people are angry and people have been kind of radicalized by the events of the last couple of years. And they have a sense that basically this new legislative assembly is meeting, but who gives a hoot to about them? They don't really represent me anyway, so there's all that. Now, on top of that, there is something else we mentioned last time, which is that when the Legislative assembly meets for the first time, the news has actually arrived in France that the slaves on Saint Domingue have launched a massive uprising in the richest colony empire. This is a huge challenge for France for its economy. But also, as you said, Tom, what do you do if you've committed yourself to the rights of man, but at the same time you believe in the rights of property and the importance of.
- [12:06]
Tom Holland
Order and you also believe in preserving the French economy.
- [12:08]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [12:09]
Tom Holland
So ideals and self interest are rubbing up against each other very violently.
- [12:13]
Dominic Sandbrook
And the other thing now we love a ticking time bomb on the rest is history. And this is a ticking time bomb in human form. It's Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI who were determined to overthrow the revolution at the very first opportunity. I remember when I was doing this for a level and one of the great essay questions was always, why didn't France settle down and have a constitutional monarchy like Britain? Why did the constitutional monarchy fail? I mean, if you're giving a really simple one sentence answer, the king never wanted it to work and would never have made it work.
- [12:42]
Tom Holland
But just because you said in the previous episode that if he hadn't accepted this constitution, then they would have chucked him aside and they would have brought in his younger son, the Dauphin, who's about 6. Why didn't they do that anyway? It would have made everything so much easier.
- [12:57]
Dominic Sandbrook
Then that raises the problem of, what do you do with him? You probably have to kill him.
- [13:00]
Tom Holland
I suppose so, yeah, I suppose.
- [13:03]
Dominic Sandbrook
I guess you have to kill him because he will probably try to escape the country and raise an army to recapture his throne, I would guess.
- [13:09]
Tom Holland
I mean, here's an interesting question. Had they done that, what would they have done with him then?
- [13:12]
Dominic Sandbrook
Constant house arrest. That's presumably what you'd have to do with him. But you're absolutely right, Tom.
- [13:16]
Tom Holland
Put him in an iron mask.
- [13:18]
Dominic Sandbrook
In an iron mask? Yeah. Why not? Perfect, no. So Louis and Marinnet are just buying time, hoping that either the revolution will fall apart or that the Austrians will intervene to save them. So in the story of that autumn, is all these problems getting worse, Much greater and greater. Rural disorder and the slave rebellion on Saint Domingue getting further and further out of control. Thousands of people being killed, hundreds of plantations burned. The rebels are on their way to controlling almost half of the colony. I mean, this is a massive threat to the French economy. And people start to see it in France. You know, I can't get coffee, I can't get sugar. The prices are going higher and higher and all of this kind of thing. So the moderate cause is actually. Even though they appear to be the largest group, their position is eroding almost day by day. And the Jacobin, the radical position is getting stronger. Now, previously, the Radical's big star had been Robespierre. We talked about him last time. But actually, Robespierre, as soon as the national assembly breaks up, he actually goes home, he goes back to Arras, and there he's welcomed as a great hero. But he's away from Paris, so he's out of the action. And so this whole business would be an absolute gift to a kind of Netflix, because they could use so many different actors and different character actors to come on at various points and seize the limelight, because now we have a new star, a really interesting character.
- [14:40]
Tom Holland
He's a very admirable man.
- [14:41]
Dominic Sandbrook
I think he reminds me. I said, robespierre reminds me of you. But I mean, I think there's a lot of Tom Holland in this guy.
- [14:47]
Tom Holland
Oh, well, thanks. I take that as a compliment.
- [14:49]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, we'll see whether it is a compliment. He's Jacques Pierre Brissot.
- [14:53]
Tom Holland
I mean, not on the whole Warmongering stuff.
- [14:55]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, but. So he's the son of a pastry cook from Chartres. He was a law clerk and he'd grown up in quite a lot of poverty because I think his parents had died or something like that, I can't remember. Anyway, he'd been a law clerk and they became a hack writer. He was turning out vampire novels and books on the Roman Republic. So he was writing travel books, but he also wrote a lot of pornography. Like Stanley Baldwin, actually.
- [15:19]
Tom Holland
And the Marquis de Sade, of course.
- [15:20]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. So he traveled Brusso in England and in Switzerland and Belgium. He went to the us, as you'll be doing this autumn, Tom. He went to Boston. He wrote a three volume book about the new American Republic. He loved it, said it was brilliant.
- [15:34]
Tom Holland
But he's also a very keen abolitionist.
- [15:36]
Dominic Sandbrook
Massive.
- [15:36]
Tom Holland
So this is something that he picks up in London and then I think on his travels.
- [15:40]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, he's massive.
- [15:41]
Tom Holland
Very, very committed to the abolition of slavery.
- [15:44]
Dominic Sandbrook
He set up a society, an international society, called the Society of the Friends of the Blacks. That was what it was called.
- [15:51]
Tom Holland
And this also, as we will see in our next episode, this also influences objection to capital punishment, which he's also against.
- [15:59]
Dominic Sandbrook
He's a social justice activist. I mean, that's what he is. He's a traveling writer and activist. And he threw himself into the revolution. He wasn't elected as a deputy. He was a journalist and a kind of activist behind the scenes. He has moved steadily leftward. So remember the petition from the last episode of the Champ de Mars Massacre? It was Brisso who wrote the text of that petition. And finally now he's been elected to the Legislative assembly for the Department of the Seine. And he is a great star. Everybody, not everybody, but lots of people think he's brilliant.
- [16:33]
Tom Holland
He loves a literary party, doesn't he? He does that kind of thing, a salon.
- [16:36]
Dominic Sandbrook
He's very self confident. Even his friends said if he had one floor he was excessively confident. Now, Tom, you and I suffer from quite low self esteem.
- [16:47]
Tom Holland
We do.
- [16:47]
Dominic Sandbrook
So we wouldn't get on with him at all.
- [16:49]
Tom Holland
Although BetterHelp has been assisting with that, fortunately.
- [16:53]
Dominic Sandbrook
That's great news. And in fact a problem for him is that he's so cosmopolitan and well traveled and self assured that he perhaps looks down on more provincial people like Robespierre and underestimates them. And he also doesn't really have a massive common touch. So he, as you said, he loves a literary party. So the people he hangs around with at these parties are this group, the Girondins. He always likes clever, confident people. So the guy we began with, Vergniaud, the orator, he's one of these people. They all have come from Bordeaux, the department of the Gironde, which is why they're called the Girondins. And they love going to this woman's literary salon. Twice a week, she has dinner in her apartment. She's called Manon Roland, Madame Roland. Her husband Roland, who's much older than she is, is one of their kind of cronies.
- [17:44]
Tom Holland
So he's a factory inspector, isn't he?
- [17:47]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, he's a bit boring, really, but.
- [17:48]
Tom Holland
He'S devoted to her, as we will see. I mean, he loves her literally to death.
- [17:52]
Dominic Sandbrook
And they go to these parties and they have tremendously witty conversation. It's basically like the London Review of Books or the Guardian books pages or something.
- [18:02]
Tom Holland
I was thinking it was like the History Athelstan.
- [18:04]
Dominic Sandbrook
Of course it is. That's what it's like. It's like the meetings of our elite club members. Yes. I can't believe I didn't see that opportunity. And these guys and Madame Roland, they absolutely grasp, I think, the mood of the moment in 1791 in a way that the Foil do not. Because what they see is that political life has radically changed and that a climate of fear and suspicion has now become completely ingrained. So we mentioned the historian Timothy Tackett before. He says, basically, across the political spectrum, there is now a widespread belief in a monolithic grand conspiracy where internal conspirators, external conspirators and conspirators in the court are all working together and somebody is pulling the strings. And by and large, people think that the person pulling the strings or the people are Marie Antoinette and the Austrian Emperor and that they're controlling the whole thing. Now, that is the kind of open goal of French politics. And the Foyon can't play on that. Can you play on an open goal? I'm mixing my metaphors horrendously, but they can't exploit that because they're so close to the King, they're thrown in their lot with him. But Brisso, who is really a Republican, he can play on it, and he's determined to do it.
- [19:21]
Tom Holland
And he has a very cunning strategy, doesn't he?
- [19:23]
Dominic Sandbrook
A very cunning strategy. He will undermine the monarchy. He'll force the King to expose himself. And he's got the perfect issue. And this is the issue of these people, the emigres. So we promised we'd talk about them. So in my imagination of this kind of HBO series. This is the moment when, you know, it cuts from the kind of the pouring rain of Paris to the sun kissed Rhineland.
- [19:50]
Tom Holland
I was thinking more a salon again with very, very kind of shintzy cups of chocolate, that kind of thing.
- [19:57]
Dominic Sandbrook
Really.
- [19:58]
Tom Holland
Footman?
- [19:58]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, because you've got cups of chocolate bearers. In my mind, this is where I put in the gratuitous nudity. Oh, really? I'd have emigre princes cavorting with Rhineland wenches. That's what I would do.
- [20:09]
Tom Holland
Is that what they were getting up to?
- [20:10]
Dominic Sandbrook
No, but it's. You've got to allow yourself a little bit of dramatic license, I think, for it to be a hit series.
- [20:14]
Tom Holland
I think Jacobin radicals are engaging in free love, aren't they?
- [20:17]
Dominic Sandbrook
No, they're talking about Russo in a very pinched way. That's what I think they're doing. Yeah, but in a NETFLIX series, I guess so maybe. Anyway, the exiles. So the first exile really to leave was Louis, incredibly reactionary younger brother Charles, the Count of Artois. He had gone off straight away, hadn't he?
- [20:33]
Tom Holland
I mean, I think immediately after the Bastille.
- [20:35]
Dominic Sandbrook
Immediately after the Bastille. And a few people had joined him and there'd been a slightly kind of trickle. And by 1791 he has installed himself in Coblenz, which is in the electorate of Trier, in the Rhineland. So for all that people may say, gosh, the revolutionary is terrible, people with their conspiracy theories. He's totally open. I'm going to run a conspiracy to.
- [20:55]
Tom Holland
Overthrow the revolution and I'm going to massacre large numbers of people.
- [20:59]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [20:59]
Tom Holland
So his aim is, and he said this, that if he gets back to Paris, he will subject Paris to the shadow of a terror.
- [21:06]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, I mean, he's absolutely upfront about it. Fair play to him. He has been joined by 1791 by his brother Louis Stanislas, Count of Provence. Both Charles and Louis Stanislas, by the way, will eventually become King of France and their relative, the Prince de Cond? So they're there. Also, there is a guy that people may remember from the early days of season one, Charles Alexandre de Calonne. So Callon, the finance minister, who was also a stockbroker and everybody hated because he'd made himself so rich. He's there and he's basically their prime minister and he has opened talks with the European powers, you know, is there some way that we can get you to finance a big invasion of France?
- [21:47]
Tom Holland
Well, he'd gone straight to London, hadn't he? Initially, when he goes into exile and then he kind of ends up back in the lowlands.
- [21:52]
Dominic Sandbrook
Exactly. So the question is, you know, there they all are, just over the border now, are they a serious threat? And the short answer is no, they're not at all. Because actually, even though 10,000 people have left, those are women and children, they only have an army of about 4,000 people. I mean, that is obviously pitiful. That's nowhere near what you need to launch a terror in the streets of Paris.
- [22:15]
Tom Holland
But Dominic, one thing to bear in mind, and this is important considering what's going to come, the officer class in the army. Either officers have gone to join this court in exile or they are thinking about it. And so that suggests for people in the know about military affairs in Paris, that actually France's military resources are not all they could be.
- [22:37]
Dominic Sandbrook
Oh, yeah, Because, I mean, we know that people don't necessarily know this themselves. But, Tom, you and I know that the French army has descended into total chaos. People are disobeying their officers and a lot of the officers, the senior officers, as you just said, they have gone to Koblenz or they are preparing to go because they have lost all confidence in the revolutionary authorities. I mean, that's going to be a massive problem if it comes to a war.
- [22:59]
Tom Holland
So that's why I'm just wondering, I mean, you know, you're saying that they're not a threat.
- [23:02]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [23:02]
Tom Holland
But actually, to have kind of 10,000 people who are very well trained, quite wealthy, have a very precise object in view up against an army that is essentially becoming a rabble, I mean, it's. The odds are maybe slightly, slightly more menacing than they might otherwise seem.
- [23:19]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. Don't you think then they might seem. I think that's not necessarily unfair. And you're also right that there are other reasons why people in France, they sort of big. The emigres up in their minds about what a threat they are. So first of all, they think the emigres are responsible for the plight of the economy. They say it's the emigres whose currency speculations have destroyed the value of our paper money and is driving up inflation. That's all their fault.
- [23:45]
Tom Holland
Right, so we talked about this, didn't we? That hyperinflation and currency money losing its value always generates these conspiracy theories. And it's the emigres who are playing the role that Jews often play in, say, Weimar Germany.
- [23:57]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, absolutely. Right. Next, the radical papers say these guys are going to invade our cities, rape all our women, murder our children. This is what's going to happen. And you know, there is A grain of truth in that if they did invade France, you said yourself the Comte d'artois was absolutely open about it. You know, he can't wait to get stuck into the people of Paris. And even if you're a moderate politician, it's kind of humiliating that they're there in these tiny little German states. So there's some in Koblenz, there's some in Mainz. These little electorates are basically harboring exile groups. There is no country in the world that would look on that with equanimity. I mean, if that was the case in Britain, if Luxembourg was harboring British exiles, as. Where is it? Malibu. Santa Monica is currently harboring a British exile tomorrow.
- [24:49]
Tom Holland
An emigre prince.
- [24:50]
Dominic Sandbrook
An emigre prince, Yeah. I mean, think about the press he gets. So it's no wonder that Briso is playing the emigre card all the time. And he is brilliant at putting all this together. And he says, look, it's a jigsaw. And you put all the pieces together and the picture is perfectly clear. He says, there is a network. It's run by an Austrian committee. Marianne to Annette is their kind of French contact. She's using Barnave and the Foyant as her puppets. Her brother Leopold in Vienna is the other big cheese, and he is using the Rhineland exiles as his puppets. And it all connects and it explains everything.
- [25:29]
Tom Holland
And this is why the pornographic traditions about Marie Antoinette being incestuous are so resonant. The idea that she had grown up committing incest with her brothers, of course.
- [25:40]
Dominic Sandbrook
Because they're not just brother and sister, they're a sinister couple. I mean, that lies at the center of all this. So by the autumn of 1791, Brissot, Vergniaud and their friends say it's time for a massive crackdown on these people and their allies in France. And of course, the genius of their plan is under the Constitution, they get to pass legislation, but then the King has to decide whether or not to veto it. They know that the King will veto what they do and that that will expose him as part of the enemy conspiracy. So in November 1791, they introduced two laws that are both designed to be impossible for Louis to accept. One is a massive crackdown on those remaining priests who have not signed up to the new regime. They will lose their pensions and indeed their right to administer the sacraments if they don't sign up. And they risk being declared enemies of the homeland, of the patrie. Louis immediately vetoes this, of course, and that sets off riots across France, in Lyon, Marseille, In Paris and so on. Legislation bit number two. They say emigres who don't return to Paris will be declared outlaws. Their property will be confiscated and they will face the death penalty if we catch them. And by the way, this specifically includes the King's brothers.
- [26:55]
Tom Holland
Of course.
- [26:55]
Dominic Sandbrook
There's no way the King is going to agree to this. He vetoes it, as everybody knows he will. And that is a PR disaster for the King.
- [27:05]
Tom Holland
Why couldn't he have done it?
- [27:06]
Dominic Sandbrook
Would you?
- [27:07]
Tom Holland
If I was trying to signal, yeah. I think in his situation, I would have signed it because I'm already an absolute fibber. You know, I'm telling lies left, right and center. I think, well, I might as well tell another one. And I'd hope that the lie would be so obvious that it would serve as a signal to my brothers and to other royal households that, you know, I'm in an absolute hole. I'm being forced to do this. It's like a kind of hostage message.
- [27:31]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, you could do, I guess. Louis is quite a stubborn man. He's not crafty.
- [27:36]
Tom Holland
He's also an idiot, isn't he?
- [27:37]
Dominic Sandbrook
He's an idiot. You know who would have signed this? Charles ii.
- [27:40]
Tom Holland
He would like a. Like a bullet.
- [27:41]
Dominic Sandbrook
Charles II would have signed it even before they drafted it.
- [27:43]
Tom Holland
He'd be quite relieved to get rid of James, wouldn't he?
- [27:46]
Dominic Sandbrook
But Charles II would have absolutely. You know, political leadership and tactical skill matters. And Charles ii, cynical, calculating, all of that stuff. He would have found this really tricky. But he could. You could well imagine him negotiating his way out of it. Louis is like a. He's very fat at this point, isn't he?
- [28:10]
Tom Holland
He's just an idiot. I mean, this is so obviously a trap. It's like, here's a large elephant trap. Oh, is it? I'll walk into it. He's hopeless.
- [28:18]
Dominic Sandbrook
He's just blundering. He's not really on the ball. He's spending all his time eating and drinking. He's very disillusioned and depressed. He's just like, I'm not going to do this. And he's not really thinking ahead, I think, as well. The other thing, Tom, actually, he and Marion Swanet are so blinded by their own political prejudices, they still think the revolution will fall apart. So in a way, he just thinks it doesn't matter. I don't think he ever quite realizes the extremity of the position again.
- [28:46]
Tom Holland
Well, that's a failure of political imagination, isn't it?
- [28:48]
Dominic Sandbrook
Total failure of political imagination. I couldn't agree with you more. I think his lack of political imagination is probably the single biggest defect that he has out of many. Anyway, this is a massive bow, not just to the monarchy, but of course, to the people who support the foyon, the moderates, because it looks like they're kind of part of the same conspiracy. And to cut a very long story short, what this means is as we get to December 1791, the balance of power has shifted in the new legislative assembly. Russo, social justice activist, who you love, now has very much the upper hand and the momentum. And now he can press for the thing that he really wants. And that, Tom, is war.
- [29:26]
Tom Holland
Right, so let's take a break, and when we come back, it's war. Hello and welcome back to the Rest is History and Dominic. C'est la guerre.
- [29:43]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [29:43]
Tom Holland
War is approaching. But why? And how? And whither and wherefore and whence?
- [29:49]
Dominic Sandbrook
So, Tom, you could argue, I think reasonably, that the idea for war has been implicit in the revolution from the very beginning. So, first of all, France is a state built for war. I mean, France is a state that's always fighting wars. So it's actually the only global superpower with an army and a navy. Britain, of course, has a navy, but it doesn't have much of an army. Austria and Prussia have armies, but no real navy. And France has always seen itself as being in this great global competition. So France is set up to fight wars. It's what France does. It's what France is really good at.
- [30:22]
Tom Holland
Although that is kind of what contributed to the revolution, of course.
- [30:25]
Dominic Sandbrook
But I don't think anybody says, oh, therefore we should fight fewer wars. They think we should fight more wars more successfully.
- [30:31]
Tom Holland
Yeah, of course.
- [30:31]
Dominic Sandbrook
I think another element of this is the revolution is always a universalist mission. So you talked about that in your episode in season one about the ideas.
- [30:42]
Tom Holland
And it's quite convenient, isn't it, if you want to go and conquer foreign countries, if you feel that you're doing it on the side of right, if.
- [30:48]
Dominic Sandbrook
You'Re fighting on the side of liberty against the tyrants who have enslaved you, I mean, that is the ethos of the revolution. From the very outset, there is this kind of crusading spirit. And as you said, people have been primed for this by centuries of Christian ideology. The revolution is absolutely part of that. But equally significantly, I think, again, very much plain to you, revolutionaries feel themselves the heirs of republican Rome, and they think that healthy societies are instilled with the spirit of kind of patriotic sacrifice.
- [31:23]
Tom Holland
Because they're now citizens in the way that the Romans were citizens and that you best manifest your sense of citizenship by standing together in war. I mean, that's the Roman understanding and it's one that is obviously very fertile in terms of where France is with the Revolution at this point.
- [31:39]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, I think. Absolutely. It's kind of a masculinity thing as well, isn't it? You know, I think my take on this is that that makes the French Revolution exceptional from the very beginning, because it's obviously different from the Revolution in England in the 1640s and 1650s. There was never really any expectation that that would be exported by force of arms.
- [31:56]
Tom Holland
Well, it kind of is, isn't it? It kind of is. To Ireland.
- [32:00]
Dominic Sandbrook
To Ireland, but not to continental Europe. There's no sense that Cromwell is going to be leading armies rampaging through Central Europe.
- [32:07]
Tom Holland
Well, Jamaica, so the Jamaican expedition against Spain. There is a kind of sense that they are up against, you know, the evils of Catholicism, but very limited compared.
- [32:15]
Dominic Sandbrook
With what comes the French Revolution. The French Revolution is spilling over beyond its borders from the very outset. I mean, that is why Burke and Paine, Edward Burke and Thomas Paine, are having this war of words about the meaning of the French Revolution. It's why in 1791, in the summer, on Bastille Day. So we began the last episode, Bastille Day, 1791. If we'd begun that episode in Birmingham, Tom, there would have been riots and an inferno as people attack Joseph Priest's house and they attack dissenting chapels because they say, because of these sort of lefty free thinkers, the French Revolution is going to erupt any minute in the. Here in the West Midlands.
- [32:54]
Tom Holland
Well, again, it's that association with kind of radical Protestantism.
- [32:58]
Dominic Sandbrook
Exactly. But it anticipates, obviously, the fears of the Russian revolution in the 1920s, that it's an international conspiracy that is poised to erupt beyond France's boundaries. And actually, the first moment that that happens, until I read up on this, it had never actually occurred to me, even before war was declared. This has already happened. It happened in September 1491, in Avignon.
- [33:20]
Tom Holland
Yeah.
- [33:20]
Dominic Sandbrook
Which is a papal territory which wasn't part of France. I had. I completely overlooked this until I was reading up on it. And it's very Russia In Crimea in 2014, the revolutionaries organize a referendum in Avignon and it is the little green men, or whatever they called them in the Crimea, going around stirring people up. There's a lot of violence, there's a lot of intimidation. And then a month after this referendum, after the French have basically annexed Avignon. There is a load of violence erupts. People protest against the annexation. They say the Virgin Mary is weeping because she's so sad at the kind.
- [33:53]
Tom Holland
Of sacrilege of the Pope has lost his territory.
- [33:57]
Dominic Sandbrook
And these women having seen the Virgin Mary weeping, they're like, well we should do something about this. They get this bloke who's a leading Jacobin, they beat him over the head with paving stones and then they shove knitting needles in his eyes, clearly. But in retribution, the local Jacobin round up all these women and their friends. They kill 60 of them, beat them to death with iron bars and then they throw their bodies down the toilet of the palace. So it's very poor behavior on all sides, Tom, I think it's fair to say. And the revolutionary government in Paris gives the shak all a blanket pardon.
- [34:31]
Tom Holland
They've been the real victims in this.
- [34:32]
Dominic Sandbrook
They're the real victims because the n needle action earlier on. So of course the French generally see them. I mean this is the interesting thing, we in Britain because of our own, you know, biases.
- [34:43]
Tom Holland
We don't have biases, Dominic.
- [34:44]
Dominic Sandbrook
No, you're right. Because of our objectivity, because of our scrupulous objectivity, we perceive the French revolutionary wars effectively as wars of French aggression. France exporting the gospel of revolution. Of course the French never perceive it that way. From the very beginning they see themselves, as you said, they're the victims. They think Varennes was a conspiracy, which it was, it was a betrayal. And all through France in this period, 1791 summer autumn, there are endless rumors, I mean there's a great one here of the Prince de Cond and the Comte d'artois are about to arrive with an army of men in black clothes made from the cassocks of. They'd be wearing like priests, outfits from the cassocks of non juring clergy studded with death's heads. It's very kind of like a, you know, Marvel super villains or something poised to attack. And the person who they think of this, obviously the supreme Marvel super villain is France's traditional enemy, the Austrian Emperor.
- [35:39]
Tom Holland
So Leopold ii, who's actually, I mean not at all that, no, he's a lovely man like his brother Joseph, who we described earlier as essentially being a very kind of Enlightenment figure. And his plans for the church have been pretty identical to those of the revolution. It's just a question of who is framing these ideas.
- [35:57]
Dominic Sandbrook
The rest is Habsburg history. Habsburgs gets such a good press from us. Unbelievable. Where is the Order of the Golden Fleece. We're still waiting.
- [36:05]
Tom Holland
There's plenty wrong, but they are not the kind of the monstrous tyrants remotely of Jacobin propaganda.
- [36:13]
Dominic Sandbrook
So Leopold is Marinette's brother. He's sitting there in Vienna and has he intervened? No. Why hasn't he intervened? Actually, because his empire has got its ructions of its own because of him and his brother Joseph's enlightened absolutism, his attempts to reform the Church. Also because the Austrians are too busy fighting the Turks. There's all kinds of stuff kicking off in Poland. Poland is about to get partitioned. But also, Leopold knows that Marie Antoinette is a bit of a head case. He doesn't think of her as a tremendous person. He actually thinks Marie Antoinette is a bit of a feckless waster. He obviously can't abandon her because she's his sister. So he's just kind of playing a waiting game. And actually, what Leopold wants to do, he doesn't want a war. He wants to deter the French from, as he sees it, doing something stupid, namely attacking him. Yeah. So in August 1791, he meets the King of Prussia, Frederick William II, at this castle, Pilnitz in Saxony.
- [37:09]
Tom Holland
The Count of Artois is there as well, isn't he?
- [37:11]
Dominic Sandbrook
And he's not invited. He's not actually invited, no. He turns up uninvited and he sits.
- [37:16]
Tom Holland
Around outside and they're like, oh, God.
- [37:18]
Dominic Sandbrook
That flipping loser pitched up as well. So they issue a statement, the kings of Austria and Prussia, and they say, look, the fate of the French king is a matter of concern to all the sovereigns of Europe. We want to see him enjoying his full liberties and rights. Interesting. They're using the words liberties and rights. Right. And they say, they give a sort of hint that if it all kicks off in France and if all the monarchs of Europe agree, they would have to give serious consideration to further action, or something like that.
- [37:47]
Tom Holland
Issuing a sternly worded diktat.
- [37:49]
Dominic Sandbrook
It's very vague. And they think that this is like a little. Just a little kind of warning to the French, just calm down, it'll deter them. But it's clearly not a threat. They don't think that it's a threat to invade. Now, the problem is that the Comte d'artois, as you said, Thomas, turned up and uninvited, he gets this statement. He has it printed from Coblentz and distributed across France with a cover letter in which he writes, the European monarchs are poised to invade. You know, lock up your daughters, we're on our way, or whatever.
- [38:23]
Tom Holland
With our death heads.
- [38:24]
Dominic Sandbrook
With our death's heads.
- [38:26]
Tom Holland
Priests, cassocks.
- [38:27]
Dominic Sandbrook
And of course, everybody in France says, oh, my God. Yet more proof of this hideous conspiracy. So that means that when Briseau, who we talked about in the first half. Pornographer, hack writer, travel writer. Tom loves him.
- [38:40]
Tom Holland
Abolitionist.
- [38:41]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. Great man. For a literary salon. He stands up in October 1791 in the Legislative Assembly. He does a Vladimir Putin. He gives, like, an interminable lecture in which he says, france has been the victim of enemy expansion. We have been humiliated not in the last few years, but in the last four decades. So since the beginning of the Seven Years War, we allied ourselves with Austria, and Austria never delivered. They've cheated us, they've conspired against us. We have been the great victims in all world history, you know, and it's time for it to end.
- [39:17]
Tom Holland
But, Dominic, just to ask you.
- [39:19]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [39:19]
Tom Holland
The focus of this is Vienna and not London.
- [39:24]
Dominic Sandbrook
No, not London.
- [39:25]
Tom Holland
It's really interesting because Britain really is. Has been the most dangerous rival to.
- [39:29]
Dominic Sandbrook
France, but at this point. So William Pitt becomes a great hate figure in the 1790s in France. But I get the sense that it's a little bit later that all the rhetoric right now is about Austria, and I wonder how much of that is, because they're seeing it all through the prism of the court of Marie Antoinette and her links to Austria.
- [39:45]
Tom Holland
Massively. I would have thought. Yeah, massively.
- [39:48]
Dominic Sandbrook
That it's really remarkable reading all this stuff about it. The brilliant account of the road to war in Timothy Tackett's book about the coming of the terror. Britain, London are barely ever mentioned. It's all Vienna and Austria.
- [40:01]
Tom Holland
I think that is genuinely because of the understanding of Marie Antoinette as an incestuous vampire at the heart of a great web of conspiracy.
- [40:09]
Dominic Sandbrook
But that in itself reflects the fact that Austria for a long time has been France's traditional land enemy, and that, in a way, the French have often thought about Britain as a subsidiary. I mean, the folly. The folly and hubris of it. Tom as a secondary player. And they will learn. So Briso says, look, it's very Putin, like, we need all these demands answering. He says we seek redress, but he says they probably won't give us the address. And that's fine because war would be brilliant for us. First of all, he says war will make us more united. It will restore our finances and public credit. It will put an end to terror, betrayals, and anarchy. It will bring us, and I quote, domestic peace if we fight next, he says war will purge us of sin. Such a war is a sacred war, a war ordained from on high. And like the heavens, it will purify our souls. Extraordinary war will make us more equal, Quote. By mixing men and ranks, elevating the plebeian, bringing down the proud patrician, war alone can make all equal and regenerate souls.
- [41:14]
Tom Holland
Fascinating. He's using Roman terms there, plebeians and patricians.
- [41:17]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, exactly. And he actually then points, he says, finally, history shows that all free nations are defined by war. And he points to the examples of republican Rome and the tax evaders in the American colonies. And he says, a people which has conquered its freedom after 12 centuries of slavery needs a war to consolidate it, to test itself, to show that it is worthy of freedom. So you see all the currents, the republican Rome, the influence of America, the Christian mission.
- [41:46]
Tom Holland
But again, that's what's so interesting, is that he is. And this is what the French Revolution does so brilliantly, and Napoleon will as well. He fuses the idea of a civic culture which is specific to the Patri, to France, with a sense of universalist mission. So France can go to war simultaneously serving French interests, while also doing it on behalf of humanity. Yeah, and what a brilliant. I love all that fusion that is.
- [42:13]
Dominic Sandbrook
I love all that because it's such a brilliant rhetorical slice of hand. Brisso stands there and he says, this is a crusade for universal liberty to free the enslaved peoples of Europe and topple all the former Bastilles. But at the same time, he says, by the way, the French are the foremost people of the universe and France is the model for the future of all mankind. So it's a brilliant trick to say nationalism is universalism, because if we are the model, then by following our own national interest and conquering other countries, we're actually furthering the cause of liberty. And isn't that lovely?
- [42:49]
Tom Holland
So everyone loves that. Or do they? Because the occasional person of principle who stands up and pays you that. Right.
- [42:56]
Dominic Sandbrook
The Robespierre fan cast, Maximilian Robespierre has come back from Arras at the end of November 1791. Remember, he's been away. He comes back and he gets an ecstatic reception at the Jacobin Club. And then he stands up in the Jacobin. He says, all this talk of war, shocking. I think war would be a terrible disaster. He's very prescient. I mean, we said he's not a fool.
- [43:19]
Tom Holland
He really is prescient. He's really not wrong here, because he talks about war, risks the collapse of the Revolution and threatens us with a Caesar With a Cromwell.
- [43:29]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, he's absolutely right. I mean, he sees Bonaparte coming. And he also makes another very good point. He says Briso is saying explicitly, who loves America, is comparing this with the American War of Independence. He says it's going to be nothing like the American War of Independence. The Americans were fighting to preserve what they saw as their own liberties and their own native land. We would be fighting a war of expansion. He says it's the most extravagant idea, that you can just waltz into someone's country and say, now you must adopt our laws. And I quote, nobody likes armed missionaries. He'd be a brilliant guest, Tom, and the rest is politics, wouldn't he? Robespierre? I'd love to hear him in debate with the hosts of the rest of.
- [44:08]
Tom Holland
His party to discuss liberal interventionism.
- [44:11]
Dominic Sandbrook
Liberal interventionism. Then, of course, Robespierre being Robespierre, there's a bit of a darkness there as well. He says to the Jacobin, the source of the evil is not in Coblenz, it is among you, it is in our midst. Let us overcome our enemies within and only then march against our foreign foes, if any still exist. So in other words, it's not all kind of being shrewd. There's an element of the iron fist and the paranoid style. Robespierre is still looking for the enemy within and saying, let's fight a war, but against our own neighbours in our own streets, not against people outside. Now, when there's. When Robespierre does this, the Girondins are very shocked. Madame Roland actually meets him privately and says, come on, you should be on board with us. We're all friends, be on our side. We're all Jacobin. And she fails. And she writes to him after, I saw with pain that you are persuaded that any intelligent person who thinks differently from you about the war is not a good citizen. That's the key.
- [45:13]
Tom Holland
Well, I mean, that sums up his character, isn't it?
- [45:15]
Dominic Sandbrook
That does sum up his character, but it also sums up the politics of the next two years in France. You can't just disagree with somebody and, you know, fine, we'll agree. What do they say on the rest is politics? We will disagree agreeably. There's none of that in the Legislative assembly in France 1791-2.
- [45:32]
Tom Holland
But also, crucially, there is no equivalent to His Majesty's Loyal Opposition.
- [45:37]
Dominic Sandbrook
No.
- [45:37]
Tom Holland
So there's no room for that.
- [45:39]
Dominic Sandbrook
There's no room whatsoever. And actually, I also think there's a personal dimension. Robespierre had gone away and he came back and Briso was the big star, and there is not room for both. This town ain't big enough for the both of us. You know, they're both proud men, but crucially, they both see themselves as the embodiment of virtue. And if somebody else is going around saying, actually, I'm the embodiment of virtue, then they've got to go. There's no sense, I guess, of moral or political pluralism.
- [46:05]
Tom Holland
Well, also, I suppose what we'd recognize today as the modern party system is in the process of being invented, but it hasn't yet reached the stage where the existence of one party led by one person doesn't serve as an automatic threat to someone else who want to occupy that space.
- [46:23]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, I think there's no sense in which you can legitimately have more than one party or more than one faction. So the atmosphere becomes incredibly aggressive and polarized. You basically now have we had before the foil and the Jacobin. What we have now is the foil who are losing ground all the time. They're kind of old moderates. I mean, they're basically on the way out. And two rival Jacobin factions, so the Girondins, but also the people who admire Robespierre, now, they sit high up in the national assembly, so people call them the mountain, and they become known as the Montagnards. So actually, most of the time, when people are talking about. When you think about the Reign of Terror and stuff and the Jacobin, it's the Montagnard faction that people are thinking about. And don't forget, there's always an element of the theatrical and the spectacle about it. The galleries are full of members of the public who would queue up for tickets. And they're there as fans, as participants.
- [47:12]
Tom Holland
Because women can attend as well as men, can't they?
- [47:15]
Dominic Sandbrook
And they're shouting, they're cheering, throwing abuse. People start coming armed because there are kind of virtual brawls breaking out on the floor of the Legislative Assembly. So there's a real sense of a kind of disintegration. Now. This is being echoed all the time by events outside Paris. Still a lot of anger about high prices and hunger. There's what's called a war on the chateau. Peasants attacking country houses, looting them, burning orchards. There's an example in a place called Etampes outside Paris, where the mayor ends up being lynched in a food riot. He's a member of the Jacobin club. You know, he's a good revolutionary, but because he's trying to enforce the kind of liberal, free market orthodoxy that many of the kind of deputies, have the people turn on him, they mutilate his body. You know, this sets off all kinds of anxieties back in Paris. And actually the Jacobin organized a festival of law in his honor to try to, you know, make some plea for stability. Now, Robespierre, interestingly, Rob Spear is such a brilliant populist, he says, what? A festival of law to honor one man? That says it all about you. That you would rather honor one bigwig than care about the starving masses.
- [48:29]
Tom Holland
His rivals must have hated him.
- [48:31]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, of course.
- [48:32]
Tom Holland
He's a try to seize the moral high ground, only to find that he's got there first.
- [48:35]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [48:36]
Tom Holland
Planted his banner on the summit. He's very Cato, isn't he?
- [48:40]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, he is.
- [48:40]
Tom Holland
Very self consciously, I imagine.
- [48:42]
Dominic Sandbrook
You know what he is? He's a cross between Cato and Tony Ben. He's like a much more violent Tony Ben. The same sense of incorruptibility, moral austerity, but also the populism that infuriates his own colleagues, which Tony Ben had in.
- [48:56]
Tom Holland
The 1970s, although so far as I'm aware, he didn't have his penis stung by a wasp.
- [49:03]
Dominic Sandbrook
That's Tony Ben did.
- [49:04]
Tom Holland
Yeah.
- [49:04]
Dominic Sandbrook
Great fact, Tom. Great fact. I always know that whenever I mention Tony Ben's name, you'll bring out that. I don't. Anyway, so by the end of 1791, 1792, I guess. The more that French politics fragments, the more that people think that only a war can bring it together. And the interesting thing is that with the exception of Robespierre, all the different factions and players think a war will be in my personal interests because they.
- [49:28]
Tom Holland
All have different motivations for thinking that.
- [49:30]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. So if you're Antoine Barnave, who was the big star of the last episode, Barnave and his friends, the Foyant. They think a limited war will work in our favor because France is bound to win and the King is technically commander in chief, so everybody will give him credit.
- [49:46]
Tom Holland
Rave for the King.
- [49:47]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [49:47]
Tom Holland
Vive Loire.
- [49:48]
Dominic Sandbrook
Vive Loire. Great. And that'll bring stability. That's obviously madness. Now, Lafayette. We haven't had any Lafayette in this episode yet. Tom, I know you love Lafayette, but.
- [49:56]
Tom Holland
He'S a great and dashing general.
- [49:57]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, so he. After the massacre at the Champ de Mars, he had stood in elections to be the mayor of Paris, and he'd been absolutely hammered.
- [50:05]
Tom Holland
Such ungratitude.
- [50:06]
Dominic Sandbrook
And he'd gone off in a big sulk to his country estate in the Auvergne. And he thinks, oh, a war. Brilliant. I love Wars. I know how to run a war. He lobbies for command and he says, great. A little war in the Rhineland is just my cup of tea. I'll fight this little war in the Rhineland, obviously win a massive victory. I'll get all the credit and I'll come back as the hero of France. So that so Lafayette's very fought the war. The incredible thing is that Louis and Marian twin want a war now. Marian Toinette was secretly communicating with the Austrian ambassador and she said, ah, France will get hammered in a war. The army's fallen apart, there's no money, there's no discipline. But she thinks the war would be brilliant because if by a miracle France wins, she thinks her husband will get all the credit, which by the way, I think is bonkers. But she thinks plausibly France will lose and then the Austrians will march into Paris and it'll be great. She'll be reinstalled in her pomp.
- [51:00]
Tom Holland
She can laugh at all her enemies.
- [51:02]
Dominic Sandbrook
I mean it's bonkers. Absolutely bonkers. She's writing by the way, to Axel von Fersen. He's still on the scene and she's sending him all these letters.
- [51:10]
Tom Holland
Well, he's off in Sweden though, isn't he?
- [51:12]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. And she's saying it's gonna be great, there's gonna be a war, we'll lose and I'll be laughing.
- [51:16]
Tom Holland
I think she's mad to be writing to people.
- [51:18]
Dominic Sandbrook
Of course she is. We've been quite, I think by the standards of historians, we were quite sympathetic to Louis and Marin Toinette in the first season. I think at this point they are behaving ludicrously. Their lack of common sense is mind boggling.
- [51:34]
Tom Holland
I mean nothing could be more criminal than for a king and queen to encourage war against their own people.
- [51:41]
Dominic Sandbrook
Louis is writing letters to the emigres saying, and I quote, it is time for a congress of the principal powers of Europe to invade France. This is the only way of ensuring the evils which beset to not spread to the other states of Europe. I can't think of many other examples in history of a monarch inciting his enemies to attack his own country in the hope that his own people will be defeated and killed. And he will. I mean that's mad.
- [52:05]
Tom Holland
Spoiler. We're going to end this series this season with the execution of the king. And I would say he's banged to rise. I mean he clearly has betrayed the country. Yeah, he is guilty of treason.
- [52:16]
Dominic Sandbrook
I mean you're not wrong. I can't disagree With. So we get to January 1792, there's a real sense of inevitability. The emigre princes are finally declared traitors and their lands are declared forfeit. And then all that month in January, you began this episode, Tom, reading that extraordinary speech by Pierre Verneau. To arms. There's loads of this stuff. I mean, Briso is there in the Legislative Assembly. This will be a crusade for universal liberty. Every soldier will say to his enemy, brother, I am not going to cut your throat. I'm going to show you the way to happiness. I mean, it's crazy that they're coming out with this and people are sobbing, waving their hats, embracing all of this kind of stuff. There's this scene on the 14th of January 1792, where they all raise their arms and swear an oath I would defend to the death the French constitution against the enemies of Europe. They're basically reenacting the tennis court oath. But people said at the time it was an even more rousing and exciting moment than the tennis court oath. So they send Vienna. They agree at the end of January to send Vienna an ultimatum. Leopold must break off all his relations with the exiles. He must promise he'll never ally with an enemy of France. All of this kind of stuff. Now, there's then weeks of negotiations. The French had given their Austrians until the 1st of March. Eventually, they said, we must have a reply on 1 March. On 1 March, Leopold unfortunately drops dead.
- [53:38]
Tom Holland
Oh, dear, that's bad timing.
- [53:39]
Dominic Sandbrook
He is very bad timing, or maybe good timing. Well, yeah. He is succeeded by his son, Francis ii. He's very young and actually he's got younger advisors than his father. And the advisors say, yeah, let's get it on with the French. Come on, this is a brilliant way to start your reign. The French are in an absolute shambles. Let's have a war with them.
- [53:58]
Tom Holland
And hasn't Marie Antoinette sent the French plans?
- [54:01]
Dominic Sandbrook
She has. She has secretly been sending the French military plans to the Austrians. I said in season one I felt sorry for Louis and Marie Antoinette, but this is madness. Now, before all this happens, there's a dramatic development in France. We love a dramatic development in France on this podcast. Louis always had the right to have his own ministers. So he chose his ministers, not the Legislative Assembly. His ministers were moderates. Fuill. But in the middle of March 1792, the Girondins, or basically organized a political coup. They got hold of a load of leaked letters and they read them out. That made it look like Louis ministers were just absolute Weaklings and lick spittles and soft on the Austrians and all this. And Louis therefore had to end up appointing a Girondin war ministry among them. The one person that people should get in their heads is the new Foreign minister, because he will be a very important person. He's called Dumouriez. He's in his mid-50s. He is a war veteran, his great friend of Lafayette. He's a kind of grizzled, serious person, a military man.
- [55:04]
Tom Holland
And there's an irony to his war record, isn't there? Because he'd actually served in the French army that went and annexed Corsica. He'd been on spying missions there, and then he served two campaigns there. And this, of course, is what will result in Napoleon Bonaparte becoming an officer in the French army.
- [55:21]
Dominic Sandbrook
That's true. It's well noted, Tom. Yeah, it's a good point. Dumouriez, he came from near the Belgian border. He had been a military advisor to revolutionaries in what's now Belgium. And he, as foreign minister, he says to the Legislative assembly, hey, a war to liberate Belgium would be an absolute cakewalk. The Belgians are gagging to be rescued from the Austrians, to no longer be the Austrian Netherlands. They will rise as soon as we cross the border. There's never been a more certain victory in human affairs than our victory against the Austrians would be absolutely brilliant. The Austrians, meanwhile, who are not complete clowns, as Dumurier seems to think, are sending tens of thousands of troops to the Belgian frontier because they're looking forward to cakewalk of their own. So on the 20th of April, the moment comes. Louis goes to the Legislative Assembly. Gumurier stands up to give this speech, and Gumir says, right again. It's very Vladimir Putin. He says, ever since 1756, we have actually been enslaved by Austria. The House of Austria has enslaved France to its selfish ambition. We've asked for a redress and they've given us none. We will rip up our treaty with Austria and go to war, and this will be an act of joyful destruction. It'll be just like the fall of the Bastille, actually. It'll be brilliant.
- [56:37]
Tom Holland
Yeah. People being torn to pieces and heads.
- [56:39]
Dominic Sandbrook
Braided on pikes and one or two deputies. Tom, have some sense. So there's a moderate guy called Louis Becquet who says, I don't know about this. We shall be portrayed as aggressors. We'll be portrayed as a disorderly country that upsets the peace of Europe in defiance of treaties and our own laws. Of course, that is how they are going to be portrayed for the next quarter of a century. And indeed, you could argue in Anglo Saxon historiography for the next 300 years or whatever, but they all vote for this declaration of war. And then Louis is given the declaration to be read out. Now, there's a slight problem. The declaration, the national assembly had explicitly declared that France had renounced wars of conquest and aggression and they would never again go to war against anybody and free people. So the declaration says, well, actually we've been attacked, so it's fine. Kind of, yeah, but it's a defensive war. It looks like we're invading other countries, but actually it's a completely defensive war against the unjust aggression of the Austrians.
- [57:45]
Tom Holland
We're going in to kick out Nazis.
- [57:47]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So Louis reads this out in this very quiet stammering voice, because I think even though he said he's all for it, he realizes now this is a moment of maximum danger for him and everybody cheers. There are people crying with joy. I mean, it is very unlike the previous war that we did on this podcast, the Great War, where people.
- [58:10]
Tom Holland
Nervous, aren't they? And hesitant.
- [58:12]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, there's a sense of terrible foreboding. Exactly. There was none of that in Paris in 1792. And of course, I think there are few moments in world history that are more replete with irony, because first of all, Robespierre was totally right. There is going to be the rise of a Caesar, of a dimension that they cannot even conceive of at this point, meaning Napoleon. But also, when I finished writing the notes for this, I look back at every human being that I mentioned in the course of the episode, they all die. So Louis, Marie Antoinette, Brisso, Vergniaud, Barnave, Madame Roland, even Robespierre, they will be on their way out.
- [58:56]
Tom Holland
And of course, they will all perish as a result of the same identical instrument of execution, which for many people, particularly in the English speaking world, has really become the symbol of the French Revolution, hasn't it? And that is the guillotine. So you will often get. I mean, we may well call our subsequent episode the Shadow of the Guillotine, because that is going to be the subject of our next episode. And we'll be taking a slight break from the political narrative just to look at how it is that the guillotine, this great symbol of the revolution and particularly of the Terror, how it comes to be invented and how it comes to play the role that it will in the subsequent political narrative that we'll be telling how it is that all these people end up dead as a result of its slicing blade. So we have that to look forward to. The coming of the Guillotine.
- [59:54]
Dominic Sandbrook
Of course, if you want to hear that episode now, you can join our very own group of Gerandin. Yeah, our very own Faction at the Rest is History Club at the restishistory.com but if not, we will be back. And Tom will be bringing down the Guillotine. Au revoir.