1789 : RéVOluTION FrANçAISe

That year, 1789, opened a weird period, and it was the moment when the 'eruption', as Victor Hugo called it, broke out.
Almost right from the beginning, Paris was on the stage ; already ready to take matters in its hand.
"Les Etats Généraux" were being held at Versailles, two hours away from Paris. People were coming and going, to carry the news, between the two cities. Most often, the news arrived in Paris at the Palais Royal.

<- Camille Desmoulins in the garden of the Palais Royal, July 1789, probably proclaiming : "Fetch you weapons, Citizens!"

In fact, the dear people of Paris was excited : lack of food (the bread was scarce, women had to queue outside bakeries...), add to this the dismissal of Necker, and the slow arrival of soldiers around the city (30,000).

A demonstration turned into a riot, and the 13th of July, looting and anarchy took over the city. Everyone knows about the "Prise de la Bastille", on the 14th. Heads were brandished on pikes...

The deputies of the Etats Généraux were overwhelmed. They had no control on the 'volcano'.

But the Révolution really began on the 4th of August, when they voted the destruction of the ancient feudal society. And this was done mostly to calm the people, who even outside Paris had begun to burn castles and such.

21-26 August 1789 : LA DEcLARATion DES DRoitS de l'HOmmE et dU CItoYen.

I always wonder what life was like in Paris between 1789 and 1799. Crazy, frightened, bloody, savage, boiling with ideas, symbols and flags, and noisy with the sounds of busy guillotines. 1 119 persons had a "headcut" place de la Concorde. Patriotic. Clubs were blooming like mad. You can bet the streets were full of sans culottes.

My favorite newspaper from that time is Le père Duchesne, created by Hébert. If that newspaper tattled that you were against the republic, you were very likely to have a headcut, or rather, "try the tie of Capet" (Capet being Louis XVI name) - essayer la cravate à Capet-. Hébert called the guillotine : the national razor! (le rasoir national).