507. The French Revolution: The Marseillaise, Song of War (Part 5)

Summary

The Rest Is History – Episode 507: The French Revolution: The Marseillaise, Song of War (Part 5)

Release Date: October 24, 2024

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Introduction

In this episode of The Rest Is History, hosts Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland delve into the intricate origins and profound impact of "La Marseillaise," the stirring national anthem of France. Exploring its creation during the tumultuous period of the French Revolution, they examine how the anthem encapsulates the revolutionary fervor and the deep-seated influences of Roman republicanism on the movement.

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The Birth of "La Marseillaise"

Dominic Sandbrook opens the discussion by referencing the production of "La Marseillaise," noting its status as the quintessential revolutionary song:

“[...] it's the one French revolutionary song that everybody now remembers.” ([03:49])

Tom Holland adds context by highlighting Napoleon's initial disdain for the anthem:

“Napoleon didn't like it. He kind of pushed it back to the margins.” ([04:10])

Despite Napoleon's objections, "La Marseillaise" endured political shifts:

“After the revolution, after Napoleon, Louis XVI's brothers, Louis XVIII and Charles X, come back. They obviously hate it, so they ban it completely. But the Marseillaise is never forgotten and it ends up as the national anthem of France.” ([04:10])

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Musical Composition and Propagation

The origins of the anthem are traced back to a pivotal dinner hosted by Philippe Dietrich, an iron master and industrialist embodying the Enlightenment ideals amidst the brewing revolution. At this gathering, the need for a new, patriotic marching song suited to the citizen army becomes apparent.

Tom Holland narrates the creation:

“At that dinner there is a captain called Roger Delille [...] he spends all night writing a song that he very catchily calls the Song of the army of the Rhine.” ([07:12])

The anthem quickly gains popularity as soldiers sing it across France, leading to its adoption by the Jacobin Club in Marseille:

“They march into the city and the sound of their singing is electrifying for a city that is already on edge...” ([12:05])

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Symbolism and Influence of Roman Republicanism

A significant portion of the episode explores the deep influence of Roman republican symbols and ideals on the French Revolution. Dominic Sandbrook emphasizes the revolutionaries' aspiration to emulate the early Roman Republic:

“The revolutionaries think that they're beginning the world again [...] they also consciously role-playing as ancient Romans, as Roman Republicans.” ([22:31])

Tom Holland concurs, highlighting the Enlightenment's reverence for pre-Christian Roman aesthetics:

“They are admiring that period of Roman history [...] their sense that this offers a glimpse of a pre-Christian order.” ([22:40])

The incorporation of Roman symbols is further illustrated through fashion and public rituals:

• Bonnet Rouge: Adopted as a symbol of liberty, derived from the Roman Pilus.
• Fasces: Emblematic rods representing authority, later associated with fascism but originally a Roman symbol of magistrate power.

Notable Quote on Symbolism:

“With this mind, his first desire is to become the owner of a bonnet rouge.” ([37:34])

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Cultural Cross-Pollination Between Classes

The episode delves into the fascinating interplay between the working-class sans culottes and the educated elites, both adopting classical Roman styles to express revolutionary ideals.

Dominic Sandbrook points out:

“The sans culottes are the kind of urban working-class radicals, but [...] there are elites who are dressing like the masses.” ([33:16])

Tom Holland elaborates on how symbols like the bonnet rouge became markers of political allegiance:

“A bonnet rouge is more obvious as a marker of political loyalty.” ([36:36])

This blending of styles showcases a broader cultural shift where traditional class distinctions blur in favor of a unified revolutionary identity.

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The Enduring Legacy and Controversies

While "La Marseillaise" remains a powerful symbol of French patriotism, its martial and sanguinary lyrics have sparked ongoing debates. Some advocate for softer language, while others defend its aggressive tone as necessary for rallying citizens in revolutionary times.

Tom Holland reflects on modern perceptions:

“There are still occasional proposals in France to this day that the lyrics perhaps should be rewritten to be slightly less carnivorous.” ([17:03])

Conversely, the anthem's fervor is seen as essential for mobilizing a populace embracing republican virtues:

“It's exactly what people on the more radical fringes of the revolution want.” ([17:03])

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Conclusion and Teaser for Future Episodes

As the episode wraps up, Sandbrook and Holland tease future discussions on the Roman influences in the French Revolution and other historical parallels. They hint at exploring how ancient symbols continue to resonate in modern political movements, maintaining the cyclical nature of history.

Dominic Sandbrook concludes:

“Tomorrow. You're on the right side of history, aren't you, Do Gooder with Theo...” ([44:31])

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Dominic Sandbrook: “He is attracted by the Marseillaise [...] the song of an hour of need.” ([07:55])
• Tom Holland: “The bottom line is it starts to kind of go viral.” ([12:25])
• Dominic Sandbrook: “The song that comes to be called the Marseillaise [...] it's giving it a Roman quality.” ([16:14])
• Tom Holland: “Its influence is obviously in one sense, elite.” ([25:32])

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Final Thoughts

Episode 507 offers an in-depth exploration of "La Marseillaise," intertwining musical history with cultural and political analysis. By examining the anthem's roots and its symbolic resonance, Sandbrook and Holland provide listeners with a nuanced understanding of how a simple song can encapsulate the spirit of a revolution and echo the ideals of ancient republics.

For those intrigued by the complexities of the French Revolution and the power of national symbols, this episode serves as a compelling and informative listen.

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Transcript

[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.

[Tom Holland]

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[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.

[Tom Holland]

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[Dominic Sandbrook]

So that was our producer, Theo Young Smith. They were his dulcet tones. He was singing La Marseillaise, the song par excellence of the French Revolution. Or at least the one French revolutionary song that everybody now remembers. So Tom, that was adopted as the official anthem of the French Republic in 1795. But Napoleon didn't like it.

[Tom Holland]

He didn't. He kind of pushed it back to the margins. And then after the revolution, after Napoleon, Louis XVI's brothers, Louis XVIII and Charles X, they come back. They obviously hate it, so they ban it completely. But the Marseillaise is never forgotten and it ends up as the national anthem of France. Theo sings it all the time as a proud Frenchman. Would you. I mean, you are John Bull incarnate, but would you agree that it's the greatest, the most thrilling national anthem ever written? I mean, the most stirring.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Well, I saw you'd written this, and this is the sort of slack and lazy thing that people who know only two national anthems say, so they know their own and they know one or two others. If they're American, they say it's the American one. If they're British, a particular kind of Britain, they say it's the French national anthem. But actually, people who know a lot about national anthems know that the best national anthem by far, so our assistant producer, Aliyah will back me up on this, is the anthem of the German Democratic Republic. Auf erstanden aus ruin, the anthem of East Germany, which was an absolute banger and unquestionably the greatest national anthem ever written.

[Tom Holland]

Well, Dominic, for those of us who aren't familiar with it, would you like to sing it for us and perhaps.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

No, no, no, I wouldn't.

[Tom Holland]

You're clearly afraid to pitch it up against Theo's magnificent singing.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

No, I just don't want to look like an absolute fool.

[Tom Holland]

I don't think so. Because obviously, as an Englishman, my soul doesn't stir with patriotic fervor when I hear the Marseillaise. Except in Casablanca, that brilliant scene where.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. They will stand up and the Germans.

[Tom Holland]

Are sat around the piano.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

And then Humphrey Bogart agrees that they can strike up the Marseillaise and it's sung with such fervor.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. That you love that.

[Tom Holland]

And you are. Yeah. Identifying with it. And it's very, very stirring. However, I mean, it is worth mentioning.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

For those who haven't looked closely at the lyrics, that they are incredibly martial.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. The bloody standard.

[Tom Holland]

Yes. I mean, it's kind of blood everywhere.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

And it is summoning the de la Patrie, the children of the fatherland, to action in that first verse that Theo sung so beautifully. France is menaced by ferocious soldiers who were marching beneath this banner of tyranny which has been steeped in blood. And they're coming to Rip out the throats of patriotic Frenchmen's sons and wives. And so this great summons to arm citizens, form your battalions, let's march, let's march. And irrigate the soil with a tainted blood. And the tainted blood is the blood of the tyrants and their armies.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

That tells you when it's written. So war has been declared, but it also tells you about the mood of the time. So we've talked a fair bit about the sort of paranoia, sense of conspiracy, sense of taint and impurity invading the virtuous body of the French Republic. But tell us a little bit more, Tom. I know you've done some digging into this, how it comes to be written and who by.

[Tom Holland]

Well, it's written at a time when France is still a monarchy, just about. So it's written on 25th April 1792, and that's five days after France has declared war on Austria. And officers in Strasbourg who are kind of pretty much on the front line are. There's a dinner, a public dinner, and it's hosted by the mayor of Strasbourg, who's a man called Philippe Dietrich. And in one sense, he is the absolute embodiment of the intellectual revolution. Yeah, the Enlightenment infused revolution. So he's a Protestant, he is a distinguished scientist, he's a chemist, he's a geologist, he loves his Enlightenment ideals.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He sounds such a bore.

[Tom Holland]

And he's a Freemason.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, total bore. Go on.

[Tom Holland]

But what makes it intriguing is that he is simultaneously, he is the epitome of everything that the revolution is opposed to, because he is an iron master and an industrialist Now.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I do like an iron master.

[Tom Holland]

I know you do. And his forges are being powered by all the timber and the wood that he's been harvesting and which the poor can no longer use to keep their, you know, their pots boiling. And so they're all starving. So he. He's a figure of sinister wealth and he's actually a former aristocrat. So he was the Baron de Dietrich. So he embraces all the contradictions and ambivalences of the Revolution. And it's not surprising that he should be keen on reinvention, the kind of reinvention that France itself in this period is having to undergo the process of going from a monarchy to a republic. And it's. Of course, they are on the frontier of a country at war. And so at dinner the toasts are offered exactly the kind that you can imagine. So to the matri, to liberty, to the ruin of tyrants, to the fertilizing of the soil with their blood and the blood of tyrants, all of that. And Dietrich, he finds all the words of these toasts stirring. And he comments to the table, to the assembled officers, how tragic it is that all the marching songs that the French army have are rife with feudalism and superstition that they derive from the ancien regime. And he wishes that there was a marching song that would be appropriate to the new French army, an army of patriots and citizens. And it so happens that at that dinner there is a captain called Roger Delille, and he is almost a kind of mini Dietrich. He's a man of science, he's an engineer, he's a freemason, but he's also a part time composer. So he spent quite a lot of time in Paris rustling up various forgettable songs that he's trying to kind of flog to theaters and so on. But that night the muse descends on him and he's inspired by Dietrich's suggestion. He goes back to his quarters and he spends all night writing a song that he very catchily calls the Song of the army of the Rhine. And I think that if that, you know, if it had stayed, that had stayed its title, maybe it wouldn't be as successful as it proves to be. And the next morning he goes to the Dietrich and he gives it to Dietrich himself, who's very, very taken with it. And Dietrich's musical. And his wife sits down at the piano, plays the chords and Dietrich bellows it out. And they all say, this is amazing. This is exactly what we need. And so Madame Dietrich scores it for a military band and the band strikes up and it's kind of literally a revelation because to quote David Andreas in his wonderful book on the Terror, he describes it as an almost millennial sense of drama. And there is that sense, I think, in which it's a kind of secular Dies irae, Dies Ira, you know, the great medieval account of souls being brought before the throne of God to be judged amidst slaughter and chaos and bloodshed. And the lamb, the sheep and the goats are separated out. And this essentially is what is happening in the drama of what will come to be called the Marseillaise.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Well, it has that apocalyptic sense, right?

[Tom Holland]

Yes.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

That is so common in the political culture at this point. So 1792, I read with great relish that the Marseillaise, the music is probably not exactly plagiarized, but it's derivative. So there are various antecedents. There was an Italian composer called Viotti, there was an oratorio by somebody called Grison and Mozart. Mozart, piano concerto number 25, apparently as disturbingly similar. Tom.

[Tom Holland]

Well, remember that Delisle has come to Strasbourg from Paris, where he's been stationed, and he's been hawking his stuff around all the concert halls and theaters.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So he's got a knockoff tune that he's trying to pass off to Dietrich.

[Tom Holland]

I guess, in the way that minor composers, I gather, are often more prone to being influenced by things that they've heard. And perhaps the very greatest composers. And he's clearly not a very great composer, but it wouldn't be surprising that he might kind of, perhaps unconsciously plagiarize certain tunes that he's heard.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Well, I mean, that's how musical composition works.

[Tom Holland]

But the bottom line is it starts to kind of go viral, because soldiers from Strasbourg, whenever, you know, they. Various reasons they might be going back into the heartlands of France, and they take it with them, they start kind of singing it. And one of the soldiers who does this is going to Montpellier in the south of France. And there, on the 17th of June, a doctor by the name of Francois Mireur hears it being sung by a soldier who's come from Strasbourg. And he immediately recognizes it as something stirring, as something patriotic. And he finds himself humming it and then singing it. He gets the lyrics, and five days later, he is going to a meeting at the Jacobin headquarters in Marseille. So he himself is a Jacobin. He's a great enthusiast for the revolution. And he goes to the Jacobin Club in Marseille and he gives a very fiery speech, and brilliantly, he ends it by bursting into song and singing this tremendous song that he's heard from the soldier from Strasbourg. And everyone at the club goes, yeah, this is fantastic, and asks for the words to be written down and to be printed and to be distributed.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Quick question. How does he know the song? Like, there are multiple. Multiple verses. How has he learned it?

[Tom Holland]

He must have got the lyrics from the soldier, and the soldier must have got the lyrics because they've been printed off in Strasbourg.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Oh, they've been printed. Okay.

[Tom Holland]

So I assume that that's how it's been propagated. Amira is. He is a hot Jacobin. We talked about how this great summons went out from the capital to enthusiasts for the Revolution out in the provinces to come and celebrate the Fte de la Federation, which has begun to be celebrated annually on the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille on the 14th of July on the champ de Mars in Paris. And so the people who come from the provinces to Paris to supplement the guards that are available to the revolutionary authorities in Paris, come to be called Federer. And Mirat has already enrolled himself as a Federer by this point, and he is part of a band of about 500 volunteers who've been recruited in the south and who are going to leave from Marseille and go to Paris to join the other Federer from across France. And Mirot is appointed to the general staff of this contingent of Federer who are going to march north, and they duly leave on 2 July. They are armed to the teeth, they are dragging artillery with them, heading off to Paris, and as they march, they sing this song. And the name that had been given to the song by de Lille, the song of the army of the Rhine, is obviously not suitable to a contingent of men coming from the south of France. So they change it to the even more catchily named the War Song of the Armies on the Borders. And it's great. And they march through from Marseille up towards Paris, and everywhere they go, people absolutely love the song. And by the time they come to Paris, I think that news of the song has preceded them. And so they march into the city and the sound of their singing is electrifying for a city that is already on edge, excited, nervous, in a kind of apocalyptic mood, fearing the worst, hoping for the best. And it just strikes this incredible chord. And it's a reminder of the fact that at this point, with France poised between monarchy and a republic, there is a need for anthems, for new anthems that can channel identity in a way that previous anthems hadn't. So if you think of, you know, the British national anthem, it's God Save the King, it's focused on the monarchy. But if you're going to get rid of a monarchy, you need new songs, new tunes.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

But you know, what's interesting about it, though, it's not entirely uncontested, because in the next few months, there are lots of people who don't like the Marseillaise and who you actually use it as a stick to beat other people with. So I read in Peter McPhee's great history of the French Revolution that as the tension, the feud between the Girondins and the Jacobin became more intense, the Girondins actually had a parody of the Marseilles they used as a kind of. They distributed that later that year as a Christmas carol by a guy called Antoine Joseph Goursas. And it began. Forward, children of anarchy the shameful day is upon us. The people blinded by their rage Raise the bloody knife so it actually turns all that stuff about blood on its head and makes it a song about anarchy and basically tarring the Jacobin as these sort of blood crazed fiends.

[Tom Holland]

I mean, I think that an anxiety about the sanguinary quality of the lyrics has never entirely gone away. There are still occasional proposals in France to this day that the lyrics perhaps should be rewritten to be slightly less carnivorous. But conversely, it's the fact that it is so aggressive that means that people who are caught up in the excitement of this new stage of the revolution, the second revolution, as you called it in previous episodes, that's exactly what you want. You want something that is no holds barred. And this song that comes to be called the Marseillaise, after these people from Marseille, the Marseillaise, clearly, I mean, it's absolutely what people on the more radical fringes of the revolution want. And I think that it's not just the lyrics, it's not just the tune, it's also the fact of who is singing it. So they're not professional soldiers, they're not people who you would expect under normal circumstances to be singing a marching song. These are citizens who are answering the summons of their country in its hour of need. And of course, they are also implicitly republican. You know, there is no mention of kings, of crowns, of monarchy in the lyrics whatsoever. And on the 14th of July, you know, the date of the Fait de la Fe de Rand, this great celebration of the fall of the Bastille and the coming of the revolution, they have a position of honor on the Champ de Mars. And the name that is given to this great open space is redolent with a sense of antiquity. The Champ de Mars in Latin is Campus Martius. And the Campus Martius in ancient Rome is where citizens would assemble to go to war as citizens, to defend their country in its hour of need. And the fact that the Marseillais are singing this song of kind of violent enthusiasm for civic values, it's giving to what might seem terrifyingly novel a kind of antique sheen, because it's giving it a Roman quality. So Simon Sharma, writing about the Marseillaise, he says of it that it's a great swelling anthem of patriotic communion. Nothing like the Marseillaise had ever been written that comes so near to expressing the comradeship of citizens in arms. And nothing ever will. But I think that for classically informed enthusiasts of the Revolution, actually there is a sense that perhaps when they're listening to it, they're listening to the kind of song that might have inspired the Romans or the Spartans to go to battle in shared citizenship.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So I wondered if the Romans would make an appearance. They have. Let's come back after the break to find out more about Rome in the French Revolution.

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[Dominic Sandbrook]

Welcome back to the Rest Is History. We are talking about the Marseillaise, which Tom obviously thinks is an absolute banger of an anthem. I was a bit more skeptical, wasn't I, Tom? You were, but you've now turned to a very exciting dimension of this story, which is the Romans. So let's dig into this idea a little bit because I think it's been such an interesting theme running through the first series he did on the French Revolution and this series that we're doing at the moment, which is about the interesting kind of paradox that on the one hand the revolutionaries think that they're beginning the world again and that's what makes it different from the American War of Independence or from the English Civil War or whatever, that there's a real sense that you can kind of reboot history and reboot France. And yet at the same time they're also very consciously role playing as ancient Romans, as Roman Republicans, you know, the tennis court oath, modeled on the Oath of the Horatii. I know you're going to talk about David's paintings. So this is an idea that has run through 18th century culture generally, hasn't it? The Enlightenment culture, a fascination with Rome. I mean, Gibbons decline in fall of Roman Empire, a great example of this. But it's not all Rome. Right. So there are particular aspects of Roman culture and particular time periods that fascinate them.

[Tom Holland]

It's not Christian Rome. And I think a huge part of the appeal of Rome is that the revolutionaries, and indeed people in the Enlightenment identify with is the sense that this is, offers a glimpse of a pre Christian order.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Well, hence Gibbon. Right.

[Tom Holland]

So Gibbon is casting the Christian period as a dark age, that modernity becomes modern by going back to antiquity, to the pre Christian world. So that's very important and particularly for the revolution as it becomes more and more anti clerical and indeed anti Christian. But it's also not the Rome of the Caesars, it's the Rome of the Republic and specifically the early republic that is founded in the wake of the expulsion of the kings. And the French revolutionaries, kind of admiring that period of Roman history, are obviously following in the footsteps of the American revolutionaries who had cast their expulsion of a king as something redolent of, you know, the spirit of Brutus and Horatius. And it's telling, I think that even in the very earliest days of the revolution, long before anyone is really considering getting rid of the monarchy, you do have radicals. Desmoulins would be a classic example, he's doing this all the time who are comparing themselves to Brutus. And there are two Brutuses in the history of the Republic. There is the Brutus who leads the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the Republic. But there is also of course the Brutus who is descended from the first Brutus who murders Julius Caesar. And Julius Caesar is a product of the Republic who aspires to overthrow the Republic.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

The Napoleon.

[Tom Holland]

So Napoleon, yes, but also all these shadowy figures that true revolutionaries are anxious about hiding behind the, you know, the mask of patriotism. So you know, if you're playing Marat or Robespierre or whoever, denouncing frauds, counter revolutionaries, you can do so as a Brutus, as a patriot committed to the defense of your country against a tyrant.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

What was the thing we talked about the other day? Cicero. It was Cicero who exposed the Catiline conspiracy, is that right? That's the big thing that Cicero. And they're obsessed with Cicero, aren't they? Haven't they all studied Cicero's speeches and things at School de Milan? And actually you mentioned Robespierre. So I found this quote. There's a woman called Rosalie Julien who's a Jacquemin sympathizer and her diaries and letters are always cited by all historians of the Revolution, she wrote of Robespierre. You'd enjoy this, Tom, that he is, quote, a man who was devoted to the public with the generosity of the greatest men of antiquity. This Robespierre is a real Roman.

[Tom Holland]

I mean, there could be no higher praise. You talk to Cicero and Timothy Tackett in his great book on the coming of the Terror. I mean, he quotes this amazing statistic that in speeches and newspapers during the Revolution, Cicero would be cited 10 times more frequently than the contemporary philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau. So you think of all the books and articles and essays that have been written about the influence of Rousseau on the Revolution, but Cicero is being quoted 10 times more.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, I love that.

[Tom Holland]

Its influence is obviously in one sense, elite.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Well, yeah, I was about to ask that. Most people don't go to school for a long period of time and they don't study classics. To most people in France, this is just a mad babble.

[Tom Holland]

I think it's kind of in the way that people might quote Darwin or Freud or Marx today without having read any of them. You have a vague sense we would.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Never do that, Tom.

[Tom Holland]

It has been known that people might drop these names without having read them.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Right.

[Tom Holland]

It's that kind of thing. But I think it's also. It becomes kind of the mood music. It becomes actually the coloring, literally the coloring. Because this sense of what it is to be a Roman is fostered above all, I think, by someone that you've already mentioned, the great artist Jacques Louis David, who is a painter who's obsessed by Rome. And his paintings are austere and self consciously impregnated with a sense of the nobility of the early age of the Roman Republic. And again and again, his canvases are illustrating men who are prepared to devote their lives to their country, maybe even to sacrifice their own children in its cause, who put patriotism above all else. And David is painting these even before the revolution breaks out. So when the revolution happens and people look at his paintings, it's as though David has already been illustrating for the revolutionaries what they're doing before they had even begun to do it.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

We've talked a little bit in this series, not enough for our American listeners. We've talked about the influence of the American experiment. So how much is this? Because in America people are already using that Roman model. Because really, if you've separated from Britain and you're going to be a Protestant republic on the shores of the Atlantic doing something that's never been done before, you've only got one historical analogy to grope for which is the kind of classical world. So they're doing it in America. Are people in France, do you think, actively copying that? Are they informed by that?

[Tom Holland]

There clearly are people in France who are very, very influenced by what is happening in America. Lafayette, your friend, would be an obvious example.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Big admirer. Lafayette, yeah.

[Tom Holland]

Jefferson is ambassador in that period. Franklin had been a constant presence in Paris in the years before the Revolution. And there are certainly overt revolutionaries who are influenced by the example of the Americans. But so too are, you know, even people say, in the train of Marie Antoinette. So the Princesse de Lamballe, who we'll be coming to in our next episode, she was a great admirer of Franklin and she saw no contradiction between serving Marie Antoinette and being very close to her and admiring the founding fathers of America and the example of the American republic. I think in David's case, there are huge shenanigans in his youth about whether he's going to get a scholarship to go to Rome and kind of feeling that he should have had it. But he's always being kind of frustrated in the chance to go. And so when he finally arrives there, it's the chance to roam the Eternal City is all the more precious to him. I don't think that America stands between David and his imaginings of early Rome. And I think that the look that you get in his paintings, which is kind of austere and lacking in any sense of kind of flummery and self consciously antiquarian, I think this is his own. And under the Revolution, he brings this style to public display because people recognize that he's brilliant at, you know, the visuals. And, you know, as with so much else, in a revolutionary situation, people need a new look. They need expressions of the revolution's identity that aren't drawing on what is being repudiated and rejected. And so he's the person who, for instance, is coordinating these great festivals that are being held on the Champ de Mars on Bastille Day. And of course, David entirely recognizes the Roman connotations of this, the Roman echoes of it. He's organizing the. When Voltaire's remains are brought to the Pantheon, you know, and the Pantheon is a great temple in Rome built by Hadrian.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Oh, is it not?

[Tom Holland]

Well, it's kind of originally built by Gripper and then rebuilt by Hadrian. Yeah, but it's a very kind of Roman looking building. So again, it's a kind of classical ceremony. And the Pantheon had originally been intended to be a church. So it's this again, this idea of Replacing Christianity with something that is Roman and revolutionary simultaneously. And Lynn Hunt, who's written a lot about this, is brilliant on all this. I mean, she says there is no government without rituals and without symbols. You need rituals, you need symbols, and therefore you need people who are able to create and invent it.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Sorry, you said replacing Christianity, but they're not overtly thinking about replacing Christianity at this point. Surely there is an anti clerical tinge to it. But they're not thinking, you know, we are going to wipe away every last taint of.

[Tom Holland]

Well, I mean, as we'll see when we do the next episode, hostility towards those priests who have refused to swear the oath of allegiance to the revolution. Well, it's on the verge of becoming literally murderous.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yes.

[Tom Holland]

And you talked yesterday about how legislation is brought in in the wake of the Tuileries forbidding even those priests who have sworn the oath to wear clerical garb in public. And so it's part of the climate of ideas, I think, that hostility to the priesthood inevitably spills into hostility towards Christianity itself. And the association of Christianity with reaction and superstition, thrown an altar, it will come to be called, is becoming a very, very powerful motivating factor. And as the monarchy starts to totter, so also does the Church. It was initially the Church that had sanctioned the anointing of kings, that had enshrined the monarchy as a kind of God given gift from the Almighty. And so to contemplate destroying the monarchy is also to question the influence that the Church has had and Christianity has had on centuries and centuries of French history. And so it becomes part of what is to be rejected. And I think this is what is going on at this period. And so by rejecting the Ossian regime, rejecting Christianity, ancient Rome is the obvious place that you turn to.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. So there are lots of people who still can't read. So David's paintings, or reproductions of them, I guess engravings and so on must be very important in diffusing this kind of classical aesthetic. But I read in your notes that there are also kind of souvenirs and things that people can buy. So brooches and stuff.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, yeah. So you can buy brooches which are stamped with the head of Brutus and you can get pins in the form of the fasces. And the fasces are the rods that the lictors, who are the bodyguards of elected magistrates in the Roman Republic, would carry in front and before the magistrate as he walked through the forum or whatever.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So people are literally dressing up as fascists.

[Tom Holland]

Right. So for US Fasces have this kind of sinister connotation because they give the name to fascism. But you can see in the seats of government in Washington D.C. the fast days are there. They're an inheritance from the American Revolution and the establishment of a Roman type republic there in exactly the way that the fast days are being used in the streets of revolutionary Paris. Maybe that is an example of kind of an American influence, but again, I suspect not. I think it's part of the same impulse that both American and French revolutionaries are reaching for this classical heritage, because it's just kind of part of the air of what educated revolutionaries breathing.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Now, let's talk now about how people look, because obviously in some of these David paintings he actually has people dressed in Roman style, so they looks like they might be wearing togas or whatever. And obviously people aren't walking the streets of Paris. I mean, they'd look ludicrous even by French Revolutionary standards. But they are wearing Roman style hats, aren't they?

[Tom Holland]

They are. Just before we come to the Roman style hats, I think David does actually struggle bringing the visuals of ancient Rome to the heroic moments of the revolution. So you mentioned this great painting that he's attempting to do of the oath in the tennis court, the moment when the Third Estate emancipates itself from feudalism and superstition. But he never finishes it. And I think he's kind of struggling to show the Third Estate as Roman. He can't quite decide how to do it.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Is that not also the problem that while he's painting it, people who were previously good people have since been either cancelled or executed?

[Tom Holland]

Yeah. So it's like photographs in the Russian Revolution where he makes the Stalin suddenly vanish. So that is a problem. But one aspect of classical dress which you alluded to, which is a tremendous success, becomes kind of the emblematic symbol of the Republic is the bonnet rouge. The red hat. The red bonnet. The red cap. And it derives from a soft cap called by the Romans the Pilius, which was given to slaves when they were set free. And it was used by the Brutus who assassinated Caesar. He stamped it on his coins after Caesar's assassination to illustrate the fact that Rome, which had been enslaved by Caesar, had now been set free by the Tyrannicides. And it's conflated with a cap that had been worn by a people called the Phrygians, who lived in what is now Turkey. So it's also known as the Phrygian cap. And it's adopted by the revolutionaries pretty much from the start. I mean, certainly by 1790, they are saying, this is, you know, this is the perfect symbol of liberty. So as early as August 1790, proposals are being made in revolutionary and patriotic journals that say, you know, cocks on church steeples should be pulled down and replaced with the bonnet rouge.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

That would look absolutely ridiculous.

[Tom Holland]

That would look ludicrous. And in the Cordelier Club, which is the most radical of all the Jacobin clubs, the rule is that no one can address the assembled delegates without putting on a bonnet rouge. And so, in case you forget one.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

On the table there are lots of bonnet rouge, so if you have to step up, you can pick one up and put it on your head.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I think that's absolutely ridiculous. But anyway.

[Tom Holland]

Well, yes, and so there are people who think it's ridiculous, and one of them actually is Robespierre. Because in spring 1792, emotion is brought before the Jacobin club that all Jacobins should wear the bonnet rouge all the time.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Right.

[Tom Holland]

And Robespierre, who, you know, who loves a wig, he loves a powdered wig, he doesn't want to go around with a bonnet rouge on his perfectly coffered wig. And so he says it's ridiculous. A cockade is fine. We don't need to go the full revolutionary bonnet.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Would they have to wear them in bed?

[Tom Holland]

I don't know. I mean, it's kind of a can of worms, isn't it? Can of worms. It retains its reputation as the emblem, but I suppose, unlike the cockade, which is kind of like a rosette, isn't it?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, it's like a political rosette.

[Tom Holland]

A cockade is kind of more obvious as a marker of political loyalty. But the bonnet rouge, if you were wearing the bonnet rouge, you were really kind of saying, this is what I am, this is what I'm about. And so, in a way, the emblematic moment of the Second Revolution is when the people break into the Tuileries and they corner Louis and, you know, they make him drink a toast to the Republic. But before he does that, they make him wear the bonnet rouge, the red hat.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It's interesting, is now how hats have this kind of political meaning. You would think that there aren't equivalents today, but of course there are. It was very controversial because people would often use pictures of when they wanted to be disobliging about Jeremy Corbyn. They would have pictures of him wearing a kind of, you know, I don't know, a maist hat or whatever it is he used to wear, or a kind of Russian Style hat and hats do. I mean, think about top hats or bowler hats? Top hats do actually have an oddly charged kind of political significance. And this is the greatest example of that.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah. And it's recognized by contemporaries. So a contemporary observer is quoted by Aileen Ribeiro in her book on fashion in the French Revolution. So this is a contemporary writing in 1792. The sight of a woolen bonnet rouge fills the sans culottes with joy and let no one mock him for it. His enthusiasm is both praiseworthy and well founded. He has been told that in Greece and Rome, this woolen cap was the symbol of freedom and the rallying sign for all those who hated despotism. With this in mind, his first desire is to become the owner of a bonnet rouge. And what is fascinating, I think, about that passage is the reference to sans culottes, because it suggests how a symbol that is drawn from classical antiquity, which presupposes a certain degree of education, to be classically educated is essentially to be educated is being paired with a style of dress that is emblematic of the slums of those who don't have the kind of classical education that the elites are expected to have. And of course, we talked about the word sans culottes, about how to be sans culotte, the culotte of the knee breaches that have become associated with the rich and particularly with the aristocrats. This is to look working class. So rather than culotte, you wear loose, baggy trousers, the pantalon, you wear wooden clogs, and you wear a short jacket, which in French is le camagnol. And this I learned from Eileen Ribeiro, derived from Camagnola, near Turin, which was home of Italians who had then settled in Marseille. So in other words, it's a particularly Marseillaise look, like the.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Like the song.

[Tom Holland]

And again, it suggests the way in which the Marseillaise are kind of perfect standard bearers for this new revolutionary spirit.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, A rough, tough port city where people, I guess, are seen as maybe as incarnating a different kind of France, but also more a purer, more authentic France, perhaps.

[Tom Holland]

Yes.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So the sans culottes, we talked about them a little bit last time. They are the kind of urban working class radicals, aren't they, of Paris? They're not the very poorest.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah. So they're not just the working class, they're artisans, but they're also revolutionary artisans.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

So they have a class based identity, but they also have an ideological identity. And I think that what is fascinating about this period is that just as you are getting the working masses, the sans culottes, affecting a classical look that derives from the education of the elites. So also are you starting to get elites who are dressing like the masses? And this is such a suggestive kind of cross fertilization.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

And the key aspect of this is effectively trousers.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

If you're trying to pass yourself off as more proletarian than you are.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

You could change your name or something or drop the duh or whatever, but the best thing to do is put on a pair of trousers. That's the street look. Yes.

[Tom Holland]

So the Girondins Ministry. So that's Brisson and his allies who appointed as Louis ministers in March 1792. You know, they, they don't last long, maybe sacks them in a disastrous move, but while they're in office they are known as the Sans Culottes ministry. So these very, very educated men are being given the name of the sans culottes. And the most amazing example of this kind of class based cross dressing is the former Duke of Orleans, the cousin of Louis XVI himself, the man who had sponsored the kind of the early radicalism in the Palais Real in the center of Paris. One of the richest, best bred men in the whole kingdom, Royal to his, you know, right the way in his blood. And he has taken on the name Philippe Egalite, you know, Philip Equality.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He, I have to say, I'm just going to say it right now, he's one of the worst men in history. He's a terrible man.

[Tom Holland]

Well, he behaves very badly to his cousin. But in the summer of 1792, so while the massacre at the Tuileries kicking off, while the monarchy is in the process of collapse, Philippe Egalite, the former C. Devon Duke of Orion, is spotted by Madame Tussaud, the person who will set up the waxworks in London in due course. And she has a hilarious description of him. She says he was wearing a short jacket, pantaloons and a round hat with a handkerchief worn sailor fashion, loose around the neck with the ends long and hanging down. The shirt collar seen above, the hair cut short without powder. So no Robespierre powder for Philippe Egalite and shoes tied with strings. So essentially it's kind of quite 60s. It's becoming cool for the upper classes and the elites to dress in a kind of a demotic manner.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, he's the Theo of 1792, isn't he?

[Tom Holland]

Exactly. Except that of course, Theo doesn't dress like a Roman. This is the thing. It's simultaneously plebeian Working class, revolutionary and Roman, because that detail, the hair, cuts short without powder. Madame Tussauds description, she specifies that this is a particular style and it's called the Titus style. And the name derives from the role of Titus in a play by Voltaire that he'd written several decades before. And this had been restaged in May 1791. It's a great celebration of kind of republican liberty and so on, and had been played by France's greatest actor. And the name of this play is Brutus. So this style of hair is simultaneously it's what you wear in the slums in the working class areas of Paris, but it's also what you wear if you want to affect a Roman look. And so this, I think, is why the Marseillaise has the impact that it does, because it comes at exactly this moment when the Roman and the working class are fusing in the broad culture of revolutionary Paris and they are arriving in their carmagnoles, you know, these jackets that are kind of emblematic of the working classes when they come to Paris, the first areas that they go through are those that are very self consciously working class, particularly the area around where the Bastille had stood. But they're singing a song that proclaims civic and martial virtue in a way that Romans might have done. And of course, as we said, they're then assembling on the Champ de Mars, the Campus Martius. And you said how the Girondins due course will be intimidated by it and put off by it and parody it, even at the time. Of course, there are plenty of people in Paris who were terrified by this display. So royalists in particular. So there's an officer in the Royal Guards who sees the Marseillaise coming into Paris singing this song, and he writes that they are 500 fanatics, three quarters of them drunk, followed by the dregs of the people. But of course, Dominic there writes a man who is on the wrong side.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Of history, so the wrong side of history, Tom. So there you've got an unnamed officer in the Royal Guards, a man of sense and discretion, he and I on the wrong side of history. Tomorrow. You're on the right side of history, aren't you, Do Gooder with Theo, our producer. You're dressed in your street garb, you.

[Tom Holland]

Know, I love her, Roman. Dominic, I look at you now in.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Your street garb with your Roman haircut. Shocking scenes. So everybody knows where we stand. So our plan was originally to get to the execution of the King, and we've obviously completely failed to do that because there is just too much drama. So what we're going to do is we're going to bring down the curtain on season two of the French evolution. But the good news is that we will be back in the spring with season three, and that will be more exciting than ever. We will get into the September massacres, to the fall of the monarchy, to the rapidly changing fortunes on the battlefield, and most excitingly, to the trial and execution of Louis xvi. But next week, we will be changing focus completely because we will be in America in 1968 for the fall of Lyndon Johnson, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, and in the long run, the great comeback of Richard Nixon. And the good news for members of the Rest is History Club, you will get access to the entire America in 1968 series, all six episodes, on Monday. And of course, if you want to join the Rest Is History Club and sign up, you just have to go to theretishistory.com so on that bombshell, merci, Tom. That was magnifique. And habiento, everybody. Au revoir.