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The Rest Is History: Revolutions

The Rest Is History

What drove the outbreak of the French Revolution - one of the most dramatic, violent, and significant events in all world history? Was this a heroic fight for liberty, or a rampaging bloodbath? And, how did events escalate from the invention of the guillotine, an execution of a king, and the rebirth of a nation? Join Tom and Dominic as they tell the stories behind the revolutions that transformed the world as we know it, and the forces - whether military, political, religious, or social - that drove them.

  1. EPISODE 1

    The French Revolution: Marie Antoinette (Part 1)

    The French Revolution is one of the great seismic events of global history. A devouring conflagration of bloodshed, violence and utopianism, it changed France and then latterly the whole of Europe forever. Yet, amidst the panoply of colossal, colourful names that defined this cataclysmic event, few have endured as iconically as that of Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France, who has in many ways come to embody the revolution in the popular imagination. Yet, from the moment of her arrival from Austria at the tender age of fifteen, Marie Antoinette was a contentious figure in France, with rumours circulating throughout her life of her insatiable sexual appetite and frivolity, her sapphic proclivities, and even her vampirism. But who was the real Marie Antoinette - voraciously decadent 'it' girl and snob or a well-meaning but naive scapegoat? Under what circumstances did she come to marry the Dauphin, the future Louis XVI, and to what extent did she truly spark the French Revolution, with her calls to “let them eat cake!”?  Join Tom and Dominic for the first instalment of their magnificent sweep through the outbreak and first years of the French Revolution, as they discuss the early life and character of one of its most celebrated and lambasted figures - an icon of style, a beacon of whimsical, bucolic giddiness, a rapacious monster - Marie Antoinette.

    53 min

  2. EPISODE 2 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    The French Revolution: The Diamond Necklace Scandal (Part 2)

    In August 1785 a shocking affair came to light which would prove so detrimental to the reputation and standing of the French King Louis XVI, and more especially his already unpopular wife, Queen Marie Antoinette, that it would become a decisive moment in the rising tide of the French Revolution. It concerned a gaudy but incalculably expensive diamond necklace commissioned by Louis XV for his mistress, Madame du Barry. Embroiled in the affair was a young prostitute by the name of Nicole Le Guay d’Oiva with an uncanny resemblance to the Queen, a naive Cardinal named Louis-René de Rohan, desperate to return to Marie Antoinette’s good graces, an aristocratic confidence trickster, Jeanne de la Motte, and a Freemason occultist, Alessandro Cagliostro. The web of lies and deceptions that they wove - in many ways capitalising upon the simmering tensions of court life at Versailles - and the scandal that subsequently erupted, would inflame the entire nation. Join Tom and Dominic as they divulge, gem by glittering, salacious gem, the twists and turns of the famous Affair of the Diamond Necklace. An intrigue of such devilish guile and duplicity, with so colourful a cast of characters, that it near bellies belief. But also, with repercussions for the French monarchy that would destabilise it forever…

    49 min

  3. EPISODE 3 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    The French Revolution: The Violence Begins (Part 3)

    With seismic antecedents such as the Glorious Revolution in England and the American War of Independence, what was it about the French Revolution that saw it become arguably the most important episode in all early modern political history? And what unique combination of factors converged to unleash this colossal, world-shaking event; the paradigmatic example of a people trying to reshape their society? By the start of the 18th century, France was the largest kingdom in continental Europe, and a powerhouse of agriculture, trade, and military might. But it was also a multilayered and very complex machine, still heavily founded in its ancient hierarchies and the dominion of the ancien régime. The King, Louis XVI, though in no way despotic and in some ways an enlightened man, did not have the strength to fix the creaking system he had inherited. And while the 18th century was an age of enormous dynamism, energy and modernity into which a new discourse of the self had been born, it was also a time of terrible violence in France, long before the revolution. The nation had also been running up stratospheric debts ever since the 1720s, and the poverty of the monarchy - the plight of every 18th century monarch - was exacerbated by its efforts to fund the American War against the British. Finally, the unravelling situation came to a head when, in 1786, Louis XVI was confronted with the news that the looming financial abyss had finally engulfed France, triggering a series of events that, from 1787, would unleash the doom-spiral of the revolution, and lead to his eventual overthrow… Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss the causes behind the French Revolution. From the innovative, enlightened culture of 18th century France, set beside its enduringly hierarchical and deeply violent society, the amiable but feeble Louis XVI with his clueless finance ministers, to the American Revolution, financial cataclysms, and angry mobs.

    57 min

  4. EPISODE 4 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    The French Revolution: Showdown in Versailles (Part 4)

    In the summer of 1788, a monstrous storm swept across France, wiping out the crucial wheat harvest. With the nation already in the throes of political and financial calamity, this meteorological disaster - followed by an apocalyptic drought, and latterly the cruellest winter France had ever known - exacerbated the growing sense of catastrophe. With bankruptcy declared that August and unemployment record high, all eyes turned to Jacques Necker, the newly appointed finance minister. However, the amalgamation of political and financial crisis, the cultural atmosphere of virtue and passion, and the rising social unrest had already contrived to destabilise the situation permanently. By March there was food rioting, law and order had broken down in the countryside, and in April the bloodiest day of the revolution so far erupted in Paris. At last, in June, the Estates General met for the first time since 1614-15, and the mounting pressure to replace the traditional Three Estates with a single assembly resolved itself into the formation of the National Assembly; a body determined to take the fate of the nation into its own hands. With the elements gathering against them, what will Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette do? Join Dominic and Tom as they recount the dramatic series of calamities that unravelled the nation and spiralled into the infamous Tennis Court Oath of June 1789, and the Revolution itself. From natural disasters and bread riots, and financial ruin, to political instability, Dr Guillotin, and disreputable republican firebrands….

    1hr 5min

  5. EPISODE 5 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    The French Revolution: The Storming of the Bastille (Part 5)

    “It was violence that made the revolution revolutionary”. The storming of the Bastille is viewed by many across the world as a moment of celebration, when the French people were liberated from the shackles of tyranny and royal despotism. Yet, it was also a moment of horrific violence and chaos, culminating in countless acts of blunt, bloody murder. With a widespread sense of social unrest throughout France at the beginning of July 1789, things finally reached a peak following the King’s dismissal of his finance minister, Necker, a great favourite of the people. The arrival of 20,000 troops into Paris to maintain order triggered even greater panic in the streets, with the already febrile atmosphere being whipped into a frenzy by firebrand orators. Finally, with fighting breaking out between the soldiers and the mob in the Vendome, and then spilling over into the Tuileries Gardens, the Royal Commander of Paris gave the order to evacuate the city entirely, leaving it in the hands of the rioters. It was then that the mob, in a final desperate effort to procure gunpowder for its plundered weapons, turned its sites on the Bastille, the ultimate monument to repression … Join Dominic and Tom as they discuss the apocalyptic Storming of the Bastille fortress, and the truth behind the prison's famously grotesque reputation. Given the gory events that unfolded on that momentous day, was violence innate to the French Revolution from the very beginning - its driving force - and its bloody denouement therefor inevitable?

    56 min

  6. EPISODE 6 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    The French Revolution: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (Part 6)

    Alongside violence, the French Revolution is a story of principles and values. It is the ultimate intersection of brutality and Enlightenment idealism, as epitomised by the Fall of the Bastille. So too the creation and implementation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man - a totemic manifesto for the French state, which seemingly embodied a shockingly overt rupture from the past. Not only one of the decisive moments of the French Revolution, the declaration would prove transformative for all world history, and galvanised France as the cradle of of modern nationalism.  So, just as the walls of the Bastille were abolished, the words of the document tore down something just as old and once impenetrable: the taint of absolutism, handing sovereignty from the king to the nation. By the 4th of August 1789 this amorphous beast was gripped by a great hysterical, almost paranoid passion, and it was amidst this turmoil that the French Assemblée Constituante voted unanimously to abolish feudalism, in one fell swoop eliminating everything that had come before. What would this consciously manufactured new beginning hold in store for Revolutionary France, or was it merely a bombastic continuation of the past?  Join Tom and Dominic as they discuss the groundbreaking ideas behind the French Revolution, along with the deep history of the ideals its enshrined. So too the stories behind some of its most famous iconography, and the long-term repercussions of this transformative upheaval for the modern world.

    55 min

  7. EPISODE 7 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    The French Revolution: The Women's March on Versailles (Part 7)

    By the summer of 1789 the different sections of the Revolution were at loggerheads, and the recently created National Assembly riven in two. Both factions, the radicals on the left and the more moderate revolutionaries on the right, upheld different interpretations of how the new system of governance, so firmly rooted in the idea of ‘la nation’, should be organised, particularly as concerned the authority of the King and the power of his veto. Tensions mounted, with many opposed to the idea of even a constitutional monarchy, and disgusted by the National Assembly’s willingness to treat with Louis XVI. None more so than the citizens of Paris, who progressively came to embody an amorphous but growing sense of ‘the people’. By July, there was a widespread feeling that some sort of violence would inevitably break out in the city against the royal family, thanks in part to the rising bread prices. The form it took in October of that year would prove more dramatic than any could have foreseen. After a lavish banquet in Versailles, an outcry began building in the marketplaces of Paris, with a swelling contingent of peasant women decrying the hunger of their children, and blaming it upon the Queen and the vampires of the court. Then, in a move that would change the fate of France and particularly Marie Antoinette forever, the army of women marched on and entered the palace… Join Tom and Dominic as they describe one of the most terrifying and savage events of the entire French Revolution: the Women’s March on Versailles, which saw the queen - barefoot and sobbing - hostage to a head-hacking mob that clamoured for her entrails.

    55 min

  8. EPISODE 8 • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    The French Revolution: The Royal Family Escapes (Part 8)

    Twelve months after the dramatic Women’s March on Versailles, the Revolution proper was well into its stride, and while Paris overflowed with a sense of unbridled political freedom, the King and Queen were little more than prisoners in their echoing palace. For the past year Louis XVI had feigned cooperation with the National Assembly, all the while torn by his profound Catholicism and frozen by indecision about how to overcome his predicament. Then at last, following a traumatic experience over the easter of 1791, something changed and the contingency plan formulated several months earlier, was put into action. With the help of a disguised Axen Von Fersen, the royal couple and their children would flee to Belgium in an enormously ostentatious carriage. The date for their escape was set for the 20th of June, but before leaving Louis poured his hatred of the revolution into a letter, which if found would surely spell his political doom…that night the royal family, replete with accomplices, deceptions and disguises, set their audacious plan into action. What ensued was a heart-racing cat-and-mouse thriller of near misses, foolhardy naivety and extraordinary encounters, with appalling consequences… Join Dominic and Tom for the thrilling conclusion to their astounding series on the early years of the French Revolution. With the King and Queen of France on the run from the nightmare their lives have become, will they make it across the border to freedom? Or, will they get caught and devoured by the ravenous hoards of the Revolution?

    1hr 2min
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What drove the outbreak of the French Revolution - one of the most dramatic, violent, and significant events in all world history? Was this a heroic fight for liberty, or a rampaging bloodbath? And, how did events escalate from the invention of the guillotine, an execution of a king, and the rebirth of a nation? Join Tom and Dominic as they tell the stories behind the revolutions that transformed the world as we know it, and the forces - whether military, political, religious, or social - that drove them.

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