Episode 491: The Women's March

modern world, remained scarce and expensive. As Autumn arrived, supplies faltered once more. Lines lengthened at bakeries, and the price of a loaf reached levels that pushed families to desperation. Women who were often the ones who were standing in line for said bread, felt this burden most directly. At the same time, political suspicion ran high. The royal family had moved to Versailles, seemingly insulated from the people's daily struggles.

Rumors spread through Paris that the King and Queen were encouraging resistance to the revolution. These whispers intensified after a lavish banquet at Versailles on October the first, when officers of the King's bodyguard allegedly trampled on the new National Cockade, the red, white and blue symbol of popular sovereignty. What many Parisians saw his proof of royal contempt for the revolution inflamed anger, especially among those already embittered by hunger.

The radical press gave voice to these grievances. Jean Paul Morant, through his fiery newspaper La du Predillu, warned that the revolution was being betrayed by the court in the aristocracy. Each new rumor or insult seemed to confirm his warnings. Meanwhile, the National Assembly, though still in Versailles, was debating sweeping reforms, but its deliberations brought little to no relief to Parisian

bread markets. By early October, the convergence of shortages, rumor, and anger at the court's perceived arrogance created an atmosphere that was positively explosive. The insult of the cockade was the final spark. When Maraaut called for action, Thousands of women took to the streets, transforming their hunger into a march that would bring the king to Paris and place him face to face with his people. The weeks before the march had shown just how quickly riots, political rumor,

and radical journalism could turn to a revolutionary force. Indeed, Marat had claimed that the Court had insulted the revolution itself, that officers of the World Bodyguard had trampled the tricolored cockade, that small but potent badge of the people's sovereignty. Marat would write, quote a crime that Paris cannot ignore. That morning, thousands of women, fishwives, market women, lawn dresses, carrying pikes, kitchen knives, or muskets gathered in the sleets and rain.

What began as a protest against bread shortages became something larger, a march to bring the king to Paris to make him feel the hunger of his subjects. The procession was long and it was ragged, winding its way twelve miles to Versailles. Lafayette, the commander of Paris the National Guard itself, hesitated at first, but then ultimately he followed with twenty thousand citizen soldiers, both to support and also to restrain the crowd. By dawn on October the sixth, the demonstration

had truly turned chaotic. A mob of women stormed into the palace, breaking into the Queen's apartments and nearly seizing Marie Antoinette. Herself guards were killed. Panic reigned until Lafayette and his troops restored order, But the women's demands were simple and relentless. The king must come to Paris, cornered and truly, with two options, come to Paris or die. Louis the sixteenth agreed that same afternoon, Interestingly, amid cheers

of Vivi Lera live the King. The royal family was escorted in triumph, yet effectively as prisoners, to the Tularise Palace in Paris. The National Assembly promptly voted to follow uprooting itself from Versailles, resettling in the capital city. Once in Paris, the Assembly moved quickly to solidify revolutionary authority.

On October the tenth, Lafayette's position was strengthened. He was named commander of the regular army units stationed around Paris, effectively making him the guardian of both the king and the people. The Assembly simultaneously struck at a royal prerogative, altering Louis the sixteenth traditional title, no longer the King of France and Navarre. He was now styled King of the French, a subtle but radical change, meaning now that

sovereignty flowed upward from the nation rather than downward from God. Interestingly, not that same day, doctor Joseph Ignace Guillotine introduced a chillingly practical proposal, a new device for executions, swift and equal for all. He insisted mechanism that spare suffering and treats every condemned man for the same. The Guillotine was born not from cruelty, but for a demand for equality

and death. And before we go any further, I think it's worth taking a moment in talking a little bit about doctor Guillotine, who, in many ways remains I think a bit of a tragic figure, Doctor Joseph Guillotine. His life is often remembered through the shadow of the machine, of course, that bears his name. Yet Guillotine was not

an executioner by temperament. He was a physician. He was a reformer, and he was a son of the Revolution who believed in rationality, equality and the alleviation of suffering even in death. His story reveals the irony of a really humane man who would be forever linked to a symbol of terror. Guillotine was born on May the twenty eighth, seventeen thirty eight and cents a small town in western Friends. His family came from respectable but not wealthy roots, and

he was steered early on towards the priesthood. For a time he studied with the Jesuits, even earning the title of abbey, but his interests gravitated less towards theology and more towards new sciences, particularly medicine. He abandoned a clerical career and turned to medicine and the other medical arts, studying at Bordeaux before he eventually did move to Paris. In the capital, Guillotine distinguished himself as a student of

anatomy and physiology. He traveled abroad, spending time in Ireland, where he practiced medicine and eventually earned his medical doctorate. In Paris, he established himself as a physician of good reputation, with a particular interest in public health and preventative medicine. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Guillotine was more fascinated by the broader welfare of society than by the prestige of treating the wealthy. Alone. Guillotine's rise happened to coincide with

the height of the Enlightenment. He joined circles of reform minded men who believed that reason and science should guide political and social life. He was admitted to the Academy of Medicine in Paris and developed a reputation as a bontful, humane physician. By the late seventeen eighties, as crisis loomed

over France, Uilletine's reforming spirit drew him into politics. Elected as a deputy for Paris to the Estates General of seventeen eighty nine, he sat with a third estate and soon became an active participant in debates that reshaped the kingdom. Was calm, deliberate, and respectful, which won him the trust of colleagues, even when he was the most fiery of orators.

On October tenth, seventeen eighty nine, amid sweeping reforms of justice and sovereignty, Guillotine introduced a measure that would define his place in history, capital punishment. In the old regime, the Anzian regime, notoriously brutal and unequal. Nobles were decapitated with the sword, while commoners might be hanged broken on the wheel or burned to death. Guillotine insisted this was unjust punishment. He argued should be equal for all, and

execution should be made swift and painless as possible. He proposed a mechanical device that would decapitate quickly without a torture, sparing both the condemned and the executioner needless suffering. At the time, his idea was one among men any reforms under discussion, but his words struck a chord. He assured the assembly gathered, quote, with my machine, I make the head fly off in the twinkling of an eye, and

the condemned will feel nothing. Though he never actually designed or built the device himself, engineers later constructed what became known as the guillotine, which by seventeen ninety two would become France's official method of execution. To Guillotine's total dismay, his name fused with the machine, forever linking him to the symbol of revolutionary blood. Said. Despite this association, it's important to point out Guillotine himself played no part in

the reign of terror. He actually continued to work as a physician, serving as a secretary of the Academy of Medicine, and promoting welled reforms in vaccination, public health, and medical education. His reputation as a humanitarian remained strong even among his peers, despite the fact as the wider audience in public increasingly identified him with what would become known as the National Razor. Ironically, Guillotine himself was never guillotined. That's a myth that spread

widely in the nineteenth century. In fact, he died peacefully of natural causes on March to twenty sixth, eighteen fourteen, at the age of seventy five. His family, embarrassed by the macabre association of his name, even petitioned the government to rename the machine, though without success. Joseph Ignace Guillotine's legacy is one of paradox, and it's so typical of the time. He was a physician who wanted to reduce human suffering, but he became immortalized in an instrument of death.

His name, once associated with the Enlightenment reform ideals, is now bound to an icon of terror. Yet to those who knew him, Guillotine was not the architect of bloodshed, but a man of moderation and reason who tried. However, fate twisted the result to make even punishment subject to the principles of equality and humanity that the revolution proclaimed. Now, behind the scenes, the royal family plotted. On October the twelfth, Louis the sixteenth secretly appealed to his cousin, Charles the

fourth of Spain, lamenting his humiliation. His brother, the fiery Count of Artois, turned to Austria for support, urging the Emperor Joseph the Second to intervene militarily. The revolution, it was already clear, was no longer purely a French matter, was, from the perspective of the crowned heads, a European crisis now. Meanwhile, the Assembly settled into its new home on October the nineteenth that held its first meeting in Paris in the

chapel of the archbishop's residence near Notre Dame. But unrest in the capital forced further action. On October the twenty first, Fearful of renewed popular violence, the deputies declared martial law, authorizing officials to suppress uprisings with force. The Revolution, which had thrived on popular demonstrations, now sought to contain them. Now. The month of November then saw some decisive blows land

against the old order. On November two, the Assembly voted to place all property of the Catholic Church at the disposal of the nation, monasteries, lands and revenues. Nearly a tenth of the total land mass of France was seized, both to weaken the Church's power and to shore up a bankrupt state, And at the same time, revolutionary Paris was already reshaping its world as a place of clubs

and pamphlets. On November the ninth, the Assembly moved into the Sala de Menajerra, a riding hall near the Tuileries, which soon echoed with debates on sovereignty, rights and reform. Later that month, Camille Desmoulin's Friarrie, friend of Dantin and Marant, launched his Historias des revolution de France de braband, a savage weekly lampooning aristocrats and royalists with wit as cutting as an eguillotine. Let's take a second and talk a

little bit more about the clubs. When the French Revolution erupted, it did not just transform government. It created whole new spaces for politics. Among the most influential of these were the political clubs, which became the training ground the echo chamber and often the engine of revolutionary thought and action. At their core, the clubs were voluntary associations where citizens

could meet to debate the issues of the day. They were open to men who could pay the dues, sometimes modest, sometimes steep, and they functioned as both social circles and ideological battlegrounds. Newspapers reported their speeches, pamphlets circulated their declarations. Their influence often reached far beyond the walls within which they met. Of all, the most famous club was the

Jacobin Club. Originally the Society of the Friends of the Constitution, it began in seventeen eighty nine as a gathering place for the deputies of the National Assembly who favored radical reform. Their meetings were held in a monastery belonging to the Dominican nicknamed the Jacobins in France, and the name stuck. By seventeen ninety, the Jacobins branches had sprouted up across France, creating a kind of national network members like Robespierre, Seez

and later Dantin and Marunt. This is what made the Jacobins so powerful. It wasn't just their Paris debates, but their ability to link Paris to the provinces, spreading revolutionary ideas like an organized modern day political party, and opposing them were groups like the Fuiance, formed in seventeen ninety one when more conservative deputies would split off from the Jacobins. As we'll see, they wanted to preserve a constitutional monarchy

and avoid growing radicalism. This club tended to be much more prestigious with aristocrats and moderates, but it lacked the same fervor in mass connection. Another crucial circle was the Cordiers Club, which was cheaper to join and thus attracted artisans, small tradesmen, and radical journalists. Charles Danton, Camille Desmalion, and

Jean Paul Morant were eventually among its leading voices. They prided themselves on being closer to quote unquote the people than the other clubs, and their speeches often pressed for forms of direct democracy, universal male suffrage, and social equality. The Cordeliers also pioneered mass petitioning and street mobilization, tools that would become essential in revolutionary politics. Clubs were not

just debating halls, they became engines of mobilization. When bread prices spiked, it was often the clubs that drew up petitions. When the monarchy hesitated, it would be the clubs that would coordinate protests. They lobbied the National Assembly, pressured ministers, and rallied the crowns. By the early seventeen nineties, clubs also sent delegates to one another's meetings, forming webs of influence that made them more powerful than any single faction

within the legislature. In short, political clubs during the French Revolution were a law more than just discussion groups. They were the laboratories of ideology, the networks of power, and sometimes the spark behind insurrection. They taught citizens to speak politically and act collectively, and imagine themselves as something totally new,

as participants in politics in a new democratic life. Now, while the clubs were forming, the revolution continued, and in fact this is the stage where the revolution finally starts to spread beyond Paris. On December, the first sailors at Toulon mutinied, arresting the Admiral de Albert and seizing control of their ships. Royal authority had now started to crumble across the kingdom. The Assembly pressed on then with institutional reform.

On December the ninth, it voted to erase the patchwork of historic provinces Brittany, Burgundy, Provence and replace them with new rationally drawn departments. No longer would feudal boundaries dictate political identity. France was now going to be remade on a grid of reason. Finances, however, remained desperate. On December the nineteenth, the Deputies introduced the Asagnant, a revolutionary paper currency backed not by gold or silver, but by the

confiscated lands from the Catholic Church. According to Mirabou quote, national property is the nation's wealth end quote. But the seeds of inflation, speculation, and financial distas trust were already being sown. Finally, on December twenty fourth, the Assembly struck another blow against the religious monopoly of the old regime. Protestants were now officially allowed to hold public office. Jews, I should say, however, remained excluded, an uneasy reminder that

revolutionary tolerance had its limits. By the close of that first revolutionary year seventeen eighty nine, the revolution had remade France in ways unimaginable. Just a few months before, the king was in Paris, subject to the watchful eyes of the people and their guards. The Assembly had claimed the Church's property redrawn the nation's map and created a paper currency from confiscated land. Political clubs multiplied, the press flourished,

and the very words of sovereignty were rewritten. Yet beneath these triumphs lurked tension. The king plotted with foreign monarchs, the streets of Paris simmered with unrest, and the revolution's own children, Maraunt Desmoulins and the Jacobins, were already sharpening their rhetoric. The revolution had begun with bread, but by the years and it had become something much larger, a contest over the very meaning of sovereignty, religion, and nationhood.

Seventeen eighty nine had opened with a king summoning the Estates General. It closed with the people who had brought him to Paris, stripped him of his sacred titles, and put the fate of France in their own hands. For once, the year of beginnings was over, but the true storm of the revolution was only still gathering over the world. Time