Manmohan Singh as Jacque Necker – our man on the inside.

French
Finance minister under Louis XVI

On July 15, 1789, as commoners joined with the revolutionaries to pick

up arms and storm the Bastille, Louis XVI wrote in his diary – nothing.

Marat’s paper. Professional malcontent.

The Fishwomen of France. October 5 , 1789

Louis makes a ru

June 21, 1791 – Louis XVI

War against Austria

August 10, 1792 – Duke of Brunswick writes his letter warning against
hurting the royalty. 27000 armed citizens head to the Tuilerry palace and
attack the King’s guards. Louis is officially stripped of his title. The French
Republic is born.

Robespierre changes his mind on the death penalty.

Sans Cuolottes.

Assembly moderates – Gerondins

On the Streets – Sans Cuolottes – men who won’t were bridges – working
men, as a symbol of their rejection of aristocratic tradition. They were
NOT the poorest of the poor. NOT ARISTOCRAT is what it mean. Seized
control of Paris CITY GOVERNMENT.

Jacobins and Gerondins fought it out in the NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.

Now called THE CONVENTION. Struggling with the beleagured French
army that is losing ground to Austria and Prussia

Meanwhile, the convention cracks down on counter-revolutionaries within,

royalist traitors who might deliver PARIS to the invaders.

Priests, journalists, ordinary citizens – over a 1000 – are jailed.

Robespierre concentrates on internal situation.

Friend and Justice Miinister George Danton motivates people to join the
war.

Danton is larger than life and becomes popular. Robespierre had been
reluctant to go to war. Now in the war, Danton manages to rally the people.
Boldness, more boldness, forever boldness.

But with most men on the front, and prisons bursting with political
prisoners, there is a fear that the growing mass of prisoners may be
impossible to contain.

Marat the malcontent, puts out a bloodthirst call in his rag of a newspaper
to all revolutionary citizens to descend on the prison and slaughter all
inside.

Thinking also was – what happens of invading armies met up with the
prisoners? Results would have been horrific from the standpoint of the
people. [ I think that’s fear mongering].

Sept 1992- Prussia takes Verdun

The San Cuolottes break into prisons and start assualting prisoners. More
than 1600 are left dead in a matter of days. Women are raped. Priests
disembowelled, aristocrats beheaded.

This is called the SEPTEMBER MASSACRES

Are these the Rights of Man?

Even Robespierre understands that things have gone too far. People can’t
manage the revolution on their own.

He rises to guide the revolution.

Robespierre had once pushed for a constitutional monarchy. Now he

decides to put his own king on trial.
Verdict is a foregone conclusion. So the only debate is punishment.

Moderates (Girondin) ask that Louis life be spared. [ They are isolated]

Jacobins want him killed. Robespierre says “You have to kill the king so
that the revolution can live.”

Any system that has ever lived, there is only penalty for treason – and
that is death [ how true for even today]

Jan 20 1793 – Louis XVI declared guilty

Jan 20, 1793 – Guillotined. Speech drowned out by drumbeat.

He’s a taken to his execution in a closed carriage.

Girondins representing people of the country-side want to slow down the

revolution.

Jean Paul Marat calls for the death of 200,000 – now calls for the heads of
the all anti-revolutionaries.

Marat killed by Charlotte Cordette. But she created a martyr.

October 15, 1793 – Marie Antoinette is put on trial. Among other things,
she accused of incest with her child. She opposes this. The women
respond. They all feel as if they were implicated.

She’s taken to her execution in an open wagon.

[ At least the guillotine treats them equally]

ON THE COUNTLESS EXECUTIONS

Revolutions cannot be made on rosewater – Danton

War continues meanwhile. Fear of counter-revolutionaries continues/

Danton and Robespierre call for a new enforcement of liberty. “Make
Terror the order of the day.”

NEW CHAPTER – THE TERROR – SUSPENSION OF THE

CONSTITUTION

It was supposed to be a reign of terror for counter-revolutionaries

If you said madame instead of citizens
If you said a kind word about the nobility
Police spies
Neighbours denounced neighbours
Turned in for complaining about high price of food
Turned in for not being enthusiastic

Committee of Public Safety looked at all the cases – headed by

Robespierre

From being a passionate opponent of death penalty and cencorship, he

becomes a fierce proponent.

Stays quite about de-christianisation.

Christian Calendar is changed to Year 1. July becomes Thermidor.

In Vonday 100,000 ‘counter-revolutionaries’ are killed.

On the front though, Napolean defeats the British at toulone.

Feb 5 1794 – the speech on civic virtue

Terror is an instrument for creating virtue says Robespierre. It is his

Republic of Virtue.

But Danton has had enough. Wants new footing.

Danton is executed for treason.

Executions rise to about 800 per month.

June 6, 1794 – Guillotine hangs silent – Festival of the Supreme Being.
The Goddess of Reason.

[He’s gone nut]

June 27th 1794 (9th of Thermidor) – Speech of Threats

Announces a list but doesn’t announce a list so everyone is threatened.

Next day when he comes, all the deputies shut him down.

July 27th 1794 – Robespierre becomes the last victim of the Guillotine.

Riot, revolt, revolutionaries

The fact that people are reacting to no riots

The instinct to curb revolts and stop them from turning into revolutions

October 5 1795 crowds ran through the streets wanting to re-establish the
monarchy

The battle at lone? The fight across the bridge when Napolean got named
the little corporal and perhaps set his sights on empire. When he knew he
had a destiny

May 5 1796 Napolean leads his victorious army into Milan, Italy, after
defeating the Austrians. Sets up a provisional Italian govt. “

Great men become great because they are able to master luck” Napolean
said.

What the vulguar call luck, is a characteristic of genius.

He’s a shrewed propagandist. So after every victory, he orders a paining,

dictates the theme, the layout the characters and the dimensions of the
fame. He created his own history. He even created his own newspapers. He
himself wrotes – Bunoaparte rides like lightening and fights like a
thunderbolt.

He started sending Italian art to France and sacking villages that resisted
him. Italians began to doubt his “liberty” motives.

By xxx he made it across the Alps to Austria, only a few hundred miles
away from Vienna.

The Austrian Emperor sued for peace. Buonaparte himself negotiated the
peace.

This is 1797, at the end of which Napolean returns to Paris with European
peace from all sides except Britain.

The government at this time was THE DIRECTORY

1798 – NB goes to Egypt to disrupt British route to India

He captured Alexandria and marched to Cairo

Defeated the Mammaluks (?) in less than 2 hours.

British General Horatio Nelson caught the Frrench fleat parked off Egypt
and blew it to pieces. NB and 35,000 French soldiers were trapped in
Egypt

Marooned here, he let loose his mathematicians and scientists on studing

egypt who measured and documented everything. The Rosetta stone was
discovered by them.

On Aug 3 1799 – He abandons his soldiers and secretly makes way to

France.

On Oct 9, 1799 he landed in France as a hero. The Egypt campaign was a

military disaster but a PR success.
 His genius, when he comes to France, is to say, “You need a savior, here I
am.”

The French people believed Napolean was destined to do great things.

In all the engravings you see the 2 frigates that brought Napolean to
France and a star with B written on it.

By October 16th Napolean was in Paris. First he would settle with

Josephine. [ She gives up her lovers, he takes up a few].

In less than a week NB sees it’s time to act. The Directory is about to be
swept aside.

The debt from 8 long years of war is mounting. Draft evasion is rampant.
Bandits roam the highways in the countryside. The government seems
powerless.

Already, there are schemes to overthrow it. As the crisis ripened NB

determined to find a way to sieze power for himself.

NB allied himself with a member of the directory, Emmanuel Siez who

needed the support of a popular general.

He plans a “parliamentary coup,” a “political coup.”

Siez is incharge and force will only be used if something goes wrong.
Buonapart is only supposed to have a supporting role.

The premise is parliament will vote itself out. Vote in a provisional

government that will draft a new constitution.

For the coup to be legitimate, shots should not be fired And NB banked on
the help of his brother Lucien who had been elected president of the lower
house on the basis of his brother’s popularity.

[when did they get a lower and upper house and what was the problem
with the constitution?]
But Lucien is unable to persuade the counsel. Instead, the opposition
insists on reknewing the oath to the constitution. They do.

Plotters are getting agitated outside, including NB.

NB enters the legislative house. Encounters rage because NB is NOT

ALLOWED to enter the legislature. They should OUTLAW him.

NB is hustled out and is shaken by this. He should not have gone in.
His own soldiers begin to doubt their generals’ intentions. NB is shaken.
Lucien takes a sword and runs to NB and says if Napolean planned to take
over the legislature, I’d run him through. stab him. [

The soldiers storm the assembly hall. The cowed legislatures fled. Some
jumping through the Assembly windows.

At 2 am, a small rump of the council in league with the plotters reassemble
and voted into law a new provisional government with 3 provisional
consuls at its head. Buonapart was one of them.

This triumvarate is only a facade. The parliamentary coup had become a

military coup. And the strongman is no longer Sieene, it is Bunoaparte.

Within weeks Buonaparte outmanoevered the other 2 consuls, rewrote the

constitution and made himself head of state under the title First Consul.

As the year 1800 began, Napolean Bunaparte, 30 years old, was hte most
powerful man in France.

“The revolution, is over. I am the revolution. “ NB

France was still fighting GB and Austria. In the spring of 1800 he took
French Soldiers over the Alps. 40,000 men and field artillery through the
Carthiginian pass [ first ever since Hannibal] 10,500 feet high.

June 14, 1800 he faced the Austrians and won with only 6000 dead.
Double the lossses on the Austrian side. Early 1801 the Emperor signed a
treaty again. !
At 33 NB became First Consul for life. Constitution amended.

He promises to protect to gains of the revolution.

Social, political and economic reforms passed. Centralized govt. Central

Bank. Education reform. Bureaucracy. Economy revived. Europe in awe.
Hegel, Byron, Beethoven – saw in NB the embodiment of the ideals of
revolution.

Oversaw the codification of a new system of laws that abolished feudal

priveleges and established the equality of every man before the law. NB’s
civil code remains the basis of French law to this day.

In 1801, signed an agreement with the pope, the concordant, making

Catholicism the dominanat but not exclusive religion of France. He had no
personal use for religion but understood its political value.

“If I governed a nation of Jews, I should restore the Temple of Solomon,”

he said. “Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quite.”

He used the carrot and the stick.

To reward accomplishment he created the Legion of Honor.

“My motto has always been a career open to all talents without distinctions
of birth. A man should have the opportunity to rise on the basis of his
ability.” he said. Just as he had done.

He believed in Equality.

But he had no patience with those who demanded liberty.

“I had been nourished by reflecting on liberty. But I thrust it aside when it

obstructed my path,” NB said.
May 18,1803 – GB declared war on France -- [ Chumma]
Suddenly NB wanted to be king.

Dec 2 1804 – Imperial procession made its way through the streets. A
SENATE proclamation and a vote of the people both carefully managed by
NB had declared him emperror.

In Notre Dame. NB was 35

Inspite of the cold a half million cheering spectators lined the streets. The
pope had been brought from Italy to sancitfy the moment.

Less than 10 years ago the French had beheaded a king. Now they were
crowning an emperor.

“I am an instrument of providence. She will use me as long as gn

accomplish her desinfulfil her designs. Then she will break me like a
glass. “

War with Britain – 2000 Ships and 200,000 soldiers.

Napolean represents the spread of the revolution. He inherits the war with
Austria and Russia from the revolution. He goes to war not only with his
bayonets, but also with his civil code.

His army got to be known as the Grand Army. It would fight for riches, for
Glory for France and for love of its Emperor.

This army HAD fought for the revolution. So in that sense it was a
voluntary army.
NB drove his men hard, but drove himself harder. He could ride for 10
hours at a stretch, eating on his horse. Sleeping in the open or in tents.
Doing paperwork in the night.

The workingman emperor.

Defeated the Austrian army by simply marching into them. 20,000

Austrians surrendered. Nov 14, NB marched into Vienna as representative
of the revolution. But Beethoven by now disliked him.

Beethoven’s 3rd symphony was dedicated to Napolean. He now called him

an ordinary emperror, an ordinary mortal.

November 1805 decides to face the Austrian-Russian force at Austerlitz

Russian forces are commanded by the Tsar himself. Alexander the Ist

Austerlitz defeat of Russia.

1807 peace with Alexander.

He’s now ruling over 70 million p eople. From an artillery lieutenant from
an island few people had heard off.

1808 --- sent 118,000 men over the pyrenees into spain saying liberty and
emancipation from superstition and pain

He thought he would create a revolution.

Spain had defied the blockade of Britain.

On May 2, the Spanish people rose up against the French army killing 150
soldiers. The army retailiated by killing thousands of Spaniards.

Brutality on both sides followed. The word Guerilla war comes from this
time.
Now you see Napolean’s failure of judgement. He keeps his men in Spain
for 5 years.

But Napolean now sees himself as Ceasar and wants a heir to take over his
empire. He divorces Josephine and takes another wife.

April 2, 1810 he marries Marie Louise daughter of the Austrian Emperor

into the Hapsburg family.

In a year he has a son.

He’s 42 now.

In 1811 – war in Spain continued. Britain is still an enemy. Russia is going

back on its blockade.

Napolean decides to invade Russia. An army of 600,000

But the Russians would not give battle. Till Borodino.

Before Borodino 150,000 French soldiers were already out.

Only 93000 returned.

1813 Lost at leipzig

1814 80,000 french against 350,000 allies.

His own Marshals turned against him. He renounced his thrown. Tried to
poison himself but failed.