Hello, and Welcome to Western SIEV Episode four hundred and ninety seven, The Terror Begins. The winter of seventeen ninety three had been bitter, both in weather and in politics. The execution of Louis the sixteenth on January the twenty first had shocked Europe and hardened the resolve of France's enemies, who now formed the First Coalition. In early March, the
revolution entered a new and much more violent phase. On March tenth, seventeen ninety three, the National Convention established the Revolutionary Tribunal in Paris, an extraordinary court designed to try political crimes. Its creation reflected the fear and suspicion that now dominated revolutionary politics. Jacques Rue, a fiery, enraged priest, warned, quote the rich plot against the revolution. They must be struck without mercy, lest they strangle liberty in its cradle.
The Tribunal, staffed by judges and jurors chosen by the Convention, could condemn suspects to death with few safeguards. It marked a decisive turn toward institutionalized terror. Now, at the same time, as I mentioned, France faced disaster and pressure all along its borders. The First Coalition Britain, Spain, the Dutch Republic, Austria and Prussia slowly tightened the noose around the Kingdom. De Moreyes's army, which had once so gloriously triumphed at
the Battle of Valmey, faltered. Invasion of the Dutch Republic quickly collapsed, and in March his troops were driven back into France. A deputy of the Convention wrote, our armies retreat in disorder, and the Republic is in danger, not from her enemies, but from her General's suspicion soon fell on de Marie, who defected quickly thereafter to the Austrians. His betrayal would quickly become a scar on revolutionary confidence.
But the gravest threat of all came from within. The spark came from the Convention's decree in February of seventeen ninety three of what's called the levee En mass. It was a levy of three hundred thousand men who are essentially going to be conscripted for the first time to defend the nation. Now again, I want to point out that if we're talking about like huge levy like this, you really almost have to go back to the days of Rome to find a moment when this was done
on this scale. All right, You know, you have sort of finite time periods when in a siege or in the need to, let's say, defend a given region, sure a lord might call up a certain number of men, but generally speaking, from the time of really almost the end of Republican Rome to right now, which was in the eighteenth century, you have this incredible time period in European history when the fighting was done by and large
by a select few. Now again, if you know your medieval history, what you understand is that that doesn't mean that, you know, the burden of war only fell on a select few. In fact, it was the peasants who dealt with a lot of the corves, a lot of the attacks that were going on on these rural villages and areas,
because it was really little more than pillaging. And if you remember the One Hundred Years War, the vast majority of that time was just sieges and pillages, but the occasional epic battle in between, but those were few and far, and so the idea that suddenly you would just call up three hundred thousand men is really a foreign concept to Europe because it's been foreign for so incredibly long, and so that's why France reacted in part the way
that it did, because conscription fell hardest on the rural regions, where resentment against Paris and the Revolution was already pretty high. In the western countryside of Vinde, where Catholicism remained deeply rooted, and the Revolution's attacks on the church had bred little bit hostility, this draft, this levee En mass became intolerable. A peasant song preserved from the region captured the mood quote we want our King, our priests and Sundays end quote.
In March of seventeen ninety three, villages in the Vende refused to deliver conscripts. Armed bands attacked revolutionary officials. The uprising spread rapidly, coalescing into what eventually became known as the War of the Vende. Rebels rallied under the white banner of the Bourbons, crying vive le Rah, long live the King, and calling for the restoration of their priests. Local nobles like Enrie de la Rochambeau releaged as leaders.
Relochimbau was only twenty one years old. He told his men, quote, if I advance, follow me, if I retreat. Kill me if I die, avenge me. By mid March, tens of thousands of peasants had risen. They seized towns like Colt and Sainmeur. In some places, revolutionary officials were lynched. The Convention, alarmed, declared the Vendet in rebellion. On March the nineteenth Deputies thundered in Paris that, quote, the Vendet is the wound in the side of the republic end quote. The insurrection
divided France rather starkly. The revolution had promised liberty and equality, but in the Vendet peasants saw only confiscated churches, absent priests, and now their sons conscripted and dragged off to a war they didn't want to fight. The war there would become a civil war of truly unparalleled ferocity, neighbor against neighbor, patriot against loyalists. While the Venda burned, Paris continued to simmer with tension. Food shortages and inflation drove the Sansculos
to desperation. On March tenth, enraged crowds invaded the Convention, demanding price controls and harsher measures against the quote unquote traitors. The deputies yielded, though for the moment only partially. On March the eighteenth, they opposed the maximum on grain prices, but popular anger did not abate. Radical journalists like Morale fanned the flames. In his paper Ahmi de Pepe, he warned, quote,
the revolution is betrayed by moderates, by cowards in the Convention. People, we must rise again as on the tenth of August to save liberty. Marat's words were not empty rhetoric. They translated into direct action. On March the ninth through the tenth, crowds attempted an insurrection but failed to seize power. Yet their pressure was felt. The Jacobins, led by Robes, Pierre Danton,
and Marat, increasingly dominated the political stage. The giron Din rivals, advocates of a more moderate revolution came under fierce attack. The giron Din's condemned Marat as the quote unquote drinker of blood, and on April thirteenth, seventeen ninety three, the Convention invoted to indict him before the revolutionary tribunal. Marat appeared in court on April to twenty fourth, pale and weakened by what was a chronic skin disease that he
suffered from basically his entire life. He nonetheless exuded confidence, declaring, I alone defended the people, I alone denounced the traitors. My crime is to have told the truth. The jury acquitted him unanimously. He was carried home in triumph by the people of Paris, crowned with Laurel like a hero.
Amid military defeats, rebellion in the Vendee and unrust in Paris, the Convention realized it needed a more centralized authority, and so on April sixth, seventeen ninety three, the Deputies took a historic action, creating the Committee of Public Safety, perhaps not really understanding what they were doing at first, the Committee of Public Safety was a modest body of nine
members tasked with coordinate war and internal security. George Dantin, with his booming voice and pragmatic energy, became its dominant figure. In the early weeks. He declared, audacity, more audacity, always audacity, and the fatherland is saved. The Committee was granted sweeping powers over ministers, generals, and even local administrators. It could
direct armies, oversee diplomacy, and supervise internal security. Though conceived of as temporary The Committee of Public Safety quickly became the executive engine of the revolution, and one of its members later wrote it was a war cabinet, a sword suspended over the republic's enemies, and his shield for liberty. But to many it was also dictatorship. Now the rivalry between the Girondins and the Jacobins now reached its breaking point.
Remember these were the two most important political clubs that had come to dominate Paris. The Girondins, alarmed by the growing influence of Parisian radicals, denounced the Commune of Paris and the Jacobin leaders as anarchists. Robespierre, the leader of the Jacobins, retorted that the Girondins were the tools of
counter revolution. The decisive blow came in May. On May thirty first, seventeen ninety three, tens of thousands of san Culos surrounded the Convention, demanding the arrest of the Girondin deputies. The Convention hesitated, but on June the second, under the pressure of armed crowds and the National Guard, led by Anri,
it decreated the arrest of twenty nine leading Girondins. One of the greatest orders of the time, Verenn side allowed quote, citizens, we perish innocent, but what matter, our blood will be the torch of liberty. Now. Ultimately, the fall of the Girondins left the Jacobins unchallenged. And so now the revolution had truly entered its most vicious phase, in which faction after faction would be fed into the meat grinder of the revolution in the name of patriotism, and faction after
faction would be devoured. With the Girondins crushed, the Jacobins sought to consolidate their legitimacy. They pushed forward a new democratic constitution, heavily influenced by Robespierre, adopted on June the twenty fourth, seventeen ninety three. Read the Constitution of year one promised universal male suffrage, social rights, and popular sovereignty.
Article thirty five declared quote, when the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is for the people the most sacred of rights and the most indispensable of duties. It was the most radical constitution France ever adopted, yet it was also a dead letter. With war raging and revolutions spreading in the West, the convention suspended its implementation. The constitution became a symbol of republican virtue, but the
real power rested with the Committee of Public Safety. Now this fervored atmosphere, Marat stood as the absolute idol of the san Culo. His newspaper thundered daily against moderates and trade. He lived modestly, often confined to his bath because of his disease, yet wielded enormous influence. To his enemies, he was a monster. The Girondin sympathizer Madame Roland wrote bitterly, quote he is the wild beast of the revolution, vomiting fire and blood, calling for heads, sowing terror end quote.
But to the poor in Paris, he was their champion. He was their voice, at least in theory. He spoke for everything that they wanted. They called him the friend of the people, with genuine affection. It was a contrast that would in the end lead directly to his death. On July the thirteenth, seventeen ninety three, a young woman from Normandy, Charlotte Corday, gained entry into Marat's apartment. Corday had been associated with Girondin's circles and believed that martz
death would halt the revolution's descent into bloodshed. She found him in his bath, writing notes. She presented a petition on behalf of red bulls in Cayenne. As he glanced at it, she plunged a kitten knife into his chest. Maraut cried, help my beloved friends, before collapsing dead. Corday was seized immediately later. At her trial, she declared, I killed one man to save one hundred thousand. She died at the guillotine on July seventeenth. Marat's assassination sent shockwaves
through Paris. His death transformed him into a martyr. The painter Jacques Luis Davide organized a grand funeral, turning Maraunt into a revolutionary saint. His body lay in state, draped in the tricolor. Speeches hailed him as the friend of the people, slain by the enemies of David's painting. The death of Maraunt, depicting him in his bath quill still in his hand, became one of the revolutions most enduring icons.
Robes Pierre declared, Maraudt's blood will be the cement of our freedom, but in truth his death only deepened the revolution's spiral into violence. The Jacobins, now unopposed, turned more decisively toward terror, and so between March and July seventeen ninety three, the revolution truly crossed a freshold. The Vende rose in bloody rebellion, pitting Frenchmen against Frenchmen. The Committee of Public Safety was born, an oregon that next time
will dominate the republic. The Girondins fell herged from the convention under the pressure of the Sans Kulos. A radical constitution was proclaimed but suspended, and Maraunt, the voice of the public fury, was struck down to be exalted by a martyr. It was the Revolution at its most dramatic, idealist and violent. Liberty and terror all entwined inextricably. The months ahead would see these forces unleashed. It's a terrible intensity.