FRANCIA (Historia de la Revolución Francesa) - Documental)
La Revolución Francesa fue un proceso social y político que se desarrolló en Francia entre 1789 y 1799 cuyas principales consecuencias fueron la abolición de la monarquía absoluta y la proclamación de la República, eliminando las bases económicas y sociales del Antiguo Régimen.
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00:00:001794, prison of Francis Conciergerie, an impenetrable fortress on the banks of the Seine River in Paris.
00:00:09A cold, humid and infested place of rats, known as the antechamber of death.
00:00:16Inside, the voice of a young nation is about to be silenced.
00:00:21With shaved hair and bare neck, Maximilien Robespierre is prepared for the guillotine blade.
00:00:28To pay the price of the disaster that left in its wake.
00:00:32The explosion of events that constituted the French Revolution.
00:00:39The French Revolution is an extraordinary moment in which people begin to believe that it can re-create almost all of society.
00:00:45Not only can they change politics, institutions, but through political action they can also change human nature.
00:00:52The French Revolution really constitutes a crossroads for the modern world, because everything begins to take a different direction.
00:01:01Born in the middle of the era of the Enlightenment, the revolution was witness to how the feudal land turned its back on the aristocratic tradition and drew a new path for the future.
00:01:15It will shake the foundations of Europe and its impact will affect the whole world.
00:01:21The French Revolution is the most important event in Western history.
00:01:25There are advances such as the Industrial Revolution, capitalism, but when it comes to events, I can't think of any more important.
00:01:32It was the revolution that changed things the most, if we consider that it deviates from the Catholic Church, Christianity, nobility, the king, everything that is so fundamental before the birth of the modern world.
00:01:44The French Revolution will feed the poor.
00:01:48It will bring democracy to France and establish a new order in society.
00:01:55But progress will have a price.
00:01:59It was really a moment of extraordinary hope and ambition and suddenly it became the most horrific tragedy.
00:02:06Now Robespierre is destroyed and defeated, but only two days ago he rose as the winner of the largest and bloodiest revolution in all of Europe.
00:02:18He was so faithful to his ideals that they called him the incorruptible.
00:02:23He was so powerful that with the slightest word he could sow fear in the whole city.
00:02:31Robespierre was an excellent speaker, words were his weapons.
00:02:36Now, silenced by a shot in the jaw, he waits for the same quick and brutal death to come to him that he imposed on many others.
00:02:47The French Revolution is about to test its own medicine.
00:02:56In the spring of 1770, no one could have predicted the turbulent events that were about to happen.
00:03:04The Palace of Versailles is filled with distinguished members of the royal court.
00:03:09Finished in 1682, Versailles was the masterpiece of King Louis XIV.
00:03:17To put a certain distance between him and his subjects, Louis XIV moved out of the capital of France,
00:03:24to a small town 19 kilometers east of Paris, where he ordered the construction of the largest palace in all of Europe.
00:03:31For almost 100 years, it has been the residence of the unbreakable monarchy of the nation.
00:03:38And today it is a witness of a very important wedding.
00:03:45The grandson of King Louis XIV, Prince Louis Capet, the next in line to the throne, is about to get married.
00:03:53On his wedding night, at only 15 years old, Louis Capet is a shy and indecisive boy,
00:04:00and has few of the characteristics of a future king, and much less of a husband.
00:04:06Louis was chubby, shy, a 15-year-old, totally incompetent, with no distinction at all.
00:04:13The lover of Louis XVI, Madame du Baguy, described him as a fat and rude boy,
00:04:18basically, he was very impolite.
00:04:22It was very difficult for Louis XVI to make decisions,
00:04:27always the last person he spoke to could make him change his mind.
00:04:32These are not the qualities that a leader should have.
00:04:37The marriage of Louis is a political union between the royal Austrian family, the Habsburgs, and his own family, the Bourbons.
00:04:45The wedding symbolizes the end of an old rivalry, and the beginning of the establishment of new regional ties.
00:04:53The future wife arrives in France, an innocent and beautiful 14-year-old girl,
00:05:00Maria Antonietta.
00:05:03Maria Antonietta is the Archduchess of Austria, the youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa.
00:05:10She comes to France as part of a marriage agreement,
00:05:14with which an alteration of the alliances occurs,
00:05:18because for the first time in history, France and Austria become allies rather than enemies.
00:05:25Maria Antonietta arrives in France as a political symbol,
00:05:29but like any teenager, she is not interested in political issues.
00:05:33Maria Antonietta arrives in Versailles being very young,
00:05:36she did not know much about the country she was in, she did not know her customs and the court.
00:05:42She was a strong girl, very lively, but she was still a girl.
00:05:47When Maria Antonietta arrives in Versailles, she is only a 14-year-old teenager,
00:05:52blonde with blue eyes.
00:05:55She is beautiful, she likes people to consider her attractive,
00:05:59and she arrives with the intention of conquering her husband and his new family.
00:06:07On the night of the wedding, a storm falls that does not show anything good.
00:06:12But inside, the splendor of the ceremony illuminates the palace,
00:06:16while the newlyweds go to their royal room.
00:06:22In a ceremony that symbolically ensures the conception of a heir,
00:06:27the courtiers of the king witness the moment when the young couple gets into bed for the first time.
00:06:36People are delighted and great expectations are created.
00:06:41But once the curtains are closed, it is clearly seen that it will not be so easy to generate a heir.
00:06:47Luis was not only not interested in governing, Luis was not in loving either,
00:06:52and the first nights he did not pay much attention to his wife, nor to his marriage.
00:06:59Years will pass before the consummation of marriage occurs.
00:07:03The absence of a heir will soon cause rumors throughout the country
00:07:08that will continue to pursue the couple in the years to come.
00:07:13The great party of the wedding continues for several days in Versailles,
00:07:18but beyond the doors of the palace there is almost no reason to celebrate.
00:07:23Years of poor administration by the monarchy have led the French to go hungry.
00:07:29Almost a decade earlier, King Louis XV had lost a seven-year war,
00:07:34fighting against England in North America.
00:07:39The unfortunate conflict almost ruined France, leaving it without money and prestige.
00:07:45The state coffers were almost empty.
00:07:48However, its population increased day by day.
00:07:51With diseases such as the plague totally eradicated, few died, but many went hungry.
00:07:59In the 18th century, the population of France increased from 20 to 26 million,
00:08:04after having grown only one million in the previous two centuries.
00:08:08This caused a great generalized tension and nervousness in the people.
00:08:15Four years after the royal wedding, the grandfather of Prince Louis loses his last battle,
00:08:20against the Viruela.
00:08:23Louis XV dies, a defeated and unpopular king.
00:08:26Leaving behind a country on the brink of chaos.
00:08:32In a splendid ceremony, the young Prince Louis inherits the throne,
00:08:36and is crowned as Louis XVI.
00:08:40Despite the greatness of his coronation, Louis XVI is fully aware
00:08:45that he is not at all prepared to exercise the king.
00:08:49When Louis XVI's grandfather dies and it is clear who will inherit the throne,
00:08:53he tells them that he does not know what to do,
00:08:56that he feels as if the world had fallen on him.
00:08:59Despite having an education focused on his future reign, he does not feel prepared.
00:09:08With a kingdom in crisis, Louis XVI is the worst man to be at sea.
00:09:16The 20-year-old king prays.
00:09:19Protect, Lord, those who reign too young.
00:09:24Installed in the royal chambers of Versailles,
00:09:28Louis XVI and Maria Antonieta begin their new life as young monarchs.
00:09:33Although only 19 kilometers away, in Paris, a new era is emerging.
00:09:38An era that comes into direct collision with the monarchy itself.
00:09:42It is the dangerous new era of ideas.
00:09:45The era of the Enlightenment.
00:09:54While the royal carriage approaches the prestigious Louis Le Grand School in Paris,
00:09:59people flock to take a look at the royalty.
00:10:03It is time to welcome the new king, Louis XVI, and his young wife to Paris.
00:10:23And at the head of the welcome committee is a promising law student.
00:10:28The young Maximilian Robespierre.
00:10:33When Robespierre was a child, the king visited his school,
00:10:37and Robespierre read a speech to him in Latin.
00:10:40So, in reality, he spoke to Louis XVI when he was just a teenager.
00:10:46When Robespierre recites his monologue in Latin,
00:10:49the king almost does not pay attention to the child.
00:10:52But years later, their destinies will unite them again in very different circumstances,
00:10:58much more dramatic.
00:11:02It was one of these usual rituals in schools,
00:11:05and of course it is totally ironic because there was the young Robespierre,
00:11:09reading this speech in honor of the man he would later kill.
00:11:16For now, his welcome is affectionate and his compliments sincere.
00:11:21The visit of the monarchs may win people's hearts,
00:11:25but their minds are leaning more and more towards a totally different direction.
00:11:31Since the Middle Ages, European society had been divided into three different classes,
00:11:36established at birth.
00:11:38There was a great division between the wealth of the nobility and the clergy,
00:11:42and the poverty of the peasants.
00:11:45Then, in the middle of the 18th century, reason and science began to question this tradition.
00:11:52Wrapped in a current of innovation and new literature,
00:11:56Paris is now the philosophical center of the world.
00:12:00The city is invaded by new currents of knowledge, new possibilities open up.
00:12:06It is the era of the Enlightenment.
00:12:10The Enlightenment is a movement that says that you distrust the authority,
00:12:15that you distrust everything they have told you before,
00:12:18and that you think for yourself, that you prove it yourself.
00:12:21In the Europe of the old regime they told you what you had to think.
00:12:25The clergy and the rulers gave you the information.
00:12:28The idea that a person with some money could access, through literacy,
00:12:33human knowledge freely, was revolutionary.
00:12:38A new elite arises throughout Paris.
00:12:41The aristocrats gather to talk about the writers of the Enlightenment
00:12:45and the flourishing age of reason.
00:12:48Voltaire, Rousseau ...
00:12:49New voices rise in favor of freedom,
00:12:52control of one's own destiny,
00:12:54and above all, equality.
00:12:59The passion for this new literature is unleashed especially in the upper classes.
00:13:04But while the ideas of the Enlightenment are entering other layers of society,
00:13:09the fight for equality will begin to threaten the aristocratic lifestyle.
00:13:14It is a threat, because they will end up questioning
00:13:16why the aristocrats are the ones who have privileges.
00:13:19They wonder why the world is divided in this way.
00:13:22We can not change it to make it a better world?
00:13:25Progress is not possible?
00:13:27This will make the idea that the monarchy, the aristocracy and the hierarchy
00:13:31are something natural lose strength.
00:13:34To see applied the ideas of the Enlightenment,
00:13:37you just had to take a look to the other side of the Atlantic,
00:13:40where the Americans fought to become independent
00:13:43of the old enemy of France, England.
00:13:46The young King Louis wants to avenge the defeats of his grandfather in the war,
00:13:50and sees his opportunity in the war of American independence.
00:13:53Louis trusts the cause a total of 2 billion pounds,
00:13:57enough to feed and shelter 7 million French citizens for a year.
00:14:02The investment will mark the beginning of an economic collapse in France.
00:14:08America brings to France the bankrupt, because to fight this war,
00:14:13the French have to raise a huge amount of money.
00:14:16This leads the French monarchy to indebted to be able to fight
00:14:20in the war of American independence.
00:14:22And it is a crucial element in the financial situation of the French monarchy.
00:14:28While Louis XVI sends money and troops to the other side of the Atlantic,
00:14:32Maria Antonieta takes care of generating their own debts.
00:14:35Life in Versailles is an endless routine of archaic rituals and formalisms.
00:14:41There are ceremonies for when the king and queen get up,
00:14:44for when they dress, for when they eat, for when they go to bed.
00:14:49To entertain themselves in the midst of the monotony of these rituals,
00:14:53Maria Antonieta presides extravagant fashion shows.
00:14:59Maria was obsessed with a ridiculous fashion,
00:15:02especially with those towers of several centimeters high,
00:15:05and that took hours and hours of elaboration,
00:15:07and in which they put all kinds of ornaments and fruits.
00:15:10To many it seemed an obscenity.
00:15:12They ended up representing all the problems of her, Versailles, and that culture.
00:15:19Apart from this extravagant fashion,
00:15:21Maria Antonieta entertains herself with the court's gossip,
00:15:24making bets and representing plays.
00:15:27When he begins to accumulate debts,
00:15:30they put the name of Madame Deficit.
00:15:33Maria is named Madame Deficit,
00:15:36since the country is plunged into economic chaos,
00:15:39she continues to spend on dresses, jewels and shoes as if nothing.
00:15:44She was the Imelda Marcos of her time.
00:15:49Of all the debts that the queen has,
00:15:52the biggest is the one she has with her country.
00:15:55A heir to the crown.
00:15:57In the seven years they have been married,
00:16:00Luis XVI and Maria Antonieta have not yet conceived a child.
00:16:04She is in an increasingly humiliating situation.
00:16:10The job of the queen is to give a male heir to the French throne,
00:16:15and at that time people criticized her and were disappointed.
00:16:19They said that the king should never have married that Austrian archduchess,
00:16:23because now he could not even give a heir to the throne.
00:16:28Maria Antonieta is in a desperate situation.
00:16:31Luis's appetite for food is unquestionable,
00:16:34but the sexual is clear that does not enter the menu.
00:16:37Maria Teresa, the mother of Maria Antonieta, was wondering,
00:16:42if a woman as beautiful as my daughter,
00:16:45can not make it work, what's going on?
00:16:51Luis XVI and his young wife, Maria Antonieta,
00:16:55were not able to conceive a child for seven years,
00:16:58and this will reveal the beginning of his reign.
00:17:01His hobby was known as a locksmith.
00:17:03There were a lot of songs about Luis the locksmith,
00:17:07which cost him to find the hole where to put the key.
00:17:12Luis XVI's disinterest in sex is seen as a lack of manhood.
00:17:17After years of frustration and depression by the court,
00:17:21the king is diagnosed with a curable disease called phimosis.
00:17:27Luis had a deformity that made sexual arousal was extremely painful.
00:17:31Therefore, there was no consummation of marriage,
00:17:34until a surgical operation corrected it,
00:17:37but he was afraid to operate and took years to decide to do so.
00:17:41And when the end was operated, voila!
00:17:47After a simple operation, the couple could have their first baby, Maria Teresa.
00:17:53But it is not easy to repair the damage that has been done to the image of Maria Antonieta for years.
00:17:59Since the beginning of 1780,
00:18:02slander had circulated throughout the country.
00:18:05Pornographic satires of the king and the queen,
00:18:08obscene brochures that laughed at the impotence of Luis XVI,
00:18:11and portrayed the queen as a promiscuous whore in a perverted and decadent court.
00:18:16When the situation in the field worsens,
00:18:19the opinion of the people about the monarchy begins to change.
00:18:23Many bad harvests occur,
00:18:25and inflation increases the price of flour,
00:18:28leading to the scarcity of the essential part of the French diet, bread.
00:18:36But naturally, these privations end at the gates of Versailles.
00:18:41While the monarchs continue to live in extravagance,
00:18:45complaints are transferred to paper.
00:18:48The royal court is accused directly.
00:18:50Do you know why there are so many people in need?
00:18:53Is it that their luxurious lifestyle devours in one day
00:18:57what a billion men would need to survive?
00:19:00Who is the man behind these accusations?
00:19:04The same young man who only a few years earlier
00:19:07congratulated the king and the queen for their coronation,
00:19:10Maximilien Robespierre.
00:19:13People will soon have a spokesman who will ask for freedom and equality.
00:19:17For the revolution.
00:19:24At the end of the 1700s, Versailles is an oasis of extravagance,
00:19:29surrounded by a desperate land.
00:19:33And with an insecure king in command,
00:19:36France is making its way to disaster.
00:19:42After 19 years of war,
00:19:45after 19 years of marriage,
00:19:48Louis had four children.
00:19:50Even so, as a king, he is still impotent.
00:19:53In an attempt to demonstrate his leadership,
00:19:56Louis begins to make financial reforms.
00:19:59But his wrong way of managing finances
00:20:02loads the poor with many taxes,
00:20:05while the nobility does not pay almost anything.
00:20:08With the economy on the ground, and the people increasingly restless,
00:20:11it seems that even God is angry,
00:20:14with the coldest winter of the last 90 years.
00:20:20If ever God had divine intervention to worsen the situation,
00:20:24surely it was in the summer of 1788
00:20:27and the spring of 1789.
00:20:30In the summer of 1788,
00:20:33there was a growing political crisis developing
00:20:36at a time of serious shortage of food.
00:20:41In 1788, for the French,
00:20:44flour was the essence of life.
00:20:47Bread, its measure of subsistence.
00:20:50Most people in France ate almost a kilo of bread a day.
00:20:53Bread was essential,
00:20:56and its price rise was noticed by everyone.
00:20:59If the price doubled, you had problems.
00:21:02Under the bad financing of Louis XVI,
00:21:05the price of flour skyrocketed.
00:21:08The scarce supplies were running out,
00:21:11and the price of a slice of bread
00:21:14was increasing.
00:21:17Hunger became rage.
00:21:23There were riots throughout France.
00:21:26Houses were attacked.
00:21:30Bread shops were robbed,
00:21:33and the bakers accused of storing bread
00:21:36were lynched right there.
00:21:39With the destroyed economy,
00:21:42the banks forced Louis XVI
00:21:45to hire an economy minister, Jacques Necker.
00:21:48Necker, a progressive thinker,
00:21:51is popular among people in a way
00:21:54that Louis XVI can only envy.
00:21:57During the spring of 1889,
00:22:00Jacques Necker was undoubtedly
00:22:03the most popular minister,
00:22:05because he jumped to the public eye
00:22:08for his writings on the duty of the government
00:22:11to ensure that there is enough bread and grain for everyone.
00:22:15With the nation in fiscal crisis,
00:22:18Necker urges Louis XVI to convene a meeting
00:22:21with the traditional representative body of the kingdom,
00:22:24the General States.
00:22:27It is the first time in 175 years
00:22:30that these representatives meet.
00:22:32Politically, France was organized
00:22:35in the so-called three states.
00:22:38The first was that of the clergy,
00:22:41the second that of the nobility,
00:22:44and the third that of everyone else.
00:22:47And according to contemporary calculations,
00:22:50the first two states were formed by 3% of the population,
00:22:53and the third state by 97%.
00:22:56Many people thought it was very unfair
00:22:59that this third state, which was the majority of the population,
00:23:02and the clergy, could always cancel the vote of the plebiscite.
00:23:05May 4, 1789.
00:23:08A prominent young lawyer and politician arrives in Versailles.
00:23:12Maximilien Robespierre
00:23:15comes to the General States as a deputy
00:23:18to be the voice that calls for justice for the people he represents,
00:23:21the third state.
00:23:25Robespierre was a provincial orphan
00:23:28who had stood out academically
00:23:30with the obtainment of a prestigious scholarship,
00:23:33becoming an eloquent speaker.
00:23:36A mojigato in appearance, but with very clear ideas.
00:23:41When he returned home to the small town of Arras,
00:23:44the ideas of the Enlightenment, which he had absorbed in the halls of Paris,
00:23:47had a powerful defender,
00:23:50because he became the lawyer of the oppressed of his native town.
00:23:54When he returned to Arras and began to work as a lawyer,
00:23:57he read a lot about the Enlightenment,
00:24:00and as a lawyer in Arras, he tried to use those ideas
00:24:03in the cases he was defending.
00:24:06Robespierre and his colleagues asked the nobility and the clergy
00:24:09to pay their taxes.
00:24:12But Louis XVI feels increasingly threatened
00:24:15by the growing radicalism of the third state.
00:24:18Then, on June 20, after six weeks of stagnation,
00:24:21the deputies realize that they are being silenced.
00:24:25On June 20, when the deputies arrive at the meeting
00:24:27and find the doors closed, they suspect a plot.
00:24:30They go to the room, which was what we call the ballroom,
00:24:33but it was actually a front.
00:24:36They meet and swear that they will not stop meeting
00:24:39until they have a new constitution.
00:24:43The deputies decide to form a new National Assembly
00:24:46and be the true representatives of the people of France.
00:24:52The oath of the ball game is one of these great and significant
00:24:54moments in the history of the French Revolution.
00:24:57You have all these people gathered in this great open space,
00:25:00which is the ballroom, raising their arms
00:25:03in a kind of almost Roman greeting, and for this National Assembly
00:25:06it was the moment when they realized their power and dignity,
00:25:09and they really saw that they could overthrow the king of France.
00:25:14The National Assembly is born of a revolutionary state of rebellion.
00:25:17It will be a communion of voices from all over the world.
00:25:20It will be the first of its kind.
00:25:22It will be a communion of voices from all over the country.
00:25:25A parliamentary body representing the will of the people.
00:25:28But taking away the power of the king
00:25:31will not be as easy as signing a simple proclamation.
00:25:36All of these early victories that took place in Versailles
00:25:39are mostly victories on paper,
00:25:42and none had been carried out.
00:25:45The closer we get to July 1789,
00:25:48the more afraid the deputies of Versailles are
00:25:50that the king is gathering the army to overthrow them.
00:25:56At the beginning of July, 30,000 soldiers
00:25:59take up positions around Paris.
00:26:02To defend themselves, the people form a new national guard.
00:26:07The revolutionaries assault the armories of Paris
00:26:10and leave with more than 28,000 muskets.
00:26:16All they need is gunpowder,
00:26:18and the people know where to find it.
00:26:23In the center of Paris, a huge stone castle rises,
00:26:26known as the symbol of feudal rule.
00:26:29The Bastille.
00:26:34The prison houses the city's gunpowder warehouses,
00:26:37and is known as the prison of torture and inexplicable deaths.
00:26:43The Bastille had been the great symbol of monarchical despotism,
00:26:45the great symbol of the kings of France,
00:26:48going beyond the limits of his own power.
00:26:51For the French, it symbolizes horror.
00:26:54In the midst of the riots, a surprising scandal occurs.
00:26:57Louis XVI dismisses his Minister of Economy,
00:27:00the esteemed Jacques Necker,
00:27:03for behaving too well with the people.
00:27:06Hours after firing Necker,
00:27:09the news arrives in Paris that they have fired his favorite man from the court.
00:27:12There is no other option than sublimation.
00:27:16On July 14, a crowd of people gather,
00:27:19identifying each other with a small emblem.
00:27:22Red and blue are the colors of Paris,
00:27:25separated by white, the color of the house of the Bourbons.
00:27:28The tricolor has been born.
00:27:31From among the exalted crowd, a voice shouts,
00:27:34to the Bastille.
00:27:37With the attack on the Bastille,
00:27:40the people of Paris are saying,
00:27:42we have to get rid of a new National Assembly.
00:27:45People are taking notes on the matter,
00:27:48they are taking up arms and saying,
00:27:51we are on the side of the revolution.
00:27:54When the director of the Bastille, Bernard Deluny,
00:27:57finds out that a large crowd is approaching the prison,
00:28:00he tries to close it.
00:28:03He mounts a desperate defense,
00:28:06but the revolutionaries assault the fortress
00:28:09and attack the guards with knives and spears.
00:28:12The director of the Bastille gives up.
00:28:15But the enraged crowd grabs him, dragging him down the streets.
00:28:18They stab him, kick him and beat him until he shouts,
00:28:21let me die.
00:28:24The enthusiastic crowd gladly accepts his request.
00:28:27They stab him, shoot him and a revolutionary tradition is born.
00:28:31His beheaded head parades through the streets,
00:28:34nailed to a spear.
00:28:38The deputies of the National Assembly
00:28:40do not immediately condemn this act of violence.
00:28:43In fact, they accept it.
00:28:46And it was this acceptance of political violence,
00:28:49which, from the point of view of some people,
00:28:52created a form of conduct
00:28:55that will have catastrophic consequences
00:28:58for the development of the revolution.
00:29:02With the smoke still rising from the Bastille,
00:29:05Luis XVI returns from his hunting trip.
00:29:07Under the date of July 14, 1879,
00:29:10he writes,
00:29:13nothing, referring to his unfortunate hunt.
00:29:18An advisor interrupts him with the news of the riots
00:29:21and the fall of the Bastille.
00:29:25Luis XVI asks him,
00:29:28is it a revolt?
00:29:31No sir, he replies,
00:29:34it is a revolution.
00:29:38The victory in the Bastille
00:29:41unleashes the unstoppable torrent of the revolution.
00:29:44People have defied their king
00:29:47and have won.
00:29:50There is no turning back.
00:29:53As a symbol of the defeat of feudalism,
00:29:56people, men, women and children,
00:29:59attack and destroy the Bastille with their own hands.
00:30:02Feudal brick to feudal brick.
00:30:04The French wanted to destroy the Bastille
00:30:07as quickly as possible,
00:30:10but they did not have the possibility
00:30:13to use powerful explosives.
00:30:16So this was done very slowly,
00:30:19but with tremendous impetus.
00:30:22The bricks were distributed
00:30:25and sold as symbols of the demolition of despotism.
00:30:28The energy in the streets gives a new impetus
00:30:31to the National Assembly.
00:30:34The National Assembly adopted
00:30:37the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
00:30:40In this daring document,
00:30:43the archaic class distinctions are abolished
00:30:46and all men are considered totally equal.
00:30:49The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
00:30:52was a declaration enacted by the National Assembly
00:30:55in which it was said that sovereignty belonged to the people,
00:30:58to the nation.
00:31:01There is no mention of the king in all this document.
00:31:04With the National Assembly as a spokesman,
00:31:07the citizens of France were willing to change
00:31:10the whole structure of their society.
00:31:13They demanded a constitutional monarchy,
00:31:16equal rights for all men
00:31:19and reasonable laws on which to base justice.
00:31:22For the voices of the revolution to be heard more,
00:31:25Robespierre demanded freedom of the press,
00:31:28which had been censored in the old regime.
00:31:31As a result,
00:31:34the head of the press,
00:31:37Lamy Dupople, the friend of the people, was released.
00:31:40A radical newspaper full of sarcastic and provocative sermons.
00:31:43It is the creation of a former doctor,
00:31:46Jean Paul Marat.
00:31:49After a period of professional failures,
00:31:52Marat ended up living in poverty
00:31:55and for a while he found refuge
00:31:58in the sewers of Paris.
00:32:01There he contracted a painful skin disease
00:32:04and spent a long time giving himself medicinal baths.
00:32:07A bitter and failed Marat
00:32:10finds in the revolution the valve
00:32:13perfect escape for his misfortune.
00:32:16Jean Paul Marat was simply one of those unsatisfied professionals.
00:32:19And unfortunately the revolution gives an opportunity
00:32:22to unsatisfied professionals.
00:32:25Marat channeled all his anger,
00:32:28all his resentment through a newspaper
00:32:31that had an incredible success, Lamy Dupople.
00:32:34Marat was a man with a rage out of the ordinary.
00:32:37You just have to read the pages of his newspaper Lamy Dupople
00:32:40to realize.
00:32:43In each publication you can see the paranoia he has.
00:32:46He sees conspiracies everywhere against the revolution
00:32:49and for him the answer is very simple.
00:32:52Blood. Heads.
00:32:55Marat hates the extravagance of the monarchy
00:32:58in the middle of the poverty that dominates France.
00:33:01And only needs the most insignificant rumor
00:33:04to be the queen in his newspaper.
00:33:07On October 2, 1789, he explodes with anger.
00:33:13In Paris comes the news
00:33:16that the king has celebrated a party in Versailles
00:33:19and that in it the decadent monarchs
00:33:22had thrown the tricolor flag to the ground,
00:33:25the symbol of the revolution, and had trampled it.
00:33:28Marat is furious.
00:33:31He writes about this defamation in his newspaper
00:33:34The king has ordered again the troops
00:33:37to take their positions in the surroundings of Paris.
00:33:40With the master stroke of the baton
00:33:43still recent in the minds of people,
00:33:46Marat urges desperately to take action.
00:33:49People of Paris, it's time to open your eyes.
00:33:52Get out of your slumber. Wake up.
00:33:55Once again, wake up.
00:33:59October 5.
00:34:01Paris wakes up with a deafening noise of bells.
00:34:05Women gather near the town hall
00:34:08to protest the shortage of bread.
00:34:11And as people are aware of the king's offensive party,
00:34:14the fear of the approach of the royal troops
00:34:17is mixed with anger.
00:34:20Soon, thousands of women will go to Versailles
00:34:23with spears and pistols in their hands.
00:34:26Women will expose their complaints to the king.
00:34:28The core of the crowd was made up of
00:34:31the famous Poissards,
00:34:34the feared fishermen of the central markets,
00:34:37famous for their strong complexion and their courage.
00:34:40They were equipped with huge knives to scale fish
00:34:43and were very strong to transport boxes.
00:34:46I would not dare to mess with them.
00:34:49These are women from poor neighborhoods
00:34:52who are affected by the increase in the price of bread
00:34:55and the shortage of products.
00:34:58They have to do something.
00:35:01It is quite incredible that these women on foot,
00:35:04that surely most did not know how to write their name,
00:35:07suddenly became the protagonists of a historical process.
00:35:13In the palace, the news that there was a group of women
00:35:16approaching reached the ears of the queen.
00:35:19Legend has it that it was at this moment
00:35:22when Maria Antonieta said the famous phrase
00:35:25that she never actually said.
00:35:28She did not say, let them eat cake.
00:35:31That is a myth.
00:35:34Unfortunately, Maria Antonieta probably
00:35:37did not even care about the poor of her country
00:35:40enough time to say that.
00:35:43While women gather outside the doors,
00:35:46Luis XVI realizes that the revolution
00:35:49can no longer be ignored.
00:35:52He has it at the door of his house.
00:35:55He agrees to sign the Declaration of Human Rights
00:35:59When the morning comes, there are 20,000 people
00:36:02camped outside the royal palace.
00:36:05To end the signs of distance between the king and his subjects,
00:36:08the enraged crowd asks the king and queen to move to Paris.
00:36:13More indecisive than ever,
00:36:16Luis XVI is too weak to respond.
00:36:19His indecision will unleash the fury among the crowd
00:36:22and put the lives of the royal family in grave danger.
00:36:25When they do not get immediate conformity
00:36:28it really looks like they're going to kill the queen.
00:36:34A group of women enter the palace
00:36:37screaming for the queen's blood.
00:36:40They kill the guards,
00:36:43behead them and stab their heads with spears.
00:36:47They were like crazy, screaming all over the palace.
00:36:50Give me his guts, give me his head.
00:36:53I want a leg, I want an arm.
00:36:55If they had found the queen,
00:36:58they would have probably cut her into pieces.
00:37:05Fearing for her life,
00:37:08Maria escapes to the chambers of Luis XVI
00:37:11just a few minutes before the women
00:37:14enter the room and make a mess of his bed.
00:37:18The king and queen are now at the mercy of the crowd.
00:37:21And what the crowd wants
00:37:23is a little attention from the king.
00:37:26The only way for the women to calm down
00:37:29is for the royal family to agree to go to Paris.
00:37:32Because they believe that once they are there,
00:37:35they can force them to do what the people of Paris want.
00:37:3960,000 people start the march,
00:37:42taking carts and carts of flour from the royal pantry.
00:37:47The royal carriage is escorted all the way to Paris.
00:37:51The king and queen
00:37:54are forced to go to Paris
00:37:57with the heads of the guards who had been massacred in the castle.
00:38:04They had cut their heads.
00:38:07It is really an act of extreme violence.
00:38:13The heads are rebuilt with makeup
00:38:16and parade in front of the carriage of the king and queen.
00:38:19The king and queen make the palace of the Tuileries
00:38:22their new home.
00:38:25They will never see Versailles again.
00:38:28Once the royal family moves to Paris,
00:38:31they become prisoners of Paris.
00:38:34They know it and everyone knows it.
00:38:37They have great limitations of what they can do.
00:38:40They are the prisoners of the capital, there is no doubt about that.
00:38:43They leave Versailles and the assembly moves to Paris.
00:38:45The power is now in the hands of the people.
00:38:49France will have a new democracy,
00:38:52new laws,
00:38:55and a new and unforgettable form of justice
00:38:58will make its debut in the revolutionary state.
00:39:01The guillotine.
00:39:04May 1791.
00:39:07Almost two years have passed since the royal family
00:39:10and the national assembly moved to Paris.
00:39:13Robespierre often speaks in the assembly
00:39:16and in the Jacobin club,
00:39:19a society that bears the name of its meeting place,
00:39:22an old Jacobin monastery.
00:39:25He has been a member of the royal family
00:39:28for more than 50 years.
00:39:30Now, the words are the core of the revolution
00:39:33and Robespierre continues with his unbreakable morale.
00:39:36His true north is always the people.
00:39:39Soon they will call him the incorruptible.
00:39:42France is now a constitutional monarchy.
00:39:45The king is forced to share his power
00:39:48with the revolutionaries in the assembly.
00:39:51But it seems that his portion of power
00:39:54is going to the people.
00:39:56And he is forced to sign law after law
00:39:59diminishing his own power
00:40:02and that of the other feudal regime,
00:40:05the Catholic Church.
00:40:08Louis decides that the time has come
00:40:11to escape the confines of the new republic
00:40:14and set up a campaign to claim his reign.
00:40:17In 1791, Louis XVI decides
00:40:20that he needs to regain control of his country.
00:40:22And he knows that he can only do that
00:40:25with the help of a foreign army.
00:40:28So his idea is to leave the palace of the Tuileries
00:40:31and advance to the nearest border.
00:40:34June 21, 1791.
00:40:37The king and queen are disguised as servants
00:40:40and, protected by the darkness,
00:40:43they escape from Paris.
00:40:46They start a race to freedom.
00:40:48After midnight,
00:40:51they arrive at the small town of Varennes,
00:40:54160 kilometers east of Paris.
00:40:57They are close to the border with Austria,
00:41:00salvation only a few kilometers away.
00:41:03But their attempt to escape will not go further.
00:41:18Rumors of the trip of the monarchs had preceded them.
00:41:26An officer of the town stops the carriage
00:41:29and asks for their passports.
00:41:41The suspect of the officer is confirmed.
00:41:44It is the king's signature.
00:41:47The man is impressed,
00:41:50but the revolutionary guards nearby
00:41:53do not feel intimidated by this.
00:41:57He waits all the time
00:42:00that people recognize him
00:42:03and that there is a rebellion in his favor.
00:42:06And to his horror and surprise,
00:42:09they are not happy to see him.
00:42:12They see that he is trying to escape
00:42:15The idea that the monarch
00:42:18had tried to leave his people
00:42:21was psychologically catastrophic.
00:42:24The event really broke the bond
00:42:27that joined Louis XVI with his subjects.
00:42:30Now they not only had a superficial king,
00:42:33but they had a king who was obviously a traitor.
00:42:38With the official enemies of the royal family in power,
00:42:41this goes from Louis XVI,
00:42:44to the revolutionaries of the assembly.
00:42:47At the command of the revolutionary government
00:42:50is Robespierre.
00:42:53He shines at the top of the podium,
00:42:56dictating orders of all kinds.
00:42:59He demands universal suffrage
00:43:02and the end of slavery in the French Antilles.
00:43:05He even asks with more passion
00:43:08the eradication of the death penalty.
00:43:11In the new era of the Enlightenment,
00:43:14Europe has inherited a macabre repertoire
00:43:17of methods of execution of the Middle Ages.
00:43:20Cruel and tortuous deaths,
00:43:23by dragging, dismembering,
00:43:26hang, hang and burn in the bonfire.
00:43:29Under the old regime,
00:43:32there was a whole collection of truculent punishments.
00:43:35Decapitation was reserved for the nobility.
00:43:38And something that the revolution wanted from the beginning
00:43:41was that everyone had a death penalty.
00:43:44They wanted to symbolically
00:43:47that everyone could have the same punishment.
00:43:51Despite the opposition of Robespierre,
00:43:54a new killing machine takes prominence in Paris.
00:43:59The inventor and physicist Joseph-Ignace Guillotin
00:44:03designs a new decapitation machine,
00:44:06converting the old decapitation
00:44:09in a humanitarian experience.
00:44:15Dr. Guillotin describes his new machine to the assembly.
00:44:19The mechanism falls like lightning.
00:44:22The head flies, the blood spills.
00:44:25The man is dead.
00:44:30The greatest defender of bloodshed,
00:44:33the journalist Marat, publishes an enthusiastic article
00:44:36in his newspaper announcing the new name of the machine.
00:44:39Guillotin.
00:44:42Soon it will be known with another name.
00:44:45The national knife.
00:44:48The French revolutionaries believed in human values.
00:44:54They believed that unnecessary suffering should not be caused.
00:45:00And what they like about the guillotine
00:45:03is that it is fast and efficient.
00:45:06And it seems that,
00:45:08before anyone has returned to tell it,
00:45:11it is painless.
00:45:14The guillotine will silence the internal enemies of the revolution.
00:45:17Anyone who is suspicious of planning the return of the king to the throne.
00:45:23But it is the enemies around France
00:45:26who are most concerned about the assembly.
00:45:29There is a growing fear that the members of the royal family
00:45:32who fled to Austria start an armed counter-revolution.
00:45:35The assembly demands a preventive attack.
00:45:38A declaration of war to Austria.
00:45:41Robespierre is against it.
00:45:44Robespierre is one of the few people
00:45:47who opposes the war,
00:45:50because he thinks that the enemies will win.
00:45:53Robespierre fears that the country is not prepared
00:45:56because it does not have an army capable of defeating the enemy.
00:45:59And therefore the enemy will arrive and destroy the revolution.
00:46:01Robespierre fails to convince them.
00:46:04In April 1792,
00:46:07the assembly declares war on Austria,
00:46:10the country ruled by the very family of Maria Antonieta.
00:46:13A nationalist feeling arises.
00:46:16If Austria defeats the revolutionary army,
00:46:19Louis XVI will undoubtedly claim his throne.
00:46:22But this is not the end of the story.
00:46:25The war is not over.
00:46:27If Austria defeats the revolutionary army,
00:46:30Louis XVI will undoubtedly claim his throne.
00:46:33And it is suspected that Maria Antonieta
00:46:36is helping the enemy by sending letters
00:46:39to her relatives in Austria,
00:46:42in which they pass the movements of the French troops
00:46:45to get an advantage.
00:46:48All this while the king and queen
00:46:51simulate their support for the revolution.
00:46:54Louis XVI and Maria Antonieta
00:46:57many times pretend to be in favor of the revolution
00:47:00but at the same time they conspire against it.
00:47:03They are trying to survive.
00:47:06It could be understood that they are survivors,
00:47:09but from a revolutionary point of view,
00:47:12they are liars.
00:47:15With the French army
00:47:18suffering great losses on the border,
00:47:21the news arrives that in Paris,
00:47:24the ally of Austria, Prussia, has joined the invasion.
00:47:27They are under the command of the Duke of Brunswick,
00:47:30a Prussian general.
00:47:33The tension invades the streets of Paris.
00:47:36And then the newspapers publish
00:47:39a letter from the Duke of Brunswick,
00:47:42a manifesto in which he threatens to destroy Paris
00:47:45if his Majesties are harmed, the king and the queen.
00:47:48A wrong threat
00:47:51that totally fails.
00:47:54August 10, 1792
00:47:5727,000 armed citizens,
00:48:00driven by anger and indignation,
00:48:03go to the palace of the Tuileries
00:48:06and start a savage attack against the royal guards.
00:48:10In the end, more than 800 men die on both sides.
00:48:15The king flees and seeks protection in the assembly,
00:48:18but the monarchy no longer exists.
00:48:20Louis has officially been stripped of his title.
00:48:23The French Republic has been born.
00:48:27The guillotine blade is baptized
00:48:30with the blood of the remaining guards of Louis XVI.
00:48:38And Robespierre,
00:48:41in his day an unconditional opponent of the death penalty,
00:48:44has changed his mind.
00:48:47The birth of a new republic
00:48:50can only begin with the death of a king.
00:48:57The new and creepy apparatus of Dr. Guillotin
00:49:00leans on Paris as a warning.
00:49:03The punishment for disobeying the law and order.
00:49:08Recently baptized with the blood of the king's guards,
00:49:11soon he will also end the life of the king.
00:49:16In August 1792,
00:49:18with the dethroned king and the royal family in prison,
00:49:21Robespierre and his Jacobins are involved in a struggle
00:49:24for the control of the national government against the Girondins,
00:49:27the moderates of the assembly.
00:49:32But in the streets of Paris there is a new political movement.
00:49:35As a symbol of his rejection of the aristocratic tradition,
00:49:38the citizens on foot refuse to wear
00:49:41the underpants or culottes of the aristocrats.
00:49:44They are called the sans-culottes,
00:49:46the underpants.
00:49:49The sans-culottes are considered the true representatives of the French people,
00:49:52they were not the poorest.
00:49:55They used to be artists and shopkeepers,
00:49:58people of that style, but at least they worked with their own hands.
00:50:03Not wearing the underpants, the culottes,
00:50:06for them simply symbolized that they were not aristocrats,
00:50:09that they were normal people.
00:50:12The sans-culottes take control of the government of the city of Paris,
00:50:15while the Jacobins and the Girondins
00:50:18urge the country not to support the national assembly,
00:50:21now called the convention.
00:50:24The convention is fighting for the control of the French army,
00:50:27which is rapidly losing territories against Austria and Prussia.
00:50:30While at the border,
00:50:33they continue to fight against the enemies,
00:50:36the revolutionary government takes energetic measures
00:50:38against the enemies of the city,
00:50:41the monarchic traitors who could put Paris
00:50:44in the hands of the invaders.
00:50:47More than 100 people are arrested and put in prison,
00:50:50priests, journalists and men and women on foot.
00:50:53Robespierre focuses on the internal crisis,
00:50:56but his friend, the Minister of Justice,
00:50:59Georges Danton, urges all men,
00:51:02young and adults, to join the battlefield.
00:51:05It is sociable and striking,
00:51:08everything that Robespierre is not.
00:51:11Soon, the name of Danton is heard all over Paris.
00:51:15Danton is a character full of life,
00:51:18grandiloquent,
00:51:21a drunkard, libertine,
00:51:24who despite belonging to the upper class,
00:51:27unlike Robespierre,
00:51:30is able to fully identify with the workers,
00:51:33in a way that Robespierre simply can not.
00:51:36As the enemy approaches,
00:51:39Danton's convincing rhetoric mobilizes people,
00:51:42making many decide to go to the front.
00:51:45There is a very famous moment
00:51:48in which the Austrian and Prussian armies are invading them,
00:51:51and he stands in front of the people and shouts that
00:51:54to win we need audacity, more audacity and always audacity.
00:51:57He really is a person able to lead a country
00:52:00in the fight against the invader.
00:52:02It is an extraordinary moment.
00:52:05As so many men go to the front to fight,
00:52:08Paris is left defenseless,
00:52:11with prisons full of political prisoners.
00:52:14A disturbing fear floods the city.
00:52:17The growing crowd of prisoners may be difficult to contain.
00:52:21Marat throws revolutionary citizens
00:52:24a bloody proposal,
00:52:27to go down to the prisons and kill everyone who is inside.
00:52:29The foreign armies were approaching Paris.
00:52:32If they come into contact in Paris
00:52:35with the enemies of the revolution in the prisons,
00:52:38then something terrible would have taken place
00:52:41from the point of view of the people.
00:52:47In the first week of September,
00:52:50bad news arrives from the front.
00:52:53Prussia has taken Verdun, a city on the way to Paris.
00:52:56Now the enemy is only a few kilometers away.
00:52:59The fear that plagued Paris explodes.
00:53:05The Hans Kulot enter the prisons
00:53:08and start a violent attack on the prisoners of the city.
00:53:11They will not leave any traitor alive.
00:53:15The Hans Kulot entered the prisons,
00:53:18especially those where the refractory priests were locked up,
00:53:21where the nobles were and where the political prisoners were,
00:53:24and they began to carry out their own improvised trials,
00:53:26which were very short,
00:53:29and most of the time they ended up dead.
00:53:35Women are raped or mutilated.
00:53:38The priests are gutted.
00:53:41The aristocrats are dismembered.
00:53:44In the first massacre, more than 1,600 people
00:53:47are killed in just a few days.
00:53:50When the news of the massacres of September
00:53:53spreads throughout Europe,
00:53:56the world is in a state of panic.
00:54:03On the other side of the Channel,
00:54:06the London Times publishes its rebuke.
00:54:09Are these the rights of men?
00:54:12Is this the freedom of human nature?
00:54:15The wildest tyrants who roam
00:54:18the unexplored territories of Africa
00:54:21are even superior to these two-legged animals.
00:54:24The revolution has taken an intolerable course.
00:54:27Even Robespierre realizes
00:54:30that things have gone too far,
00:54:33that people cannot lead the revolution alone.
00:54:36They need someone to guide them.
00:54:39A hand of iron.
00:54:42Thanks to the power of his words,
00:54:45the incorruptible jumps to the podium
00:54:48as the man who can guide the revolution.
00:54:50Robespierre, who previously supported
00:54:53the constitutional monarchy,
00:54:56now believes that there is no place for a king.
00:54:59A transcendental decision is taken.
00:55:02France will bring its own monarch to trial.
00:55:08With the verdict reduced to a mere conclusion,
00:55:11the only debate on the table is the sentence.
00:55:14The moderates, the Girondins,
00:55:17ask that his life not be ended.
00:55:21The Girondins were asked an important question
00:55:24regarding the king,
00:55:27because although they were convinced of wanting a republic,
00:55:30they were not so sure that it was necessary to kill the king.
00:55:33The Jacobins, who wanted the king's blood,
00:55:36outnumbered the Girondins.
00:55:39Why did the Jacobins want to kill the king?
00:55:42I think because, as Robespierre said very well,
00:55:45for the revolution to live, you have to kill the king.
00:55:47If there is a king, then something is wrong in the revolution.
00:55:53In all existing systems,
00:55:56there is only one punishment for treason,
00:55:59and that is death.
00:56:02Therefore, in that sense,
00:56:05if the king is guilty of betraying his country
00:56:08in times of war,
00:56:11then the conclusion is that he must suffer the death of a traitor.
00:56:14On January 20, 1793,
00:56:17Louis XVI is found guilty.
00:56:20He is sentenced.
00:56:23The king must die.
00:56:30That night he meets for a while with his family.
00:56:33He is calm,
00:56:36and among the cries of his family,
00:56:39he promises them that he will return the next morning to say goodbye.
00:56:41But he does not.
00:56:44He can not stand the anguish of his family,
00:56:47and must save strength to face the guillotine.
00:56:53The next morning,
00:56:56a carriage takes Louis XVI to the patina.
00:57:01Stoically, he walks towards the guillotine.
00:57:11He tries to give a speech.
00:57:14I trust that my death serves to make my people happy.
00:57:17But I feel sorry for France,
00:57:20and I fear that I may suffer the wrath of the Lord.
00:57:23But the guards silence their words with the noise of the drums.
00:57:42At 10.22 a.m., the life of the man who was king of France is ended.
00:58:02From the prison of the temple,
00:58:05Mary Antoinette hears the voices of the family.
00:58:07From the prison of the temple, Maria Antonieta hears the shots of the cannons announcing the death of her husband.
00:58:14She bursts with disgust.
00:58:21The blood of the king is spilled. The victorious revolution.
00:58:27But the enemies of the revolution will soon claim their own victory.
00:58:31Their goal? The man who is asking for so many heads to roll.
00:58:36Jean Paul Marat.
00:58:41The execution of King Louis XVI marks the definitive victory for the revolutionaries.
00:58:46A peak moment in which the young nation, the French Republic, is literally born of blood.
00:58:54At the end of 1792, the Jacobin radicals, for fear that the new revolution is in danger of being sabotaged by the traitors,
00:59:02decide to use increasingly violent means.
00:59:07But the Girondins, who represent the French peasants,
00:59:10want to stop the growing violence for fear of a civil war.
00:59:17His greatest opponent, Jean Paul Marat, responds to the Girondins with furious words in his newspaper,
00:59:23publishing the names of those he believes are conspiring against the revolution.
00:59:29Marat, who had previously demanded the execution of 200 people, now asks for more than 200,000.
00:59:39When you look at Marat's journalism, you realize that he has a basic principle,
00:59:44which is to be more radical than anyone, and to demand that people be killed.
00:59:48If you look at Marat's journalism, all the time he says,
00:59:53with just a few heads cut, everything will be fine.
00:59:56And when things don't go well, if you cut a few more heads, everything will be fine.
01:00:01Suddenly, the Parisians begin to kill people, and Marat is the first to take the credit for that.
01:00:09But the radical movement has not reached everywhere.
01:00:12The people of the outskirts of Paris are furious with the growing brutality of the Jacobins,
01:00:17and ask for the bloodshed to stop.
01:00:21This message reaches the ears of the charming Charlotte Corday,
01:00:25a simple provincial girl, but at the same time confident of herself.
01:00:30Charlotte Corday is an ordinary woman from the city of Caen,
01:00:33who is horrified by the deaths that are happening, and perhaps rightly,
01:00:37considers that Marat is the main responsible for all this.
01:00:41He has played a decisive role in the radicalism of the revolution.
01:00:46People were still calling for heads.
01:00:52July 13, 1793. Charlotte Corday arrives in Paris.
01:00:59She knows that the friend of the people has an open-door policy,
01:01:03and that Marat can be found in his house at any time, giving himself medicinal baths.
01:01:10Corday visits her with the excuse that he has a list of traitors,
01:01:14of those who are collaborating with foreign enemies to end the revolution.
01:01:19Marat asks for the list, promising Corday that the traitors will be guillotined the next day.
01:01:26And when he gives it, he takes a dagger, a small dagger, and sticks it in his chest.
01:01:44The so-called friend of the people dies in the act.
01:01:49The furious voice of his newspaper is silenced.
01:02:01When the revolution becomes a bloodbath, it is very easy to blame him,
01:02:05and of course that was what those who hated him or feared him did.
01:02:09And that is one of the reasons why Charlotte Corday actually murders him in 1793,
01:02:14because he believes that he is responsible for many of the bloody atrocities that have actually occurred.
01:02:24Corday does not try to escape.
01:02:26In court, he declares that he is not sorry.
01:02:35What did he expect to get by murdering Marat?
01:02:39Peace. Now that he is dead, peace will return to my country.
01:02:44Charlotte Corday is quickly executed, and her dream of peace dies with her.
01:02:52He killed Marat the man, but he created Marat the legend,
01:02:56and his famous death is portrayed by a revolutionary painter, Jacques-Louis David.
01:03:03He became a martyr. He became something almost like a religious figure.
01:03:08There were people who even prayed to him, they said, heart of Jesus, heart of Marat.
01:03:12At his funeral, they got to do things like take the bathroom where they had killed him,
01:03:16and put it on the altar, almost as if it were a kind of crucifix.
01:03:21If you look at the painting of David, of the death of Marat,
01:03:25the body of Marat is placed exactly the same as the body of Jesus,
01:03:30in the classic representations of piety, the descent from the cross.
01:03:38So clearly, there is an association of Marat with Christ,
01:03:43and Marat represents a new kind of God in the radical republic.
01:03:52Robespierre is jealous of the worship of Marat, but he, always so pragmatic,
01:03:57directs his attention to the most urgent issues.
01:04:02Because even if Marat is dead, there are still others who want blood to be shed.
01:04:07Real blood.
01:04:10The Conciergerie, the dark chamber of death.
01:04:15Eight months after the execution of her husband,
01:04:17and just a few days after the execution of Charlotte Corday,
01:04:20they lock Maria Antonieta here, in a horrible cell, totally alone.
01:04:28One of the worst things that happens to Maria Antonieta,
01:04:32is that after the execution of Louis XVI,
01:04:35they take away her children.
01:04:37Her children were the most important thing to her,
01:04:39and she knew that the revolutionaries would subject her son to terrible torture,
01:04:42to forget their real origins.
01:04:45And it seems that she was right.
01:04:47In just a couple of years, her son died because of the terrible abandonment,
01:04:52and the torture he was subjected to.
01:04:58Maria Antonieta, who was a proud young woman, is now only 38 years old,
01:05:02but the revolution has aged her much more.
01:05:06Maria Antonieta was a very beautiful woman.
01:05:10Elegant.
01:05:12Until the revolution came.
01:05:14From 1788 she began to lose weight.
01:05:18Her hair was full of braids.
01:05:20She stopped being flirtatious, and to look beautiful.
01:05:23She lost a lot of weight.
01:05:25The day of the trial was unrecognizable.
01:05:31On October 15, the trial of Maria Antonieta is held,
01:05:34and she is accused of treason, and of dilapidating the national funds.
01:05:40The few evidence presented are based on frightening and vengeful rumors.
01:05:45An accusation is added to the list.
01:05:47She is accused of incest with her son.
01:05:49Before this accusation, Maria Antonieta stands up to defend herself.
01:05:55I appeal to the conscience and feelings of all the mothers present,
01:05:59to know if there are any of you,
01:06:02that do not tremble at the idea of such horror.
01:06:07And at that moment, there was a change of third,
01:06:09because all the women felt guilty,
01:06:12and they realized that they had gone too far with those accusations.
01:06:20Maria Antonieta has hopes that,
01:06:22in a moment of public compassion, deport her to Austria.
01:06:25But her hopes are thrown away when the sentence is given.
01:06:29She will run the same fate as her husband.
01:06:35Maria Antonieta was, in a sense, condemned from the beginning.
01:06:38She was the symbol of the Austrian alliance,
01:06:40which had proven to be disastrous for France.
01:06:43She was, along with her husband, the laughingstock of the people,
01:06:46due to the apparent sexual failure of her marriage.
01:06:48And she was a symbol of monarchical culture,
01:06:50at a time when monarchical culture itself,
01:06:52was seen as something totally corrupt and harmful to the country.
01:06:55So for all these reasons,
01:06:57she was hated like no other queen had ever been hated.
01:07:00She was condemned and insulted.
01:07:04From her cell, Maria Antonieta writes a last letter,
01:07:07saying goodbye to her children and her family,
01:07:09promising to be brave.
01:07:14They cut her white and long hair to prepare her for the guillotine.
01:07:21They tie her hands tightly.
01:07:24While she is escorted out of prison,
01:07:26she hopes a carriage will arrive.
01:07:28Instead, it is a cart,
01:07:30the cart where the common criminals go.
01:07:34She hoped that when she was taken to the gallows,
01:07:37she would receive the same treatment as her husband.
01:07:40But she did not.
01:07:42She did not.
01:07:44She did not.
01:07:46She did not.
01:07:48And when she arrived at the gallows,
01:07:50she would receive the same treatment as the king.
01:07:52It was supposed to be a closed carriage,
01:07:54so that the crowd could not reach to her.
01:07:56But they just put her in an open cart,
01:07:58and people shouted all sorts of stuff.
01:08:00Horrible things, terrible threats.
01:08:06Just in the shadow of the sovereign,
01:08:08Maria Antonieta maintains her dignity as queen
01:08:10as she walks the streets of Paris.
01:08:18His name and the accusations against her are read aloud.
01:08:45The last queen of France has died.
01:09:02Several days later, after countless executions, a member of the National Convention
01:09:06of the Republic of Chile, said that the revolution is like Saturn, devouring its own children.
01:09:20Danton replied, the revolution, my friend, is not a path of roses.
01:09:27The bloodshed has only just begun.
01:09:36September 1793, four years of revolution and France is being totally destroyed.
01:09:45In the provinces, violent insurrections occur, and in the war against Europe, they are losing
01:09:51many men.
01:09:54To suffer a terrible defeat, the British take the coastal city of Toulon.
01:10:00Europe is increasingly mining French borders.
01:10:05France is the largest and most populous country in Western Europe, and has a great military
01:10:09power.
01:10:10And of course, when the revolution began, a lot of their traditional enemies and also
01:10:15a lot of their traditional allies thought, yes, this is our opportunity, not to get
01:10:19with some territory of France, but to get rich at your expense and weaken it, forever.
01:10:26France is isolated from all of Europe.
01:10:29Great Britain is blocking it, and Austria and Prussia are attacking it and invading it.
01:10:35The people of Paris are afraid that the victory of the counter-revolution will lead to a bloodbath.
01:10:44Danton and Robespierre, the best speakers of the Convention, realize that in order to
01:10:48save the revolution, they have to attack.
01:10:52They convince their comrades to establish a new and threatening martial law.
01:10:58It is time for all the French to enjoy a sacred equality.
01:11:02It is time to impose this equality by means of laws that do justice against traitors and conspirators.
01:11:09Let terror be the order of the day.
01:11:14This begins a new chapter in the revolution.
01:11:17A period of violent repression called the Terror.
01:11:22In an incredible change of third, the revolutionaries suspend the new constitution and all the rights
01:11:27that it guaranteed.
01:11:30Policemen are placed from country to country throughout the country.
01:11:33Any person suspected of carrying out counter-revolutionary activities is persecuted, subjected to a
01:11:38quick trial and sent to the guillotine.
01:11:44The Kingdom of Terror was conceived as an emergency government.
01:11:49What they understood as terror was based on sowing terror in the hearts of the enemies
01:11:54of the Republic.
01:11:55So let's say they were either scared to death or arrested and disposed of.
01:12:06The slightest suspicion could send anyone to the gallows.
01:12:10Those who spoke well of the deceased monarchy.
01:12:13Anyone who used the old messiah or madame instead of the new word citizens.
01:12:22Fear fills the air.
01:12:26The neighbors denounce their neighbors.
01:12:30The incessant movement of the carts of death resonates in all the streets of Paris.
01:12:39People are totally aware of the executions.
01:12:43They know that in Paris there are parisian police, enough parisian police everywhere.
01:12:49Standing in line for bread, listening to what women say and arresting them if they do not
01:12:54like what they hear.
01:12:56They could arrest you for complaining about how expensive the bread was.
01:12:59They could even arrest you for not being too happy with the course of things and the success
01:13:04of the revolution.
01:13:05So in reality, almost everything you said could get you into trouble.
01:13:12The assembly is a revolutionary court, accelerating the trials and executions with impeccable
01:13:18efficiency.
01:13:20To consolidate power, they form a council of 12 men and call it the Committee of Public
01:13:25Security.
01:13:26In the long run, power had to be delegated to a smaller group that became the Committee
01:13:32of Public Security.
01:13:34In the end, there were 12 people who ruled France as a collective dictatorship.
01:13:40By his masterful speeches and his revolutionary vision, Robespierre soon becomes the spokesman
01:13:46of the committee.
01:13:47And his voice is asking for more blood to be shed.
01:13:58One of the ironies of Robespierre's political life is that from the beginning he was
01:14:02totally against the death penalty, and of course he will have to eat his own words
01:14:07when he later becomes a fierce defender of terror and guillotine.
01:14:12He never responded to that directly, except when he said, well, times have changed.
01:14:20The revolution had made Robespierre implacable.
01:14:23Whoever was a passionate defender of freedom of the press now restores censorship, a vestige
01:14:28of the old regime.
01:14:31The church is already being attacked, and he is left with his arms crossed while one
01:14:35of the most radical revolutionaries, Jacques-René Hebert, makes a new proposal, dechristianization.
01:14:45In the midst of the crisis of war and in the midst of internal rebellion, people begin
01:14:49to say that the fault of everything is in the priests, religion, and that what we have
01:14:55to do, if we want to save ourselves from the enemies of the revolution, is to destroy
01:14:59the power of the Catholic Church.
01:15:02The superstition, the fanaticism, that's what religion is about, and so what we have
01:15:06to do is eradicate all that.
01:15:10The streets that carried the word San are renamed.
01:15:16The religious icons are destroyed and replaced by tributes to the new saint, Marat.
01:15:23The church seemed simply to be the enemy of the radical revolutionaries.
01:15:27The churches and cathedrals tear down the altars, break the windows, break the statues,
01:15:33simply destroyed all the wealth of the church.
01:15:35Of course, the Europeans were shocked, even more than the death of the king.
01:15:40They did not even save the Christian calendar.
01:15:43The years are no longer numbered from the birth of Christ, but from September 1792,
01:15:50the year of the overthrow of the monarchy.
01:15:52Now it is year one.
01:15:54The months are given a new name according to the seasons.
01:15:58July becomes Termidor.
01:16:00April in Floreal.
01:16:02The months last three weeks, each lasting 10 days.
01:16:06The revolutionary calendar was probably designed as a kind of weapon against
01:16:10Christianity, against the Christian belief.
01:16:13Of course, having a week of 10 days, people would not know when it was Sunday.
01:16:16That was what they hoped.
01:16:20Terror spreads throughout France.
01:16:23The insurrections are condemned with a bloody and relentless cruelty.
01:16:27In the city of Lyon, where the counter-revolutionaries are gaining ground,
01:16:34the Public Security Committee feels a brutal example.
01:16:37Hundreds of rebels are tied up, taken to the fields and massacred.
01:16:45A region called La Vendée, west of France, has also become a bastion of the counter-revolution.
01:16:52Boats full of rebels and priests tied to each other are sunk mercilessly.
01:16:57More than 100,000 people are killed only in the area of La Vendée.
01:17:02In Paris, the leaf of La Vendée is the symbol of the revolution.
01:17:10But the French armies are finally gaining victories on the border.
01:17:15Under the command of a magnificent young commander called Napoleon Bonaparte,
01:17:20the French army forces the British Navy to carry out a humiliating withdrawal in Toulon.
01:17:25The French army is forced to retreat to Toulon.
01:17:29The French army is forced to retreat to Toulon.
01:17:32The French army is forced to retreat to Toulon.
01:17:36The French army is forced to retreat to Toulon.
01:17:39The revolution is in its peak. Robespierre is in his moment of greatest power.
01:17:44He has finished off the enemies of the revolution and has ensured its success by sowing terror.
01:17:51For a time, terror was a very effective mechanism for gaining the union of the country,
01:17:55the union of the government and for fighting in what was, after all,
01:17:58a war on various fronts, on the Eastern Front, on the Northern Front, against external enemies.
01:18:03a civil war in the area of the Vendée, which was the bloodiest of all
01:18:07and also a civil war against the Girondins and other revolutionaries against the government in Paris
01:18:14Terror had achieved its goals
01:18:17but it does not stop there
01:18:19and it will not stop until it destroys the man who planted it
01:18:24Maximilian Robespierre
01:18:26With the blood of terror, Maximilian Robespierre has rescued the revolution
01:18:32An energetic army is defending against the attacks on the border
01:18:36but the internal difficulties have not yet been suffocated
01:18:40At the top of success, Robespierre dreams of an even greater challenge
01:18:46Sowing more terror to create a new type of society
01:18:51Sowing more terror to create a new type of society
01:18:56The Republic of Virtue
01:18:59By virtue he means civic virtue
01:19:02It is a fundamental principle for Robespierre
01:19:05For example, you can not be a virtuous citizen by simply obeying the law
01:19:09You must be actively involved in the work of the state
01:19:12and that includes killing the enemies of the state
01:19:17On February 5, 1794, Robespierre gives a speech highlighting his philosophy
01:19:26Terror without virtue is disastrous
01:19:29but virtue without terror is worthless
01:19:34He associates virtue with terror
01:19:37Terror at that moment becomes, in his way of seeing it, an instrument with which to create virtue
01:19:44But others do not agree
01:19:47For Danton, the revolution is going the wrong way
01:19:52He and his followers, the Dantonists, believe that it is time to end terror
01:19:57because it has already done its job
01:20:02In the spring of 1794, things begin to improve
01:20:06There are no longer so many problems with food, the war campaign is going better
01:20:11and Danton is basically saying that they need to establish a new government
01:20:16move towards normalization
01:20:19Robespierre thinks it's too soon
01:20:21Danton begins to organize a group to discuss how to end terror
01:20:25Robespierre interprets it as a direct threat to the government
01:20:29He does not see it as a simple difference of opinion on the direction that politics should take
01:20:34He sees it as a betrayal
01:20:36And in the Republic of Robespierre's Virtue, there is only one answer to betrayal
01:20:41The Dantonists are persecuted and immediately sentenced to death
01:20:48Robespierre has sent hundreds to the gallows
01:20:51but these executions make him nervous
01:20:54He will not go to the beheading of his old friends and allies
01:20:59As he climbs the stairs of the guillotine, Danton shouts
01:21:03The only thing I regret is to leave before it's Robespierre's time
01:21:17With the Dantonists out of his way, Robespierre begins in France an even more bloody and terrifying period
01:21:24The Great Terror
01:21:27The Great Terror is the name of the last phase of terror that lasted from the spring to the summer of 1794
01:21:33In this period, the rate of executions begins to increase really
01:21:37which unleashes fear, mainly in Paris
01:21:40although throughout the country begins to increase exponentially
01:21:43It is estimated that per month in Paris 800 executions were carried out
01:21:47and at the end of the period even more
01:21:51The executioner of Paris is more busy than ever
01:21:55But on June 6, 1794, the death carts stop ringing
01:22:01The guillotine remains silent
01:22:04Robespierre has declared a new day of religious festivity
01:22:08The Festival of the Supreme Being
01:22:11He wants to replace the old Catholic God with a new one
01:22:15The Goddess of Reason
01:22:17They say that Robespierre never supported the Atheist policies
01:22:20He thought that people needed to believe in a divinity
01:22:23and helped to introduce this cult, which was called the cult of the Supreme Being
01:22:27and I think it was in June 1794 when this incredible stage was placed
01:22:31with choirs of people dressed in white singing
01:22:34and this kind of mountain of paper maché was built in the center of Paris
01:22:38and at the most important moment of the ceremony, Robespierre himself came out of the cathedral
01:22:42dressed in a toga and walking down the mountain
01:22:45and I think at this moment a lot of people thought
01:22:48okay, who do you think he is? Do you think he is God? Do you think he is the King?
01:22:52While the great terror is out of control
01:22:55Robespierre's allies realize that he has totally lost contact with reality
01:23:00There are those who think that Robespierre had really reached the end of his life
01:23:05but it is not true
01:23:08There are those who think that Robespierre had really reached such an extreme and irrational point
01:23:14that he had not turned back
01:23:17Some believe that his fanaticism has surpassed him and others that he has simply gone nuts
01:23:23Once again, Robespierre focuses his suspicions on those who are close to him
01:23:28On June 27, now on June 9, he appears at the convention and gives a speech full of threats
01:23:37It will be the last speech he gives
01:23:42Robespierre makes a mistake
01:23:44He announces that he has a new list of enemies of the Republic, but he does not want to give it
01:23:49Everyone is afraid to be in it
01:23:51and when the next day he decides to make it public, he is arrested before he can speak
01:23:58An improvised choir of voices shouts to Robespierre
01:24:02He looks at them in silence
01:24:06The deputies accuse him of rebellion and immediately remove him from the convention
01:24:12Robespierre and several of his allies are taken to the town hall, where they remain watched during the night
01:24:20Early in the morning, shots are heard and the guards run to the second floor
01:24:25They open the doors and find a creepy scene
01:24:30One of Robespierre's allies has jumped out of a window
01:24:35Another has shot himself in the head
01:24:38And Robespierre is found semi-unconscious, with a bullet wound to the face and the jaw destroyed by an alleged suicide attempt
01:24:50Robespierre spends his last hours of life at the table of the Public Security Committee
01:24:55In the same room, from where he had led the terror to its dreadful and bloody end
01:25:03While he is ridiculed and insulted by his former allies, Robespierre is unable to respond
01:25:10The great master of the oratory has been silenced
01:25:17In the Conciergerie, where the last Queen of France had preceded him, Robespierre prepares for the blade of the national blade
01:25:26His cellmate, the revolutionary Saint Just, points out a drawing of the rights of men and the citizen
01:25:33And declares, at least we did that
01:25:39Robespierre led the revolution and changed the structure of France
01:25:44He established a new order of society and established a bloody and tyrannical system to ensure success
01:25:51But it was destined to be one of the last victims of this system
01:25:59It turns out that people really want to end the terror, but nobody knows how to do it
01:26:05The only thing that can end the terror, and it seems that everyone agrees, is the fall of Robespierre
01:26:12On July 27, 1794, the guillotine ends the incorruptible
01:26:21And the last blood of terror is spilled
01:26:27Terror dies with Robespierre, but the revolution does not
01:26:32The rights of man, democracy, the new republic
01:26:36The achievements of the revolution will survive more than any of the revolutionaries themselves
01:26:44France will enter a period of uncertainty, paralyzed by fear of another terror, or even something worse
01:26:51The return to the past oppressive monarchy
01:26:56Five years of stagnation will pass, until, once again, the power is consolidated in the hands of a new power
01:27:02Napoleon Bonaparte
01:27:06Historians do not agree on when the revolution ended
01:27:11Some believe that it ended with the rise to the power of Napoleon
01:27:16Others maintain that the revolution continued until the 19th century and even beyond
01:27:21The French Revolution is a time when people take for the first time the reins of their own destiny
01:27:27The idea that the subjects of the oldest, most prestigious, and most powerful monarchy in Europe, could rewrite their history
01:27:37It was something that had an incredible resonance
01:27:43The revolution destroyed the old feudal Europe, and changed forever the course of history
01:27:50With the French Revolution many questions arise
01:27:54How much violence is justified to achieve a better society?
01:27:58Do people have the right to end what they consider unfair to replace it
01:28:03so they are convinced in their hearts that it is a fairer system?
01:28:08How much violence is justified to end the tyranny of the old monarchy?
01:28:13Do people have the right to end the tyranny of the old monarchy?
01:28:17How much violence is justified to be able to carry it out?
01:28:21Even today we ask ourselves all this.
01:28:26When Robespierre and his allies were busy leading their country to the future,
01:28:30many of them should have wondered what the final result would be.
01:28:35More than 200 years after the birth of the French Republic,
01:28:39the ghost of Robespierre is still present in the revolutions.
01:28:44From Russia to Vietnam. From China to Latin America.
01:28:49The French experiments with democracy have inspired the models of the whole world.
01:28:54Wherever there is a tyranny, the cry for justice will last forever.
01:29:00Freedom, equality, fraternity.
01:29:04For the revolution.
01:29:13For the revolution.
01:29:15For the revolution.
01:29:17For the revolution.
01:29:19For the revolution.
01:29:21For the revolution.
01:29:23For the revolution.
01:29:25For the revolution.
01:29:27For the revolution.
01:29:43For the revolution.