A Historian Reacts - French Revolution by Oversimplified (Part 1)

welcome back everyone to another reaction video this is one that everybody's been asking for so here we go oversimplified french revolution it's a two-part series so we'll react to each part in a different video i want to give a big shout out and a big thank you to our now 71 patrons through patreon uh every dollar that is raised through the support that is given on patreon is going directly into my fund that i use to travel to historic sites to be able to bring you more original content and so i thank everyone of you who are part of that in return there are a number of different perks that are available uh there are some different levels of merch that automatically go out to you that are sent out by patreon when you've been a patron for three months also from time to time i post uh some raw footage from some of my historic site videos before those go live usually you get to see those a couple weeks before the videos go up and also i post polls from time to time asking for input on what the next video or series should be and there's one up right now for all patrons at every level uh to ask which should be my next reaction series and there are three choices one is epic history tvs series on the napoleonic wars i am hoping to be able to do that because that gets asked for a lot the last time i did one of their videos they filed a copyright strike against me so i'm hoping the change in format with making it smaller and things like that will prevent that the other choices are extra histories great northern war or teddy roosevelt trust buster so those are the three series i'm looking to do whatever the patrons vote on is what i will do next after we're done with this oversimplified series over the next couple of days so we're going to dive right into it don't forget check the link in the description below to take you over to the original content if you haven't seen it already and don't forget to hit like on this video subscribe if you're new to the channel hope you like what you see look around a little bit join us over on discord to continue the conversation let's dive in [Laughter] wow that marie antoinette sure is pretty sure is wouldn't want to be prince louis though that's going to be a lot of responsibility when he becomes king especially since france is in financial ruin quite thank you one and all for attending the royal marriage of my grandson the future king of france to the archduchess of austria so it's it's kind of a fascinating time in france because louis the 15th he's the grandfather of louis the 16th and louis the 15th had succeeded his great grandfather louis xiv and so you have a number of generations getting skipped because you have these rulers who come to the throne very young live for a long time end up outliving children and sometimes grandchildren in coming to the throne so but it's kind of been a decline in terms of the the quality of the leadership i guess you could say going back to louis xiv who is remembered as the sun king and and remembers one of france's all-time great rulers uh by the time you get to louis the 16th that's gone downhill a lot but unlike in england at this time where they're starting to have a constitutional monarchy where the monarch has less and less power and more and more of that's going to parliament in france it's still an absolute monarchy now for the very awkward yet historically accurate part of the ceremony where we all watch them get into bed together and this wasn't unique to france this was a pretty common thing across all of the royal houses in europe and i don't know how far back that goes or how often it happened but i know it happened in england sometimes happened in other countries as well and they didn't necessarily watch them having sex but they were kind of present for the whole betting part and so you know it's just a really weird thing in hindsight but at the time i guess it made sense all right now that's out of the way let's lead the royal couple to it you better give us an air you fat ill bread boy nighty night that's going to be a lot of responsibility france is in financial ruin you fat ill-bred boy quite that's going to be a lot of responsibility francis and financially ruined that oh great he's a freaking weirdo [Music] 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 they're only eighty 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 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 so what happens often in history is that you have a group of people whether large or small who don't realize the power they have and that's the way that the people who do have the power want to keep it they want to keep it so that people don't understand what power and influence they have because if the if that powerful group figures out that they have that power they'll wield it and that's what the french revolution ends up being about this is about a group of people that have been oppressed for centuries figuring out that they really have the power and when they take it they don't really know what to do with it and it gets out of hand and unlike you know here in the united states we learn about our revolution which while it had some ugly moments was by and large as far as revolutions go pretty tame uh you know it was fought on the battlefield but it was largely contained to the battlefield there were some instances where that wasn't the case but that's not typically how revolutions go and france is much more in line with how revolutions typically end up that's just how society works and we've all just accepted it for centuries 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 hell 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 is this the the guy from the memes i don't know who that is but he's in the memes all the time isn't he i just recognized that picture from somewhere wow that's very enlightened of you and so began the age of enlightenment great philosophical thinkers across france and beyond began to question whether this beautiful nation was really all that beautiful after all hey prince louis bad news your grandpa died at smallpox this morning which means good news you're now the king so just to sum up france 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 so louie i think is like 20 years old when he comes to the throne and it is true that france is in a very difficult situation when he takes the throne so uh you can at least acknowledge that that louis was not inheriting something that was great and then it fell apart under his reign it was already falling apart but he made it worse mostly by his inaction there's actually a lot of parallels to be seen between louis xvi and czar nicholas ii in terms of the aloofness of the monarch while things are crumbling around them oh no prince louis cappe became king louis the 16th 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 louis 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 yep 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 you gotta go now chum best of luck to you don't know yeah we the american uh nation after independence definitely did not do france any favors we should acknowledge that and it's an interesting thing when you consider that an absolute monarchy joins on the side of a country fighting to be a republic against another monarchy and you have to think that i don't know how much this got publicized in france to the that 80 percent uh but you have to think that when they hear about the americans getting their independence this has to only cause them to think even more about what they can do in their own country and of course one of the you know key figures in all of this is marquita lafayette who is one of george washington's most trusted major generals he uh division commander uh in the uh in the army uh the continental army and uh he comes back to france and gets heavily involved in the revolution although he tries to stay out of it uh thomas jefferson's there at the time as the uh diplomat from the united states and he and uh lafayette uh worked together to draft a declaration of rights uh lafayette's uh why his wife's sister mother and grandmother all went to the guillotine during the french revolution and the aftermath and now france was in even more debt france's poor suffering under the strain of economic ruin watched as the 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 a boat and her lavish spending earned her the nickname madame 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 i think they ended up having four children though i believe that a couple of them died young uh the one ended up i guess nominally being louis the 17th though he didn't really ever have power but then his line kind of died out after that respect for the monarchy was at an all-time low as france's 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 uh i mean tax 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 ears um three yep there's gonna be a tax 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 sure now think about this they just saw what happened in the united states when some taxes were placed on them by the british government and the taxes the british government placed on the uh american colonies were they made much more sense than the ones that are being placed on the poor of france so what did they think was gonna happen were they that blind uh to what had just happened across the ocean and did they really think it couldn't happen to them too 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 yep okay there's going to be a tax for that oh what's that over there and that's extra sold i held over from last year so i wouldn't have to buy as much this year oh yeah there's a tax for that um and what are you doing with all this salt well obviously cooking on the table yep and preserving fish and meat oh oh no yep 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 that yep salty there's gonna be a tax for that and that's not all a huge portion of the peasant's 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 the 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 explode 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 ruin meaning they had no food or money and the cost of bread skyrocketed of course the upper classes had massive stalks of grain and wheat so they were virtually untouched by this new crisis but now the poor really were starving and and they're going to continue to tax them anyway and so now you've got people who are already oppressed who are already pushed to the edge and now they're going to get pushed to the point where they're not going to take it anymore and again you can see some parallels to this in some other situations with massive changes in governments or throughout history something sends people over the edge where they're starving they're completely without any kind of finances they've got nothing to lose i mean what do you have to lose at that point uh but to try and what's the worst that's gonna happen you're gonna die you're gonna die anyway at this point they began to riot women took to the streets bakeries were raided and bakers suspected of keeping bread for themselves were 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 was the closest thing france had to a government apart from the king it was a purely advisory body and was very it's advisory because unlike uh you know in england where you have a parliament that actually has some authority the estates general doesn't have an authority all they can do is make recommendations to an absolute monarch who makes the final decisions anyway summoned in fact it hadn't been summoned for 175 years prior to this but with france in a severe crisis the king felt that time was 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 well not you 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 [Applause] 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 130 000 so you'll get one vote 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 vote one vote what could go wrong we're 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 poopoo heads all in favor all opposed two to one it's official we are not poo poo heads and again this goes back to the idea of you can keep doing that as long as the third estate doesn't figure out that they have the power and start to wield it and eventually that's going to happen murder state realized that any attempt at reform would be outfitted 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 ha ha 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 oh no the national assembly did find another unlocked building just down the road an indoor tennis court where on the 20th of june 1789 they all took the tennis court oath now here's the problem with the third estate going off and forming their own assembly on their own without the nobility and the clergy the and i i don't i don't want this to be taken the wrong way the vast majority of the educated people in the country are in those first two estates the people who who know history the people who know uh law the people who uh who can read and write and can study things and and most of these peasants while well intentioned don't have that kind of education and most of the people who have been in positions of leadership are in those first two estates and so there's some inherent issues there and again to draw the parallels with the united states revolution the u.s revolution was primarily led by what you could consider to be the aristocracy the uh the landowners the the the wealthy the educated and there are there are problems with that too as we see in the problems that develop in american history with um with voting rights and with property rights and with slavery um coming at it from the other end but there are problems either way when not everyone is involved and in this case a mob taking charge leads to mob rule and you see the result pledging to continue meeting until the king finally gave into 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 maximilian robespierre and georges d'antoni 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 we've talked about this in many other videos about what happens when you govern by fear when you govern by fear it'll work for a little while but eventually it will backfire on you in some way and in this case the governance by fear especially by people like robespierre eventually comes back to bite him 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 just dismissed france's 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 arm 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 14 still in 1789 a large crowd stormed and raided the hotel deonvalid a military 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 and the best deal for that was they knew exactly where to get some a prison fortress and a symbol of royal tyranny towering over paris the bastille mid-morning the crowd gathered around the bastille and demanded that the man in charge governor delaney surrender the prison and hand over the gunpowder obviously governor delaney was like no way so he stalled 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 surrendered the bastille did did that spell received wrong all right being kind of anal here i gotta go back and look at that became impatient and before long they stormed the fortress taking on the french troops inside your majesty we've received yep i before e except after c remember that one kids we've worked that the people have surrendered the bastille governor delaney will hold them off no need to worry actually your majesty it appears the crowd has now headed away from the bastille you see what did i tell you clearly governor delany has defeated about governor delaney no need to worry your majesty isn't that governor delany's head on a pike well clearly governor delaney has taken on the form of a bodiless pike head deity 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'd announce 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 yeah 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 jean-paul mara 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 so yeah here you have france's version of thomas payne who the americans had writing pamphlets that stirred the people to action and encourage them but the difference here is that he's inciting more fear he's saying listen they're going to kill you if they get the chance and so if you are a largely uneducated mass of people who has just gotten their first taste of what they're capable of doing by storming the bastille and getting that victory and you're being warned by someone uh that boy you know this nobility particularly this king if he gets a chance he'll kill you all what are you gonna do of course they're gonna react the way that they do 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 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 yeah despite its glaring shortcomings and gender equality the massively influential declaration would go on to inspire the struggle for liberty and equality across the planet for centuries and i should say about thomas jefferson he was probably much more in support of the violence that was happening than a lot of the other americans would have been jefferson goes home after that in 1789 is when washington has begun his first term as president so jefferson goes home to find out upon arriving in monticello that he has not only been nominated to be the first secretary of state the senate's already voted to approve him so then he heads to new york city to take on his role as secretary of state and jefferson was very pro france uh very pro-revolution and probably in favor of the violence remember this is the guy who said that the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants so he understood that violence was going to be a part of this 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 a 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 seven thousand strong decided they'd do something unprecedented they decided they'd remove 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 their 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 rising 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 so i don't know that the whole let them eat cake thing is something that actually happened or if it's just kind of meant to represent the general attitude that she had i think i've read that that wasn't necessarily a direct quote of something she actually said 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 louis had a problem with people constantly raiding his palace but one thing he didn't have a problem with was people raiding his computer all right so i think that's the end of it he's gonna get into his thing about nordvpn but uh looking forward to part two would love to hear your thoughts about what we've talked about so far use that comment section below please hit like make sure you head over and like the original video as well and we'll see you back here with part two tomorrow thanks for watching

Channel: Vlogging Through History

Views: 526,318

Keywords: french revolution, oversimplified reaction, the french revolution, oversimplified reaction mashup, oversimplified reaction french revolution, king louis, reaction video, french revolution reaction

Id: CexD68Mn2Qg

Length: 28min 45sec (1725 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 28 2021