The French Revolution - OverSimplified (Part 1)

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time also new French Revolution

March available now in the store including King

Louie and Marie Antoinette character

pins complete with detachable

heads just like the real thing

so I said to the Marquis de Lafayette

what do you think I am some

dirty peasant I've never worked a day in my life

wow that Marie Antoinette

sure is pretty sure is wouldn't want to be Prince Louisa that's gonna be

a lot of responsibility

when he becomes king especially since France is in financial

quite thank you one and all for attending

the royal marriage of my grandson the future King of France to the Archduchess

of Austria now for the very awkward yet historically accurate part

of the ceremony where we all watch them get into bed together

alright now that's out of the way let's leave the royal couple to it

you better give us an heir you fete

ill-bred boy nighty-night that's

gonna be a lot of responsibility

Francis and financial ruin

you fat ill-bred boy

quite that's gonna be a lot of responsibility

Francis and oh great

he's a freaking weirdo

France the most prosperous cultured

and beautiful nation in the world as it had been for

centuries an exquisite social culture with the king in the upper classes throwing crazy

parties every night enjoying

high living and fine

dining who cares that they were only able to do so off the backs

of the hard-working starving

poor what are they gonna do revolt

there are only 80 percent of the population no

life in France is great

what's that France you want to go to war with Britain and increase your

power go for it little buddy you

do you and you're

lost now you're in severe financial debt

we have no money what do we do should we stop partying heck no

party harder that's okay the peasantry will pick up the slack they were created

by God to do all the work and you were created to reap all

the benefits and party

hard that's just how society

works and we've all just accepted

it for why Why

What why did the nobility get to be all rich and stuff just because

they were born into it and the rest of us Schmucks just have to

accept that help why do we even need a king who decided

that it all just seems very unfair and unequal and

I for one am starting

to question wow that's

very enlightened of you and

so began the Age of Enlightenment

the great philosophical thinkers

across France and Beyond began to question whether this beautiful

nation was really all that beautiful after

all hey Prince Louie bad news your grandpa died of smallpox this morning which

means good news you're

now the king so just to sum up friends is in severe financial debt

and the angry populace are beginning to question how necessary

you are but hey I believe in you champ you

got this maybe thou

know'st Prince Louie kept pay became King Louie the sixteenth

in May 1774 he was a notoriously

weak man and he

knew it he barely had the wisdom to rule a nation never

mind one in crisis and he was easily manipulated

by those around him one of his first acts was to try to get

revenge on the British by financing

their American colonies revolution

Hey we're an independent nation now that was real swell of you Louie couldn't

have done it without you glad I could help so hey about

all that money we lent you when

can we get that back yeah you're

a great guy I'll never forget what you've done for us real

glad I could help friend but about that money gotta go now Chum best

of luck to you

doubt war now ole and now France was in even more debt France is

poor suffering under the strain of economic

ruin watched as a nobility continued

to live as though nothing was wrong in particular

they grew increasingly disdainful

of the Queen Marie Antoinette as

she continued to spend all of France's money on her own luxurious

lifestyle and fashion while the peasants were breaking their backs in the fields she

was walking around like hey my

hair is about I'm not

making that up her

hair really was about and her lavish spending earned her the nickname madam

deficit and speaking of the Queen there was also a long-standing scandal

around the fact that the King took a very long time to boink her

and the working classes of Paris began ridiculing

the royal couple with lewd pamphlets

depicting the Queen as a court thought and the king is a wuss unable

to fulfill his marital duty

respect for the monarchy was at an all-time low as Frances finances

were spiraling out of control and

the king and his aides really only had one solution

to the crisis tax the poor tax

the poor we could do a sexy calendar shoot

I mean the poor and so

it was the poor who were already struggling

to make ends meet found themselves being taxed

from every direction hey

I'm the Royal tax collector looks like you've yet to pay your income tax

head tax by the way how many windows you got in that house here's

three yep there's gonna be a text for that hey your local priest here

have you paid your church tithe yet well at least this one is going

to the good work of God

or God I think

this year God wants me to buy a new swimming pool hey

private tax collector here oh and I brought some goons with me just

a few quick questions how

much salt did you buy this year about seven

kilos I think yeah okay there's gonna be a tax for that oh what's

that over there that's

extra sold I held over from last year so I wouldn't have to buy

as much this year oh

yeah and there's a tax for that and

what are you doing with all this salt well obviously

cooking mm-hmm on the table yep

and preserving fish and meat Oh Oh

No yeah and there's a tax for that hey

how old is he he's nine and so he's purchased his required amount of

salt for this year right what

no he's nine uh oh sorry little Timmy looks

like I'm gonna have to tax you for

yep salty there's gonna be a tax for that and that's not all a

huge portion of the peasants harvest had to be given up and there was

also the labor tax where peasants were required to work a certain number of

days for their local Lord without pay obviously

people weren't too happy with these taxation

policies and the aggressive nature of these private tax farmers sometimes even escalated

to violence in particular though

the people really hated how inconsistent

that taxation rules were across the nation

and also the fact that the first two estates often

had to pay very little if any tax at all

and so the anger continued

to grow France had a population

that was just about ready to

what could push them over the edge how

about a touch of natural

disaster a series of harsh summers and winters left

the peasants harvests in Rouen

meaning they had no food or money and the cost of bread skyrocketed

of course the upper classes had massive stocks of grain and wheat so they

were virtually untouched by this new crisis but now the poor really were starving

and they began to

riot women took to the streets bakeries

were raided and bakers suspected

of keeping bread for themselves where

sometimes even hanged wow

this is really getting out of control your

majesty we need some decisive

action you need to step up and lead us

what will you do okay

okay I've got this I know I'll summon

the estates-general and they'll

decide what to do

you really are a fat ill-bred boy the estates-general is

the closest thing France had to a government

apart from the king it was a purely advisory body

and was rarely summoned

in fact it hadn't been summoned for a hundred and seventy-five years

prior to this but

with France in a severe crisis the king felt the time is right to

call on the government to help the estates-general was

made up of representatives from

the three estates that

is the clergy the nobility and everybody

else okay thanks for coming everyone the first order of business is regarding the

clergy and nobility you

all get brand-new Porsches

you get a Porsche and you

get a Porsche and you

get a Porsche everybody

gets a Porsche and

now into the second order of business France

is completely out of money like

it's never been this bad before

anyone got any ideas how

about we all get Lamborghinis

next time the king decided that in order to make a decision

they had to come up with a voting system okay

the clergy you have a population

of a hundred and thirty thousand

so you'll get one

vote the nobility you

have a population of

350,000 so you'll also get one

vote and the Third Estate you

have a population of 27

million people and make up 98%

of the population very

impressive you'll get one vote the Third Estate were obviously pretty unhappy with this

system because they kept on finding that

this would happen we

propose to raise taxes on the Third Estate all

in favor all opposed

two to one taxes

will be raised on the third estate we

propose a motion that says the first two estates are a bunch of poo

poo heads all in

favor all two to one it's

official we are not poo poo heads

the Third Estate realised

that any attempt at reform would

be add voted by the two upper estates and they thought that was kind

of lame so they decided that since they were 98%

of the population they

could go off to form their own government

make their own laws and take over the running of the country and so

the National Assembly was born the Third Estate was now in control and there

was nothing the king could do to stop haha I've locked you all out

of your building what

are you gonna do about it we'll

probably go find a different building that isn't locked

Wow no the National Assembly

did find another unlock

building just down the road an indoor tennis court we're on the 20th of

June 1789 they all took the tennis court oath pledging

to continue meeting until the king finally gave in to their demands for more

equality and economic reform this new national assembly included many of the most educated

members of the Third Estate including

two young lawyers by the names of maximilien

robespierre and Jorge Denton

some members of the first two estates even

joined their cause some of these men formed a radical new political

party called the Jacobin

Club and quickly became leading figures while many members of the Third Estate simply

wanted more equality a growing

number in this Jacobin

faction would begin calling for something even crazier the

removal of the king entirely

and this is where fear began to take hold with such a volatile situation

developing everyone was afraid of something the king feared his position was under threat

and he called in the military

to take position around Paris

the Third Estate heard rumor of the gathering military force and they feared the

king was planning to round them up and arrest

them maybe he'd even execute

them it also didn't help that the King had justice miss Frances popular finance

minister who had been trying to make reforms himself

it seemed the king was done negotiating fear

left unchecked often boils over into

anger and anger detonates

with violence the angry people of Paris

after centuries of cruel

inequality harsh oppression even starvation

fearful of having their new movement for reform demolished

so soon decided that it was now or never to

take action screw reform they decided

they'd do one better how about revolution

the people of Paris believing

the French military was preparing to attack decided

they should armed themselves the

National Assembly announced the creation of a bourgeois militia

the National Guard and immediately

many troops from the French military defected

over to the revolutionary

side in the early hours of July 14th

1789 a large crowd stormed and raided the hotel Bay on Valley DeMille

eteri hospital where they were able to secure a large number of rifles

the bad news was they weren't able to find any gunpowder for their new

weapons the good news was they knew exactly where

to get some a prison

fortress and a symbol of royalty ranee

towering over power the

Bastille mid-morning the crowd gathered around the Bastille and demanded

that the man in charge governor de Launay surrendered

the prison and hand over the gunpowder

obviously governor de l'année was like no

way so he stoled for time by inviting a few members of the crowd

in for negotiations the crowd still

waiting outside quickly became impatient and before

long they stormed the fortress taking

on the French troops inside

your majesty we've received word that the people have surrounded the Bastille governor

de l'année will hold them off no need to worry actually

your majesty it appears the crowd is now headed away from the Bastille

you see what did I tell you clearly governor

de l'année has defeated them and has them on the run no

need to worry uh Your

Majesty isn't that governor delauneys head on a pike well

clearly governor de l'année has taken on the form of a bodyless pike head

Beatty and the people are so enamored with him they're parading him around the

city no need to worry at all when

the National Assembly heard about the violence that had taken place they

had two options either

one they denounce it and try to carry on the revolution

using peaceful means or two they say damn

you stuck his head on a pike that's pretty hardcore and

we love it incidentally

they went with option number two some

historians believe this reaction

paved the way for the utter violence

and bloodshed that would become the legacy

of the French Revolution this

widespread acceptance of violence during the Revolution

is also largely credited to the writings of a certain genre Marat

a man of science with a horrible skin condition that kept him confined to

a bathtub he began writing a radical newspaper he affectionately

named the friend of the people citizens

of France be very afraid given

the chance the king and the nobility won't hesitate to

Massacre us all the solution

is simple execute them kill every last one of them cut off a thousand

heads and if that's not enough cut

off a thousand more oh hey mr.

squeaky what are you doing down there you're

so cute oh I

love you too mr.

squeaky mmm now where was I oh yeah

kill them all it became one of the most popular publications

in Paris during the revolution

and succeeded in spreading ever increasing

fear and anger among the people in August

leaders of the National Assembly with help from a certain Thomas Jefferson

adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the citizen an

incredible document that guaranteed liberty and equal

rights to all men and when I say men I mean

men despite its glaring shortcomings

in gender equality the

massively influential declaration would go on to inspire the struggle for liberty and equality

across the planet for centuries however

back in France the vast majority of the people weren't really so concerned with

enlightened ideas of equality as

much as they were concerned with the fact that they were still starving

bread was still expensive

as hell and hard to come by the people felt that one reason nothing

had been done yet about the crisis was because the king simply couldn't see

the problem he lived in Versailles

that full 20 kilometers southwest of Paris and as a result lived in comfort

separated from his dirty stinking

subjects on October 5th a crowd of women 7,000

strong decided they'd do something unprecedented

they decided they'd removed that separation

and confront the King directly

the woman marched all the way to the king's palace in Versailles along

the way the crowd continued to grow into the tens of thousands

and when they arrived they demanded

an audience with the king what are those things outside the palace there

poor people your majesty

that's poor people they say they're hungry hungry

then let them eat cake Wow

see this is the exact BS that led to this whole mess in the

first place you're so out of touch they're

writhing around in the filth breaking

their back to barely scrape by and they come to you demanding just the

basic ability to feed themselves and you think a slice of cake will sort

them out well then

let them eat Taco Bell Crunchwrap supreme

wow they're not that

desperate members of the crowd actually managed

to break into the palace with the intention

of killing the queen who narrowly escaped through a secret passage in

her bedroom the enraged mob killed several members of the Royal Guard and raised

their heads on pikes which

if you haven't noticed yet is something they were quite fond of doing the

King had no choice

but to come out and talk to the crowd he

agreed to accept his new position sharing

power with the revolutionary

government and to return to Paris with the crowd removing

the separation between King

and subject King Louie had a problem with people constantly raiding

his palace but one thing he didn't have a problem with was people raiding

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