546. The French Revolution: The Monarchy Falls (Part 3)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Rest Is History - Episode 546: The French Revolution: The Monarchy Falls (Part 3)

Release Date: March 10, 2025
Hosts: Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland

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Introduction

In Episode 546 of The Rest Is History, hosts Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland delve into the dramatic fall of the French monarchy during the French Revolution. This installment, titled "The Monarchy Falls (Part 3)," explores the pivotal moments leading to the abolition of the monarchy, the Battle of Valmy, and the intense political factionalism within the National Convention.

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The Abolition of the Monarchy

The episode opens with a recounting of September 21, 1792, when the National Convention officially abolished the French monarchy. Dominic Sandbrook highlights the significance of this moment, stating:

Dominic Sandbrook [02:20]: "The monarchy is hereby abolished. So Dominic was yet another person shouting loudly, one of many in our ongoing history of the French Revolution."

Tom Holland adds a humorous touch, linking contemporary political figures to historical events:

Tom Holland [03:31]: "I think that Jeremy Corbyn, he would definitely be on the side of abolishing the monarchy had he been in the French Revolution."

The hosts emphasize the seismic impact of this decision not only on France but across Europe, marking the end of one of the oldest monarchies on the continent.

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The Battle of Valmy

A central event discussed is the Battle of Valmy, a crucial military engagement that bolstered the revolutionary government's position. The battle took place just 140 miles from Paris, where French forces, under General Charles François Dumouriez and later reinforced by General Kellermann, faced the advancing Prussian army led by the Duke of Brunswick.

Dominic Sandbrook narrates the tension-filled preparations:

Dominic Sandbrook [04:40]: "The streets are packed with volunteers who are streaming towards the gates of the city. To the front, people are p down the grills of churches. They're digging up their coffins to use as lead for musket shot."

The battle itself is portrayed as a turning point where, despite initial setbacks, the French forces manage to halt the Prussian advance, leading to unexpected victories that energized the revolutionary zeal.

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Political Factionalism in the National Convention

Post-Valmy, the focus shifts to the political landscape within the National Convention. The Convention is portrayed as a battleground for three main factions:

1. Girondins: Representing provincial interests and intellectual elites.
2. Mountagnards (Montagnards): Radical Parisian revolutionaries advocating for populist policies.
3. The Marsh (La Plaine): Centrist members who often sway between the two extremes.

Tom Holland reflects on the emerging political tensions:

Tom Holland [25:35]: "This is the first manifestation of it, that the young are inclined to back more radical solutions on the left."

Dominic Sandbrook further discusses the deepening divisions and the relentless push-pull dynamics between the Girondins and the Montagnards, setting the stage for impending conflicts.

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The Rise of the Montagnards

The Montagnards, led by prominent figures like Robespierre, Danton, and Marat, begin to assert their dominance within the Convention. They advocate for more extreme measures to preserve the revolution, often clashing with the more moderate Girondins.

A notable moment includes a fiery speech by Saint-Just, a young and fervent Montagnard:

Dominic Sandbrook [57:33]: "I pronounce this fatal truth with regret. But Louis must die because the homeland must live."

This declaration underscores the uncompromising stance of the Montagnards against the monarchy and sets the foundation for the trial of Louis Capet.

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The Trial of Louis Capet Pending

The episode culminates with the mounting pressure to prosecute Louis Capet, the former king, as a traitor to the revolution. The discovery of confidential documents by Monsieur Roland further incriminates Louis, sealing his fate.

Dominic Sandbrook summarizes the gravity of the situation:

Dominic Sandbrook [54:26]: "If you follow nature, then you can't do anything wrong, no matter where it leads."

The hosts highlight the constitutional debates surrounding the trial and the inevitable outcome, hinting at the forthcoming dramatic conclusion in the next episode.

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Conclusion and Preview

Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland wrap up the episode by setting the stage for the climax of this historical narrative—the trial and execution of Louis Capet. They tease the intense political maneuvering and personal vendettas that will unfold, promising listeners a gripping continuation of the French Revolution's dramatic transformation.

Dominic Sandbrook [58:01]: "It is one of the two or three most famous speeches of the entire revolution... It seems to serve as a kind of departure point, as a punctuation point in kind of France's constitutional journey."

Listeners are encouraged to join The Rest Is History Club for exclusive content and deeper engagement with the series.

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This episode masterfully intertwines historical facts with engaging dialogue, providing a comprehensive overview of the critical developments that led to the fall of the French monarchy and the rise of radical revolutionary factions. Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland offer insightful analysis, enriched with humor and notable quotes, making complex historical events accessible and captivating for all audiences.

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 thereestishistory.com this episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile.

[Tom Holland]

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[Dominic Sandbrook]

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[Tom Holland]

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[Dominic Sandbrook]

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[Tom Holland]

Whistle while you work from Disney.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

On March 21, the magical tale Snow White. Snow White, Snow White that started it all. I believe you're looking for me.

[Tom Holland]

Arrives in the magic mirror on the wall. Experience the Disney classic who's the fairest one of all like never before. We haven't even been in regards yet.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Disney.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Snow White only in theaters March 21st. Ready PG. Parental guidance suggested. I'm ready for my life to change. ABC tonight, American Idol returns. Give it your all.

[William Wordsworth]

Good luck and have the gun ticket.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Let's hear it. This is a man's world. I've never seen anything like it. And a new chapter begins. You're going to Hollywood. Carrie Underwood joins Lionel Richie, Luke Bryant and Ryan Seacrest on American Idol season.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Premiere tonight, 8, 7 Central on ABC.

[Tom Holland]

And stream on Hulu. Citizens, the National Convention, trusting in your courage, hereby accepts your oaths of loyalty. The liberty of your homeland will be the reward for your efforts. And while you defend your liberty with the force of your arms, the National Convention will defend it by the force of the laws. The monarchy is hereby abolished. So that Dominic was yet another person shouting loudly, one of many in our ongoing history of the French Revolution. And it was specifically Jerome Petion who was president of the National Convention on 21 September 1792, and obviously the abolition of the French monarchy after centuries and centuries and centuries. I mean, this is a seismic moment, isn't it, in the. In the history of France, but also of Europe.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It's a massive moment, Tom, and I think the only voice that really is appropriate to the moment is the one you did there. I mean, because I detected more than a hint of our old friend Jeremy Corbyn. Is that right?

[Tom Holland]

Yes, because I think that Jeremy Corbyn, he would definitely be on the side of abolishing the monarchy had he been in the French Revolution. I think he probably regrets that he wasn't part of the French Revolution.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I imagine that is. Well, he's always got Capel streets, hasn't he? So, yes, this is a massive moment in French and European history, isn't it? Because the French monarchy, I guess, one of the oldest in Europe, if you.

[Tom Holland]

Take it back to Clovis, who we talked about just before Christmas, didn't we? So, yeah, I mean, that's the end of that story.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yes, it is. So it's. It sends shockwaves across Europe. We will be talking about what it means and of course we're talking about what it means for Louis xvi. And we'll get to his story in our final episode.

[Tom Holland]

Nothing good.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Nothing good. But before we get to the moment when they actually do abolish the monarchy, we should set the scene a little bit. Tom, we love setting the scene on this podcast.

[Tom Holland]

Well, we did in the previous episode. We set it in the context of the role of women, didn't we? But shall we. We go back to the lads? What are the lads up to?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Let's set it in the context of Prussians and cannons.

[Tom Holland]

Oh, Prussians.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So the situation in Paris, people will remember from the last episode but one Paris is preparing for an attack. There are church bells ringing. There are cannons on the river Seine that are calling people to prepare for war. The streets are packed with volunteers who are streaming towards the gates of the city. To the front, people are p down the grills of churches. They're digging up their coffins to use as lead for musket shot. There are everyday contingents of troops marching through the national assembly, singing patriotic songs and shouting slogans and stuff. So it's all excitement. Jeremy Corbyn would actually have loved it.

[Tom Holland]

But it's not a Sandbrook vibe, is it?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Not really a Sambrook vibe, I would say, although slightly more Sandbrookian. Somewhere out there, the doer.

[Tom Holland]

Defenders of reaction.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yes. The woods and valleys to the east, my people are the Prussians.

[Tom Holland]

The Duke of Brunswick, the real hero of this story.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So on the 20th of September, so that's the day before the reading that you began with the new National Convention meets for the first time. Now, some listeners, if they've made it all the way through the series, may be like, I've lost track of all the different assemblies and whatnot. So if you remember, there had been the stormy, the Tuilery in August, and since then, France has been in political limbo and they have basically summoned yet another semi constituent assembly. This one has unlimited powers to remake the nation, and it is by far the most democratic yet. So all men over the age of 21, except for servants, can vote.

[Tom Holland]

Because we talked about that last time and you said that you weren't in favor of it.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, I don't agree with it at all. I mean, if I'm with the Duke of Brunswick on this, I think it's a dangerous innovation.

[Tom Holland]

Failed experiment.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yes, exactly. So it's very complicated electoral system, a series of electors and kind of almost like an electoral college, and then they choose the 749deputies. But as you said, Tom, the turnout is really poor. So in some places it might be a fifth, but generally it's probably 1 in 10. And the reason for that, I think, is there's a war on. So it's, you know, people have got other things in their mind, but it's also harvest time. So in the conscious side, people have definitely got other priorities. And they actually, a lot of people are now completely confused. They're probably even more confused than listeners to the podcast. They have no idea what's going on. They don't know who anybody is.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, well, yes, exactly. And also on top of that, there's quite a lot of intimidation, isn't there?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

There is.

[Tom Holland]

That's another aspect to it, of course.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Remember we did that episode about mad elections in Britain where, you know, people. People being carried on chairs and whatnot and like, lots of throwing of cats. Well, similarly in France, for the National Convention, the voting is public and it is oral. You vote, you know, you say who you want to vote for.

[Tom Holland]

So you. If you want to vote in favor of a royalist party, you're basically standing up and saying, I am a reactionary traitor to la patrie in front of all your fellow villagers. I mean, it's not.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Who are like holding clubs and stuff and sort of at the ready. Yeah. Leering at you in a sinister way. So clearly a people just don't want to turn out. So In Paris, the voting has coincided with the September massacres. That's what we began this little kind of miniseries with. So the atmosphere is very grim because as people are voting, there is the kind of stepping over corpses, right? The dull sound of hacking coming from inside the walls of the converted convent just down the road. So what is worse, the second round of voting is held at the Jacobin Club. So if you are a royalist or reactionary, this is not the ideal place to go and to sort of pin your colors to the mast. And that round of voting, the Jacobin Club, they've got a lot of kind of electors, but they start by agreeing. They'll purge all electors who are foyant, who are moderates or who are royalists. So 200 electors are kicked out, there's 800 left, and they vote for 24 deputies. And of those deputies, a lot of those are very big revolutionary names. So the top of the list, number one, their top choice for Paris is Robespierre. And then you've got people like Danton, Desmoulins, Santerre, the Butcher, the Sans Culottes, who'd led the attack on the Tuileries. Marat, for the first time, this firebrand radical journalist, he is going to have a seat in the Convention. So there will be a place for the most extreme, the most violent, the most paranoid revolutionary sentiments.

[Tom Holland]

And there's a place, isn't there, for the worst man in the entire history of the French Revolution?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

The erstwhile Duke of Orleans, the cousin of Louis xvi, Philip Egalite.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I mean, we've talked about this before. This is Prince Harry calling himself Harry Diversity or something, renaming himself Just. And actually, no, Harry Equity. Harry Equity, yeah.

[Tom Holland]

While living in his palace, that's what he'd call himself.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, Harry Eckerty. Anyway, so they. Everybody goes to the Tuileries on the 20th of September to register. And they do so in an atmosphere of apocalyptic dread because they know that 140 miles away, the Prussians are there and that their troops, their France's troops, have basically caught up with the Prussians.

[Tom Holland]

And the Duke of Brunswick, just to remind people, has said that he is going to inflict a biblical fate on Paris.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He has, yeah. A vengeance which will be forever remembered, or words to that effect. So, yes, now, of these guys who've turned up to register, about half of them are lawyers. So if you're. We've got a lot of lawyers who are members of our Rest is History club. So they will level this, they will see this is a very good sign. There's also loads of doctors, loads of civil servants. There's actors, journalists. They're very young, by and large. About half of them are under 40. About a quarter of them are under 35. The younger they are, the more committed and more militant they are, by and large. So, you know, these aren't. A lot of them have got experience in kind of local governments and stuff, but these aren't incredibly seasoned people. They are excited and excitable, I think it's fair to say.

[Tom Holland]

Kind of quite a student union vibe.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Definitely.

[Tom Holland]

I mean, this is the birth of the student union really, isn't it?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I think it probably is, yeah.

[Tom Holland]

Motions, all that kind of stuff.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, they love it. And they're there all night, you know, just endlessly arguing and showing off in that student union and drinking. Exactly. Next day, 21st of September, they assemble at the riding school, the manage for their first proper session. And that. This is the. The bit that you. You started with Jerem Petion. Because they've come straight to the central question. Let's reboot France and it must be a republic. There's an actor, of course, called Colo Debois. He ends up on the Committee of Public Safety. Later on, he says, let's just abolish the monarchy right away. No need for referendums and all that stuff. Let's just go for it. The deputies say, really? No, no, you wouldn't let the people have a say on it. Such a massive question. And then the Bishop of Blois. So this is an interesting thing because again, it complicates the slightly sort of stereotypical sense of the French Revolution, because it's a bishop, Henri Gregoire, who says, kings are in the moral world what monsters are in the physical world. Their courts are the workshops of crime and the lairs of tyrants. In other words, no referendum, let's just get rid. And they. They vote. And then, of course, as so often happens in these kind of scenarios, very Student union, once people work out which way the wind is blowing, they all pile in. Yeah, they all pile in. So they make the vote unanimous. They all start shouting, vive la nation. They're all terribly excited. The world has started again.

[Tom Holland]

But, Dominic, just to pick up one. One thing that is intriguing, and it's a kind of absence, is that there isn't a kind of formal proclamation of the Republic. There's no official decree kind of installing it. And I just mentioned that, because in the next episode, when we come to the trial of the king, I think that is significant and I think that that is something that frames what will happen with the trial and the execution of the King. Because although it is a new beginning, although they've had the vote, it's kind of they know what they're getting rid of, but they don't yet know what they're establishing.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, I think that's a very fair point, actually, that there is a sense of. There's a sense of historical time beginning again, but they don't really know what they all want because I suppose, Tom, they don't want the same thing, as we shall see in this episode. So if. If you enjoy political factionalism, this is definitely the rest is history episode for you. Anyway, one of the interesting things about the French Revolution that we've talked about so much is the way it faces two ways. On the one hand, they're looking back to the Roman Republic, as you have described so many times, and on the other hand, they're genuinely thinking this is not just a whole new chapter, but it's basically a new. A new volume in world history. So it's. They say from September 20th, all state documents must bear the date year one of the French Republic. So this is where we get the beginning of the sort of French Revolutionary calendar, the numbering system, year one, year two, and so on and so forth. But of course, whether they actually get beyond year one is not in their hands. It depends on events out on the battlefield. So let us now, let us leave Paris.

[Tom Holland]

Turn the camera.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

And turn the camera. Exactly. You know how my mind works. So remember where we got to. The Prussians have been marching all the way west from the border. They've got to the argonne Forest. That's 130 or so miles away from Paris. It's pouring with rain. Very Agincourt scenes. Tomorrow, there's only one man who can stop them. And that man is a guy called General Charles Francois du Maurier. So listeners may remember, he's this kind of grizzled ex secret Agent X, seven years war veteran who was foreign Minister under the Girondin. He got France into this mess in the first place. And basically he's in charge of the Eastern Front. He really wanted to.

[Tom Holland]

He.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He loves fighting Belgians, he loves attacking Belgium. That's his dream. He wants to liberate Belgium. But the Convention has basically said, forget about Belgium. There's a load of Prussians advancing on Paris. Get to the Valley of the Marne and stop them. There's a lot of maneuvering and faffing around.

[Tom Holland]

Do you want to go into detail about that.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Do you know what? I could, I could, but I won't because I don't want to try the patience of our less military minded listeners. Minded listeners.

[Tom Holland]

Exactly how many divisions are there on both sides?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Loads. Could be loads. So to cut a very long story short, the two armies end up faffing around and maneuvering and basically they end up on the wrong side of each other. So the Prussians are nearest Paris and Dumouriez is behind them with his back against the Argonne forest. Now, the Duke of Brunswick could just ignore Jim Ren.

[Tom Holland]

He could have just dashed on, couldn't he, to Paris?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He could, but he doesn't want to do that because he, that would mean Jimmy Ray could cut his supply lines, basically cut him off from the German states. And his men are very muddy and it's pouring rain, they're knackered, they're short of food, they're ravaged by illness. It feels a bit Henry V before Agincourt. And he says, right, what we'll do is we'll stop here, we'll turn, we'll finish off Dumouriez and then we can secure our supply lines and then we can go on to Paris. Dumouet is massively outnumbered, but he very good news for him. So on the 19th, the day before the National Convention, they meet to register. He is reinforced by a second French army under General Kellermann, who has a German name. He has a German name. Very confusing.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, that is confusing.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So these troops that they have, by the way, everybody always thinks this is a great victory for kind of people in red bonnets shouting about the revolution.

[Tom Holland]

But it's not, is it? They're all basically Royalist officers and seasoned veterans.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

And so they are, they are, these are like regular troops.

[Tom Holland]

And they also have brilliant kind of new canon.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

They do indeed. They have a very exciting new canon. We love military technology on this podcast. They have new lightweight cannons that were specially designed after the French had shamed themselves in the Seven Years War against Britain. Exactly. They'd lost to everybody, hadn't they? It'd been a kind of world war, they'd been fighting the Prussians or whatever. So on the 20th, so this is the day that the National Convention are registering on the 20th, it's a misty, foggy morning. Kellerman, outside this windmill outside the village of Valmy, he lines up his men on this ridge and he's got his lovely lightweight cannons that he's very keen to show off. The Prussians start firing with their cannons. Kellermann fires back with his. There's Hundreds of guns blazing away through the fog. Now, do you know who was fighting for the Prussians?

[Tom Holland]

I do. It was Goethe, the great German writer. Greatest German writer.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

German is top writer. Goethe. He was fighting with his patron, who was Grand Duke Karl Augustus Sax Weimar.

[Tom Holland]

Was he actually fighting? I always wondered about that because I thought he just kind of, you know, he'd gone in the train and was writing a poem.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Well, this is the thing. I think there's no evidence, I think, of him actually shooting anybody.

[Tom Holland]

I can't imagine him in a. In a uniform. That seems very odd.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He must have been wearing uniform, though, because as we will discover, he's exchanging banter with the lads of the. Of the battalion and stuff. Goethe said. I mean, you expect great prose from a great writer, don't you? Do you know what he said? The earth literally trembled.

[Tom Holland]

It was a clash of titans.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

France a land of contrasts. Anyway, the earth is literally trembling. Goethe can't believe it. What scenes. This goes on for hours and hours and hours. Then the Prussians eventually say, okay, enough, we've definitely softened the French up now. And Brunswick sends his infantry advancing in these kind of long lines, blue uniforms, they're advancing up the hill. They're convinced that the French are about to collapse. But no. General Kellerman takes off his hat with its tricolour cockade and he lifts it up on his sword and he shouts, vive la nation. And then the French will start singing the Sa'ira, one of their revolutionary songs.

[Tom Holland]

But interestingly, not the Marseillaise, which apparently there's no evidence that they sang that.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

No.

[Tom Holland]

So that may be another pointer to the fact that these are not the kind of the radicals, the, the cutting edge revolutionaries as yet.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Right, exactly. I think the revolutionists would love to rewrite this. This is sans culotte singing the Marseilles. And indeed they do in subsequent years, but that's not true at all. So they're blasting away. The Prussians keep coming. The Prussians can't believe the French are so full of vim and vigor. And then basically the Prussians waver and Brunswick says, call them back. Call them, you know, enough. And the French, against all the odds and all expectations, because they performed so abysmally at the beginning of the war, they have actually, they haven't quite won, but they have survived to fight another day.

[Tom Holland]

So it's kind of scraping a result in the final match of a group round in the World Cup. Kind of a bit like that.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I think it is a bit like that. But after you've. It's It's a. It's the draw that you need that keeps you alive in the group, I think, is what it is. But that, because it's come unexpectedly, it's.

[Tom Holland]

Fated as a great victory.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It's fated as a great victory. Exactly. That's exactly what it is. The Prussians actually have killed more Frenchmen than the French have killed Prussians. But for the first time, the Prussians have been stopped. They haven't been able to dislodge the French and the reactions of the two sides could not be more different. So the Prussians are absolutely gutted. They can't believe it.

[Tom Holland]

Doesn't Goethe. He makes a famous comment in a very grandiloquent way, saying that this is. What is it? Something like, gentlemen, you have witnessed the. The dawning of a new age.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I felt you were gearing up to do him as Jeremy Corbyn there, which would have been a shame. So Goethe says, there's a wonderful scene, It's. There's the great vanity of great writers. He says, they all sat alone around this fire, they're already miserable. They couldn't meet each other's eye. And he says, everybody asked me what I thought about the events of the day as, and I quote my little sayings, had often interested or amused our little company. And what an insufferable bore he must be to all the other soldiers. So he said to everybody, from this place and from this day forth commences a new era in the world's history. And you can all say, you are present at its birth. Now, shall I say something? I don't believe he did say that. I think that's far too good to be true. And he writes this a considerable time afterwards, so I'm suspicious of Goethe here. I think he's playing fast and loose with the facts because it's too good.

[Tom Holland]

That's what writers do, Dominic.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It is. It is what they do. Anyway, for the French, this is massive. So there's a peasant soldier who writes to his father and he says, been electrified with a new courage that will make despots tremble. Oh, liberty. Oh, equality. Oh, my country. What a wonderful transformation. It's like. Listen to Theo.

[Tom Holland]

I mean, if peasants are writing like that after the battle, then maybe Goethe is saying that kind of thing.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Maybe, Tom.

[Tom Holland]

I mean, maybe they're all, you know, massive effusions. They all feel that this is Titanic. I don't know, I just.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, no fair. That's fair. So lots of people say, gosh, this is a tremendous victory for the. For the new Republic for our revolutionary virtue. And when, of course, when the news reaches the Convention, they're all waving their hats in the air and delighted and they say, absolutely brilliant. History has begun again. It is a new chapter in the story of the human race.

[Tom Holland]

And Dominic, I've got a question, which is that the news reaches Paris after the monarchy has been abolished. Is there a feeling that this victory has been won because France is now a republic? Do you think there's something like that?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. We've got rid of the King and.

[Tom Holland]

The traitors, and immediately we start winning.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, as soon as we. As soon as we took those blokes into the courtyards of various prisons and dispense summary justice, and as soon as we lock the King up in the temple fortress, surprise, surprise, we start winning battles, you know, quadrat demonstrandum. The King was a traitor and was undermining the war efforts.

[Tom Holland]

And that is what happened with the first democracy. When Athens establishes its democracy, having thrown out its tyrants, they immediately start winning battles. And presumably people would have been aware of this.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Maybe this is an ironclad law of history, Tom. Or maybe it's just a coincidence, anyway.

[Tom Holland]

Well, it is because they actually win the battle before the proclamation of the Republic.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Right, yeah, well said. They don't really win the battle, it's just a draw. So you would think that this would fill them all with great, you know, bonhomie, sense of harmony. Come on, let's bury that in ideological hatchet and work together for the common good. You would be wrong, because actually, from the beginning. I know you wouldn't be wrong, Tom. I know you know that. What's going to happen? The Convention is riven by the most unbelievable faction fighting. So basically there are three blocks, and maybe we don't need to spend an eternity discussing them. But a little bit of context. First of all, you have Brisseau and the Girondins. So if you remember, these are not really a Parisian party. They're a party of the kind of big provincial cities like Bordeaux, because that's.

[Tom Holland]

Where Gironde comes from, isn't it? It's the. The Northern Bank.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Exactly. They're all hanging around, having dinner with Madame Roland in her apartment and swapping witty aphorisms. And they've basically got about 150 deputies in the Convention that will always support them, and they can call on some independence to give them a majority. Then you have the great mass of people who are kind of in the middle. They are called the. They're either called the marsh, which seems a very you know, it's not very. I wouldn't want to be part of the marsh.

[Tom Holland]

Les pair centristes.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

What's that?

[Tom Holland]

Centrist dads.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Oh, right, okay, Very good. Yeah. Well, they're not really centrist dads, are they? Because everybody's now on the left, but they are the marsh, or the. The plain, people call them, because they sit in the middle of the hall and they basically, you know, they can lean one way or the other, but at this point, they are generally swayed by the Girondin. And then you have the radicals on the far left. They're called the Mountain, the Montagnard, and they sit high up in the left of the hall, hence the mountain. There's about 200 of them, 150 to 200. They're very Parisian. Robespierre, Danton, Marat, all the famous guys.

[Tom Holland]

The ones that people have heard of.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

They dominate the Jacobin Club now because the Girondin don't bother turning up to it. And they also appeal to two groups, very young deputies and much more likely to be Montagnard. They're likely to be kind of more impatient, more ambitious, more radical.

[Tom Holland]

And this is the first manifestation of a sense that runs right the way up to the present day that the young are inclined to back more radical solutions on the left.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Right.

[Tom Holland]

I mean, this is the first manifestation of it, I think.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

That's absolutely right. They also appeal to deputies, interestingly, who come from very isolated kind of places, who've basically been the one radical in their village.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Who therefore feel very embattled. And when they arrive in Paris, they are delighted to find friends, and their being embattled has made them more radical.

[Tom Holland]

I guess that must be very exciting for them.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Oh, yeah. I think there's a definite sense of excitement and of the Montagnard, basically. Now we think of them as being a party ruled by the triumvirate of Robespierre, Danton and Marat. I mean, they really are the big three of the French Revolution, aren't they?

[Tom Holland]

The Triumvirate, you might almost say.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

But they're not like a triumvirate. They actually don't really get on with each other.

[Tom Holland]

Robespierre hates Marat, doesn't he?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Rob Spear despises Mara. Won't have anything to do with him. Like, refuses to have anything to do with him, I think, because Rob Spear is so chilly and he's so worried about his wig and his kind of bonyness.

[Tom Holland]

He's got great skin.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

And Marat doesn't wear a. Doesn't wear A wig. Has terrible skin. Awful. Sits in baths.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Both Danton and Mara have terrible skin, don't they? Danton is too busy, like stuffing himself.

[Tom Holland]

With like chicken legs.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. And also taking brown envelopes of cash. Mara is just shouting about, like killing everybody and being very over the top and stuff. So actually they're all quite suspicious of each other, these three. They don't work together as a tight knit unit. I guess the other question is, are these kind of ideological political parties of the kind that we would recognize today? And the answer again, I think no. The, the Montagnard and the Girondin, to outside observers, seem to have loads in common. You know, they, they're all Republicans. They all believe in the war, all of that stuff. There are two things I think that are really important, that differences. So one of them is the idea of the people, the Girondin, because they're kind of merchant class from Bordeaux and stuff, they basically think that people like them should be running the revolution. You know, people who go to literary salons and quote poetry to each other.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Whereas Robespierre and the Montagnard, they think they're suspicious of that. They are pure populists. They're all about the common people, the virtues of the streets. They're. The people of Paris know better.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

A poor urchin knows much better than you know. It's that kind of.

[Tom Holland]

It's Rousseau, isn't it?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It's very Rousseau. It's very Rousseau. It's very. It's almost very Christian, is it not? I'm surprised you didn't say that, of course.

[Tom Holland]

But I mean, you know, I. This is what I think about everything in the French Revolution.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

That's true, that's true.

[Tom Holland]

That goes without saying.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

The other thing that's perhaps a little less Christian, is the Montagnard also much keener on violence?

[Tom Holland]

No, but you see, I think that is pretty Christian. Virtuous violence.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. Okay.

[Tom Holland]

Crusades, Inquisitions.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Okay, let's just assume you're thinking of everything.

[Tom Holland]

No, I don't think of everything because obviously you can have non Christian violence. But I think the idea of, of violence being virtuous. Yeah, that's, that's, that's where it's coming from.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yes.

[Tom Holland]

As you'd expect, because this is, you know, 18th century France and displays of a violent virtue are everywhere.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, fair enough. So obviously the most visible sign of virtuous violence has been the September Massacres, which the Montagnard were all for. But the Girondins are actually a little bit conflicted about the September Massacres they've been. Robespierre thought all this was brilliant. You know, he loved the attack on the Tuileries, he loved the September massacres. He thinks the fact that Girondin are being a bit squeamish shows that they are suspects, counter revolutionary and all that kind of thing. Tom, I can see you're itching to say something.

[Tom Holland]

What is so interesting and fascinating about this is that you see for the first time the manifestation of political trends that just repeat and repeat and repeat. And surely what is happening with the Girondin and the Montagnard is the notion that people on the left can be outflanked to their left and therefore are always moving leftwards to try and avoid that. And so the radicals of one month can suddenly find themselves the reactionaries of the next month. And it means that there's an impetus always to go further and further, whether you are backing, you know, the people are always right, or whether you were saying virtue is manifest in violence. If you start saying, I'm not sure about that, then immediately you are. You, you're a reactionary. And that is a trend that you see again and again and again. I mean, throughout the history of 19th century socialism and. Right, you know, right the way up at the present day.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Absolutely, you're totally right. That sort of ratchet effect. And in fact, I was just thinking, if somebody missed a couple of episodes of this series, you know, if they'd skipped ahead, they'd be like, hold on, those people were on the far left two episodes ago. Now you're describing them as you. To revolutionary reactionaries, because as you say, that the center of gravity is always moving leftwards. What's on the Girondins mind as well, by the way, is the fact that during the September massacres, there is some evidence that Robespierre and Marat had actually toyed with the idea of killing them too. So Robespierre, on the day the massacres had broken out 2 September, he had been giving a speech in the Commune, the sort of city council of Paris, in which he had said that the Girondins were secret agents of the Prussians and perfidious intriguers working against French liberty. Now, anyone who's listened to the whole of this series will know how bonkers that is, because the Girondins were the key people in getting France into the war in the first place. But of course, at the time, everybody believes in this idea of the mask of patriotism, that the more patriotic you appear to be, the more likely it is that you are in fact a traitor. So they, the Commune had issued a warrant for some of the Girondins arrest, which was never carried out. But Brissot and Roland and these people, they know about this and they say, my God, Robespierre wants to kill us. He wanted to kill us, and it's just luck that he didn't. And so they become convinced, well, they are now convinced that basically it's kill or be killed. So in that sense, right from the moment the Convention meets, which is 21st of September, it's not like a normal parliament that we would know today, because there is no sense of pluralism, there's no sense that they're going to be having discussions and you win some, you lose some, or that kind of thing.

[Tom Holland]

No sense of a loyal opposition, none.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So by definition, this is about virtue versus corruption. It's about the Republic versus counter revolution. To be a dissenter is to be a traitor. And so I think from the very first moment they take their seats, it is obvious there is absolutely going to be a showdown and that whoever loses, that will probably end up on the guillotine. And if you had to put your money on somebody at this point, September 1792, you would probably put it on the Girondins. They have a bit more of a majority, they have a bit more self confidence, they control the presidency of the Convention. And so right from the beginning, with the September massacre, so fresh in their minds, they say, right, let's settle this once and for all, let's do this. And right away they go for the Montagnard's throats.

[Tom Holland]

Wow. Well, I think that is too much excitement for one half of an episode. So I think we should take a break here and when we come back, we will see what the upshot of this Girondin attempt to take down the Montagnard actually is.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

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[Tom Holland]

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[Dominic Sandbrook]

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[Tom Holland]

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[Dominic Sandbrook]

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[Dominic Sandbrook]

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[Tom Holland]

Welcome back. We left you at a moment of high drama. The Girondins are about to take on the Montignard in the national convention. Dominic, put people out of their misery. What happens?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So they make their move. Tom, two days after the Battle of Valmy 22nd of September. The convention's only really been up and running for a day and a bit, and a dozen speakers, one after the other. Girondin get up and lay into the Montagnard. And they want. Their plan is to convince the Convention the Montagnan are traitors and they should be arrested and thrown out of the Convention. They say they are anarchists, they are murderers, they are levelers, interestingly. Oh, right. A word that will be very familiar to people who know about 17th century England.

[Tom Holland]

But don't they also compare them to Caesar, Crassus and Pompey? They do the first round in ancient Rome.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

They do. They're very promiscuous with their historical analogies, I think it's fair to say, because Briso says. On the one hand, he says, they're the hydra of anarchy. They want to level everything. And on the other hand, he says Robespierre, Mara and Danton are the new Crassus, Caesar and Pompey, exactly as you said. And Robespierre and Danton say, this is absolute nonsense. You know, I don't even like him. I. I have no. We're not a triumvert at all. Mara. He obviously is.

[Tom Holland]

This is.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He's making his debut effectively in frontline policy.

[Tom Holland]

Wow, what a way to do it.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

And he says, I'm not a traitor, but if you're accusing me of trying to set up a dictatorship, well, I'll be frank with you. I think a dictatorship be brilliant. I'd love a dictatorship. He said. He pulls a gun out of his pocket and he holds it to his own head, and he says, if you vote to condemn me, I will blow out my brains in front of you.

[Tom Holland]

Rather than threatening to blow out the brains of.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I guess. So people are very impressed by this. They say, well, this obviously shows the marrow is a tremendous fellow. And the result of this is that there's. There's a. They are not kicked out. So the Montagnard have made a bit of a mistake here. They've. They've bet that. I was about to say they've wounded but not killed their opponent. They barely even wounded them.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, I mean, if you're going to shoot at the King, you better kill him.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Exactly. So it is clear from this point that this feud is only ever going to get worse. And a few weeks go by, the Girondins basically are sort of constantly niggling at the Montagnard, but never bringing them down. Also, the Girondins, as time goes by, they're actually beginning to lose a Bit of support from the plane, from the independent people, because the independent people actually are a bit sick of this. And also the Girondins are quite corrupt and they're very overbearing and they're very kind of hungry for power and bossy.

[Tom Holland]

They've got all their dinner parties, haven't they?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

They go to their dinner parties.

[Tom Holland]

Half leaves and dinner parties, not inviting the normal people.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Right. And if you're just a bog standard deputy from provincial France, you're sick of being like lectured by Brisseau and having him slacking off the Montagnard and stuff. You just become very impatient with all this. And I think the Jourdan know this. So towards the end of October, they decide to have another go. And this time they will just go for Robespierre and they'll go for him personally. And they get a newspaper editor called Jean Baptiste Louvet to stand up and accuse Robespierre of trying to make himself dictator, of having a personality cult. Now again, they reach for a Roman parallel. Interesting.

[Tom Holland]

Of course they do.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So Louve deliberately models his speech on Cicero unveiling the Catiline conspiracy. And of course, that's the analogy that everybody knows. They've all grown up, they've all done it at school.

[Tom Holland]

It's been, how long will you abuse our patience, Robespierre?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

All of that stuff. Exactly. And Louve says, come on, France has a choice. There are only two parties and France must choose. There is the party of us, the Girondin. We're the party of philosophers. And on the other hand, there is the mountain. They're the party of murderers.

[Tom Holland]

Put like that.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, exactly. If I was facing attack from the Prussians and I had to choose one of those two parties to represent me, I definitely wouldn't choose the philosophers. But you know, who's there for this? Well, you do know, because I know you've got the notes.

[Tom Holland]

But also I know this because I'm a big fan of his. It's the great poet, William Wordsworth. He's basically on his gap year, isn't he?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, he is. He's on a holiday.

[Tom Holland]

Well, he's not on holiday.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He's.

[Tom Holland]

He's. He's graduated and doesn't know what to do with himself. So he's gone off to. To France, supposedly to improve his. His knowledge of French, but actually he's having an affair with a woman in Orleans, got her pregnant.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

But that would. That would improve your French though, surely? Yes, it would give us a bit of poetry. Tom, I know you love a bit.

[Tom Holland]

Of wordsworth When a dead pause ensued and no one stirred in silence of all present from his seat, Louvet walked single through the avenue and took his station in the tribune, saying, I, Robespierre, accuse thee. Now, that line is actually a bit confusing, isn't it? Because it makes it sound like Robespierre is claiming to be.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Exactly. I mean, I don't want to.

[Tom Holland]

I don't want to diss Wordsworth, one of our greatest ever poets.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Words just lets himself down there with his lack of clarity.

[Tom Holland]

So this is in the prelude, which he writes much later when he's become a counter revolutionary and a massive reactionary. Shall I carry on?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Do we'd love that.

[Tom Holland]

Bit more poetry.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Okay, love it.

[Tom Holland]

Well, it's known the inglorious issue of that charge and how he who had launched the startling thunderbolt. So that's l. The one bold man whose voice the attack had sounded was left without a follower to discharge his perilous duty and retired, lamenting that heaven's best aid is wasted upon men who to themselves are false. Which is a long way of saying that Luve's attack doesn't work and he doesn't get the support that he'd been expecting. And it's all a bit of an embarrassment and a letdown.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It is an embarrassment. Exactly. Wordsworth, in a very convoluted way, is quite right. And actually Robespierre completely wins the day. So a week later, Robespierre, he bides his time and then he makes his response and he says, I have encouraged violence. He says, but I did it because it was the only way to save the country. And he says to everybody, do you want to have a revolution without a revolution? I mean, we have to. You know, I did it and I was right to do it, because people.

[Tom Holland]

May remember when we. When we talked about the guillotine, that Robespierre was against capital punishment. But he is now saying that the. The travails of the republic are such.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yes.

[Tom Holland]

That the real crime would not be to support the elimination of those who threaten.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, France. And as we discussed in the September Massacres episode, a majority clearly agree with that. They think we're at war. You know, we've always executed people. It's not like public executions. And the public display of violence is a. Is a novelty. It's completely reasonable for us to use violent measures to preserve the republic. And so Robespierre wins the day. He gets torrents of applause in the Convention. Brisso and the Girondin are kind of fuming. They're sort of like Sort of cartoon characters kind of of clenching their fists with rage, you pesky Montagnard kind of on the benches. And Brisso writes to Du Merier and he says, this is absolutely intolerable. He says, I spend all my time fighting these miserable anarchists. That's a direct quote. When I should be concentrating on the uprising of the entire planet. I mean, which is a bonkers thing.

[Tom Holland]

To say, but quite Trotsky, isn't it?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It's very Trotsky. But you can see why he's saying it because we're now six weeks after the Battle of Valmy, and since then, Tom, there have been some unbelievably dramatic scenes on the battlefield.

[Tom Holland]

Has du Maurier managed to invade Belgium, which you said was his long term kind of plan?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Excitingly, yes.

[Tom Holland]

Oh, bless him.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So for once somebody in the story has actually got what he wanted. So basically, here's what's happened. I know, I know you love military history, Tom. The Prussians have been hanging around outside Valmy, pouring with rain after this kind of draw. And the Duke of Brunswick eventually says, right, listen, we don't want to be cut off from our supplies. We're obviously not against Paris. Let's cut our losses, head back towards Germany for the winter. So in scenes of great sort of degradation and misery, which kind of Goethe writes about, he withdraws all the way back and he even goes all the way back across the river Rhine. Now that really matters because what that means is that the western bank of the Rhine is now completely undefended with German cities and towns on it. It is completely undefended from the French. So by late October, the French, who are on their uppers a bit ago, are now advancing on German cities. Places like Mainz, Worms, Frankfurt. And out of these German cities, the prince, bishops and the electors and the all of these bigwigs are kind of fleeing as fast as they can with all their kind of Germanic books and, and whatever, marzipan on carts.

[Tom Holland]

So this is the point of what Brisso is saying to Du Maurier, is that this is now an international revolution, right?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

The world lies open before us because the French, by the way, in the long run, this will be a massive moment in European history because it's basically the birth of German identity and German nationalism. Because loads of people who'd waited couldn't wait for the French Revolution to get to Germany. When the revolution does turn up, they say, oh God, this is terrible. All these French people kind of living in our houses, looting all our stuff and bossing us around. And so you get the German identity, you can argue to some degree, dates from this moment as a kind of political force. Anyway, the French don't just stop at the Rhine, they are advancing everywhere. So they invade the Swiss Federation, they're heading for Geneva, they invade Savoy and they take all the lands west of the Alps, which. And they create a new department called Mont Blanc. They also seize the county of. Of Nice. We always think of Nice as. I mean, most people think of it as French. It's actually been part of Savoy since 1388.

[Tom Holland]

And so all these kind of little medieval aberrations are being swallowed up by France and becoming part of France. So like Avignon as well had already gone.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, Avignon, exactly. But above all, Belgium. So Dumiria had always dreamed of this. He beats a small Austrian army at a place called Jemappa, which is just south of Mons, on 6 November, and the Austrians have to pull back. He takes Mons, he's in Brussels by the 14th of November. By the end of November, I mean, this is the extraordinary thing, the seesaw momentum. He has taken Liege and Antwerp and he is heading towards the borders of the Dutch Republic.

[Tom Holland]

And Dominic, by this point, there is a lot of singing of the Marseilles loads.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Exactly.

[Tom Holland]

It accompanies the invasion, the victories, all kinds of things.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I think this is the moment actually, when you can say that patriotic revolutionary fervor is born, really it born in victory. This is the point at which you have patriotic festivals across France, sort of feasts and, and bonfires and people singing things like they're singing the Marseilles in the streets.

[Tom Holland]

And again, it's a manifestation of the fact that now France is no longer a monarchy and is a republic, suddenly they're winning.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, absolutely. But here's the thing, right, they're not just winning, they're winning victories now. And because the Prussians and the Austrians had basically not bargained for this, overextended themselves, not properly prepared, the French are now winning victories that are really unprecedented in the last few generations, victories that eclipse even the victories of Louis xiv. And so deputies back in Paris are now beginning to ask themselves, well, where will we stop? Where would the revolution stop? Because of course, they've always thought of it as not just a French nationalist project, but a universalist one.

[Tom Holland]

Well, again, this is what Brisso's saying, that, you know, this is a global issue. He's the arbiter of the world.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Exactly. Some people say, well, our borders, our obvious borders are geographical. The Pyrenees, the river Rhine, the. The channel the Mediterranean and so on. But other people are saying, well, really, I mean, if we stand for liberty, if we stand for these kind of timeless, you know, eternal values, why would we stop at some mountains? Why wouldn't we go beyond?

[Tom Holland]

And have they not enrolled as French citizens, people in foreign countries who are particularly enthusiastic for the revolutions, like Tom Paine? Tom Paine would be the famous example.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

On the 19th of November, they vote. France will assist anybody, anybody who wants to, and I quote, recover their liberty. And a month later, they agree that everywhere French armies go, they will take the revolution with them. So that means they will abolish feudalism, they will attack the privileges of the Catholic Church, they will institute a republican system.

[Tom Holland]

So it's a war on the monarchies of Europe.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So this has never happened before in European history. You know, states have fought wars with each other, of course, and taken each other's territory, but the idea that you would go into somebody's country and completely rewire their system so that it looks like yours ideologically reboot them, this, to a lot of people, is profoundly, profoundly shocking.

[Tom Holland]

So Cromwell hadn't done that?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

No.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I mean, there'd be no sense of, like, let's export the English revolution. Exactly. And what is more, I mean, this is. I think this is very French. They decide that they will make everybody else pay for this. So there's a guy called Pierre Jacques Combon, who's a Protestant merchant from Nimes, and he says, listen, there's an obvious way to fund this. When we occupy a given country, they should be so grateful for their liberty that they should pay us a tax to pay for their own occupation. And the Convention, this is an absolutely, absolutely great idea. Now, you might think this sounds very over the top and hubristic, but they, I think, really believe in this. Brisso is standing there in the convention, sort of November 1792, and he is saying, we will liberate Naples, we will liberate Spain, we will liberate Poland. We will be in Berlin probably this time next year. We can go all the way to Moscow. You know, it's like they're basically drunk on their own rhetoric. His friend Vernio, remember we had him talk about the. There's a great quote from him, he's a great orator, talking about the declaration of war in the first place. He now says, this will actually be the last war. This will be the end of history. Men have died, he says, but they have died so that no men will ever die again. I swear to you, in the name of the universal fraternity which you are creating, that each battle will be a step towards peace, humanity and happiness for all mankind.

[Tom Holland]

So I think if that's what, if that's what they're bringing, it's fair enough to get people to pay for it.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Very good. I mean, the thing is, nobody has ever talked like this in European history before. You know, when France was fighting its wars in Italy in the early 16th century, nobody said, this is the war to end all wars. This will bring a new age of happiness. They just said, brilliant, let's pile into Milan and loot and pillage, you know, did Henry V say this in the Hundred Years War? Did Edward iii? Of course they didn't.

[Tom Holland]

But the dream of a year of a universal peace is of course, I mean, we know, we know where that's coming from. From.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

We do indeed. But of course there is, among other things, there's a very obvious problem that they have, which is it's a problem left over from before the republic and it's that they have still in their midst not just any old traitor, but the traitor of traitors, you know, a rallying point for counter revolution.

[Tom Holland]

The erstwhile king.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It is the erstwhile king. It's Louis Capet.

[Tom Holland]

Well, so that is what they call him. Louis Capet. Yeah, because the, the man who is elected King of the Franks at the end of the 10th century is hug Capet. So that's where the name of Capetians comes from. It's not actually his name. And in the next episode where we look at the trial and execution of the king, we'll explore why they call him Louis Capet and not Louis Bourbon. But I just, I just intrude with that. But they call him Louis Capet.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

That had never occurred to me before. Obviously that isn't really his name.

[Tom Holland]

No, it's not his name. And he and Louis objects very strongly to being called Capet. But we will explore this tomorrow.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

That's tantalizing, Tom. If I wasn't already a member of the Rest is History Club, I'd sign up now so that I. Because I'd have to wait. So just the last sort of five minutes or so before Theo explodes with rage that we're going on too long. Where has Louis been all this time? He's been in the temple in this medieval keep. He's been with Marie Antoinette, his sister Elizabeth and his two children. They'd been reading loads of books. They're basically living like a middle class English family during COVID in lockdown. So Louis and Marie Antoinette have been homeschooling the children. They've been teaching them to recite kind of great reams of Racine and Corneille and stuff. Great French dramatists. Louis loves his geography, so they've been coloring in a map of the new departments of France and tracing and doing all this stuff. It's actually quite sweet. They play badminton in the garden and at night, Louis, this will please you, Tom. He reads passages of Roman history to.

[Tom Holland]

Them, but presumably not the establishment of the Republic.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

No, I don't think so. But apparently he reads passages that somehow mirror their own predicament. So people who've been locked up but are very noble and long suffering and all this kind of thing, they are quite tightly restricted. Marian Swinnette's not allowed to sew in case she's sewing a code. Louis is not allowed to shave because people are worried that he might kill himself. And the guards, it's very like the Romanovs in 1918. The guards were always kind of scribbling graffiti on the wall that shows a fat man being hanged or guillotined or something. So that's a bit ominous for Louis. Now, the Convention, you might say, why do they have to take any proceedings against him at all?

[Tom Holland]

Because he's just a citizen. Now this is the point of Louis Capet. He's just like anyone else.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

But there, of course, there are two reasons. One is if they really think he's been betraying them to foreign enemies, they really ought to punish him. And number two, they know there are loads of royalists in France. They can't leave such an obvious focus for counter revolutionary rebellion alive. And the Sans Culottes on the streets of Paris still blame him, remember for the fighting at the Tuileries and the Swiss Guards and all of that sort of. Of business. They have a huge discussion about whether constitutionally they are allowed to put him on trial, because under the old constitution, if the king, you know, transgressed it, laid down what you do and you remove him from office, but once you do that, it's done, so can they punish him further? And basically they get a constitutional lawyer, a guy from Toulouse called Jean Baptiste Mai, and he says Louis is clearly guilty of terrible crimes and the law of nature overrides the constitution. The constitution actually was given by the nation, and if the nation gives the constitution, the nation has the right to withdraw it. And the law of nature demands that Louis is punished.

[Tom Holland]

And this is a crucial moment, isn't it, in the history of what will happen over the next year. The idea that if you follow nature, then you can't do anything wrong, no matter where it leads.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

There again, very Rousseau. Very Rousseau. So they have a sort of debate about how this will work. A few people, a very small group of kind of what you. I suppose you would say people on the right of the Convention, on the right of the Girondin group, say, I just think we should leave them alone. Let's not do this at all. But most people say we should probably have a trial. There are some Montagnards, however, who say a trial is mad. We should just kill him straight away. He doesn't even deserve a trial. And the most famous one of those, a character who we should now introduce, is a young man, the youngest deputy in the whole convention. He's only 25 years old, and he stands up to make his maiden speech in November. So this guy is called Louis Antoine Saint Just. He's from a small town in Picardy. He's basically a massive Robespierre fan. He's been sending him fan mail since 1789. And I thought. I kind of think about Saint juice, that here's the point at which Rousseau and Romanticism kind of meet. He's got long, lank hair. He's got an earring. He's very pale. He's never seen smiling or laughing.

[Tom Holland]

He's Shelley with political power.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yes, I guess he is, I guess. Was it Shelley who was pursued by his classmates around Eton?

[Tom Holland]

Yes, the Shelley Hunt.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

The Shelley Hunt, yeah.

[Tom Holland]

That.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I would have loved to have seen that with Saint Just. Because I hate Saint Just. He wrote an enormous poem, didn't he, about his sexual frustration? Surprise, surprise, he did. And he prides himself. He basically loves Rob Spear, and he prides himself on being more virt. Even more virtuous, more emotionless, more logical.

[Tom Holland]

Rationalist.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. Than Robespierre.

[Tom Holland]

That rationalism and virtue are to be equated.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yes.

[Tom Holland]

And again, this is the birth of something that over the course of the 19th century will actually become quite chilling. It's the kind of thing Dostoyevsky was obsessed by.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Tom Holland]

And Saint Just is the founding paradigm of the terrorists that you get in Dostoevsky's novels.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He absolutely is. Again, he loves the idea, the very word terror. It's a very Saint Just word. But his rationalism, his kind of icy rationalism is the icy rationalism of somebody who is throbbing with suppressed emotion, isn't he?

[Tom Holland]

I mean, basically, he's an incel.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

He is a total. He is a man who just needs to go for a walk, meet Some.

[Tom Holland]

Girls hang out with Danton.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, exactly. Danton will show him a good time. Anyway, of course, that relationship doesn't end terribly well, does it? No. And don't.

[Tom Holland]

Perhaps not coincidentally.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

So Sashi gets up and he says there is no need for a trial, because the point, he says, is that Louis is not guilty because of anything he's done. He is guilty. And this really brings out your point. This absolutely anticipates so much of the revolutionary stuff of the 19th and 20th centuries. S says he's guilty because of what he is and what he has been. A virtuous republic cannot allow somebody who has been a king to live. And I quote, no one can reign innocently. Every king is a rebel and a usurper. So there's no middle ground. This man must reign or die. He must die to assure the repose of the people. Right.

[Tom Holland]

And Dominic, that is. That is the crucial, crucial line that opens up, I think, the proper understanding of the trial and execution of the king. Because, you know, there is no foundational moment for the republic. There is no proclamation, and that is because the king still lives. So therefore, the death of the king becomes the kind of the baptism of the republic. And I think that that is why Saint Just's speech is so memorable and so significant.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah, I think that's a really good point, Tom. It's a very it. Because it does. It is one of the two or three most famous speeches of the entire revolution. It makes Saint Just name, and it also, as you say, seems to serve as a kind of departure point, as a punctuation point in kind of France's constitutional journey. Anyway, the funny thing about this speech is actually it doesn't work because they decide they will have a trial. So while they're making the plans for the trial, just before we get into that, just as they're finalizing the plans for the trial, there is a really, really important development. Monsieur Roland, the husband of Madame Roland, the Interior minister, who is a Girondin, on 20 November, is taken into the Tuileries palace by a locksmith called Gamin. Gamin was the guy who had taught the King all about his locks. And Gamin says to Monsieur Roland, no one knows this, but I'm going to show you something. And he takes him and he shows him a secret iron safe hidden behind the paneling. Roland opens it and it's full of confidential papers and documents. And he now makes a terrible mistake, a mistake that I think will kill him. He takes the papers out and he goes through them Himself, in secret. He doesn't share them with anybody. And then he goes to the Convention, he says, well, I've made an amazing discovery. I have found all these confidential documents. And they. I can. Let me tell you, there's some pretty interesting things in them that will incriminate some of you. And you will. You won't be laughing then. And lots of deputies are really shocked and frightened and outraged at this, especially the Montagnard. They're like, what are these documents? How do we know that you haven't, you know, forged them, doctored them? Exactly. They're absolutely furious. So all this will come back to really haunt Roland and the Girondin. But in the meantime, the documents prove two things. First of all, they prove now, beyond any possible doubt, that Louis was conspiring against the revolution. He was in touch with the Austrians, he was writing to counter revolutionary groups, he was doing all of this kind of stuff.

[Tom Holland]

Yeah, because his signatures are all over these papers.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

His fate is sealed. From this point, he is done. I think the second thing, the documents also prove beyond any possible doubt that all that stuff about the mask of patriotism which we've discussed, as though it's so paranoid and such a mad conspiracy theory, is indeed quite accurate, because one of the great heroes of the early revolution, Mirabeau, another man with terrible skin, by the way, he's clearly. There's loads of letters from him showing that he was conspiring against the revolution, taking loads of money from the courts and, you know, his. His reputation is shredded. They go and take his ashes out of the Pantheon, they take his bust out of the Jacobin Club, they're like, well, this proves the point.

[Tom Holland]

Can't trust anyone.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Can't trust anybody. So a few days after this, the 1st of December, the convention votes, first of all, anyone who calls for the return of the monarchy, anyone who. Who makes any, and I quote, infringement on the sovereignty of the people, which is very satisfyingly vague if you are. If you're a big fan of revolutionary terror, yeah. Will face punishment by death. And two days later, they vote that this man, Louis Capet, we can discuss his name next time, will be brought before the National Convention to answer for his crimes. And Rob Speer gets up at the tribunal and he says, remember, your task is not to pass a sentence for and against a man. It is to defend the safety of the public and to take an act of national providence. I pronounce this fatal truth with regret. But Louis must die because the homeland must live.

[Tom Holland]

Amazing stuff. So, Dominic and everyone, the scene is Set. Louis will be brought to trial. Will he be convicted? If he is convicted, what will his fate be? There is only one way to find out and that is to tune in to the next episode. If you simply can't wait, then you can go to the restishistory.com and sign up there. But either way, we are approaching the climax of this particular stage of our series on the French Revolution. So we'll see you very soon. Bye bye.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Au revoir. Now, Tom, as you know, I am not just a man of history. I'm also known for my involvement in the performing arts.

[Tom Holland]

Are you now?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I must confess that early on in my acting career my stage presence did come under a little scrutiny from Britain. Britain's finest newspapers.

[Tom Holland]

Oh yes, this is the famous notorious one star review in the Scotsman, isn't it?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah. And I will remind the listeners that in Scotland they order their reviews in a different way. So one is at the top and five stars is the worst review you could get. So we were very happy with that one star review. But like a lot of great masters of their craft, Tom, I learned from it. I grew, I evolved. I knew I would bide my time before returning to the boards. And guess what?

[Tom Holland]

You're not.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

No. Yes, Tom, I have to tell you, I have returned to the boards. I'm performing once again. And the brilliant news for our listeners is that you can go and you can be transfixed by my performance right now because I am honored and privileged to appear in the latest Sherlock & Co. Adventure, the adventure of the Norwood Builder.

[Tom Holland]

Please tell me that you are playing the Norwood Builder.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

I'm playing a much better character. I'm playing Hector McFarlane, a solicitor from Blackheath accused of murder.

[Tom Holland]

Goodness.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

As Lestrade's officers bear down on me, Tom, I have nowhere else to turn but to 22 1B BAC streets.

[Tom Holland]

This is amazing, Dominic. And the fact that you were cast in this role, it has nothing to do with the fact that Sherlock and company is a goal hanger production like this one.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Well, very much like this one, with a better acting, I think it's fair to say it's a stable mate of ours. They are a massive show. They get 10 million downloads outside, I believe the Archers, this is the biggest audio drama in Britain.

[Tom Holland]

Well, I have no doubt dominate that it is more interesting than the Archers.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It genuinely is brilliant. So my son is a massive Sherlock & Co. Aficionado. It basically goes through all the original short stories and the short stories that are often forgotten in modern day adaptations. It transposes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's narratives to the modern day. So Watson himself is making the podcast while they're doing the adventures. You can pick up any adventure you want. You don't have to follow the whole series to get stuck in. It is absolutely brilliant. Did you know who else thinks it's brilliant, Tom? The Guardian newspaper.

[Tom Holland]

One of those prized one star reviews.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

No. A five star, they said, and I quote, very funny, mildly sweary and hugely popular. Do you want to know what the Times said? It said a breakneck series that Gen Z or Gen Z as members of it say that Gen Z is hooked on. Wow.

[Tom Holland]

And now that you're appearing on the show, I mean, that will confirm the hook, won't it?

[Dominic Sandbrook]

It absolutely will. And the Guardian listeners will be beside themselves with joy. So everybody please listen to Sherlock and co the adventure of the Norwood Builder. It's multi part. It's brilliant. Part one is out now. Jump right in wherever you get your podcasts and clip from that very episode. He was murdered, supposedly. No body has been found yet, Watson. Yeah, but now listen, you said you would hear me out, didn't you?

[Tom Holland]

Want to just dial it down a.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Bit, Hector, Would you? Would you dial it down when you're smeared over every paper? Look at this, look at this in the Times here, look. Solicitor suspected for contractor disappearance. The Telegraph solicitor faces long arm of law. The Daily Mail bully of Blackheath. Elite London lawyer facing murder charge. And this is just. This is the Guardian here, look at this. Old Acre murder. How neoliberal materialism and Kirsty Allsup home renovations are the real killers of the working. Oh, well, that one goes on a bit. Yeah, we.

[Tom Holland]

We get the point.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Do you? Do you? I'm not sure you do. The Daily Sport. Big job, love. McFarlane's wife's steamy romp with missing builder. I mean, look, there's a thought bubble above my wife's head saying, nob the builder. Can he fix it, Hector? The speech bubble on him as well. Here's your extension, love. I mean, this is just the sun cannibal. Hector MacFarlane confesses to eating Norwood tradesmen. He confessed to one. What? Sorry, I didn't confess to a damn thing. I said I was hungry for justice. That's all it is. Slander. It's disgraceful. It's bloody humiliating.

[Tom Holland]

Could we perhaps return to the chain of events as you, not the press, perceive them.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Foreign?

[William Wordsworth]

Hi there, I'm Al Murray, co host of we have ways of making you talk. The world's premier second World War History.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Podcast from Goal Hanger and I'm James.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Holland, best selling World War II historian. And together we tell the best stories from the war. This time we're doing a deep dive into the last major attack by the Nazis in the west, the Battle of the. The Bulge.

[William Wordsworth]

And what's so fascinating about this story is we've been able to show how quite a lot of the popular history about this battle is kind of the wrong way around, isn't it, Jim? The whole thing is a disaster from the start. Even Hitler's plans for the attack are insane and divorced from reality.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Well, you're so right. But what we can do is celebrate this as an American success story for the ages. From their generals at the top to the gis on the front line, full of gumption and grit, the bold should be remembered as a great victory for the usa.

[William Wordsworth]

And if this sounds good to you, we've got a short taste for you here. Search we have ways wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks. Yeah.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Anyway, so who is Overstay Van Fuhrer? Joachim Piper.

[William Wordsworth]

But I see his jaunty hat and I just think skull and crossbones. Well, I see his reputation and I think, you know, you might be a handsome devil, but the emphasis is on the devil bit rather than that.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, be that is May. He's 29 years old and he's got, he's got a very interesting career really because he comes from a, you know, a pretty right wing family. Let's face it. He's joined the SS at a pretty early, early stage. He's very. International socialism. He's also been Himmler's adjutant. Yeah, he took a little bit of time off in the summer of 1940 to go and fight with, with the 1st Waffen SS Panzer Division.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yep.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Did pretty well. Went back to being Himmler's adjutant, then went off and commanded troops in, in the Eastern Front. Rose up to be a pretty young regimental commander. I mean, it's not many people that Obersturm, Banfuhrer, which is sort of. Colonel.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yes.

[Tom Holland]

I.

[William Wordsworth]

You see, what must it have been like if you're in. If, if Himmler's adjutant turns up and he's been posted to you as an officer, do you think? Well, he only got that job because of, because of his connections. For Piper, it must have been always. He's always having to prove himself, surely, because he's, he has turned up. He's not worked his way through the ranks of the Waffen ss. He's dolloped in having come from Head Office, as it were. It must be a peculiar position to be in, in. Right. He's got lots to prove. Right, that's what I'm saying.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

And he's, he's, he's from a sort of middle class background as well.

[William Wordsworth]

Yeah.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

But he's got an older brother who's had mental illness and attempted suicide and never, never really recovers and actually has died in of TB eventually in 1942. He's got a younger brother called Horst who's also joined the SS&TOTEN cop Verbanda and died in a never really properly explained accident in Poland in 1941. Right. Piper gains a sort of growing reputation on the Eastern Front for being kind of inspiring, fearless, you know, obviously courageous, you know, all the guys love him, all that kind of stuff. But he's also orders the entire. The destruction of entire village of Krasnaya Polyana in a kind of revenge killing by Russian partisans. Yeah. And his unit becomes known as the Blowtorch Battalion because of his penchant for touching Russian villages. So he's got all the gongs. He's got Iron Cross, second Class, first Class Cross of Gold, Knight's Cross, did very well at curse briefly in Northern Italy, actually, then in Ukraine, then in Normandy. He suffers a nervous breakdown.

[Dominic Sandbrook]

Yeah.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

And he's relieved of his command on the 2nd of August, and he's hospitalized from September to October. So he's not in command during Operation Lutetch. And then he rejoins 1st SS Panzer Regiment as its commander again in October 1944. It's really, really odd.

[William Wordsworth]

I mean, but isn't that interesting though, because if you're a lancer, if you're an ordinary soldier, you're not allowed to have a nervous breakdown. You don't get hospitalized, you don't get time off. How you could interpret this is. This is a sort of Nazi princeling, isn't? He is Himmler's adjutant. He's demonstrated the necessary Nazi zeal on the Eastern front and all this sort of stuff. It comes to Normandy where they, where they're losing. Why else would he have a nervous breakdown? He's shown all the zeal and application in the Nazi manner up to this point, and they're losing, you know, and because he's a knob, you know, because he's well connected, he gets to be hospitalized. If he has a nervous breakdown, he isn't told like an ordinary German soldier, there's no such thing as combat fatigue, mate. Go back to work.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Yes. And it's a nervous breakdown, not combat fatigue.

[William Wordsworth]

Well, yes, of course, but.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

But you know what SS soldier said of him? Piper was the most dynamic man I ever met. He just got things done.

[William Wordsworth]

Yeah.

[Jeremy Corbyn]

You get this image I have of him of, of having this kind of sort of slightly manic energy. Yeah, kind of. He's virulently National Socialist. He's got this great reputation. He's damned if anyone's going to tarnish it. You know, he's a. He's a driver, you know, all those things.

[William Wordsworth]

He's trying to make the will triumph, isn't he? He's working towards the Fuhrer. He's imbued with. He knows what's expected. Extreme violence and cruelty and pushing his men on. I mean, he's sort of. He's the Fuhrer Princip writ large, isn't he, as a. As an SS officer. Yeah, which is why cruelty and extreme violence are bundled in to wherever he goes, basically.