The fallout of the French Revolution

Many years ago I remember scrawling notes on the French Revolution that shook Europe. Of course the contents dripped from the dry notes of the history teacher while ink dripped from our G nibbed pens. Fountain pens were a rarity then that only a very affluent student owned them. But these are absurdly trite facts against a mammoth movement that fashioned the modern political world.

Many characters move in and out of this calamitous event while the figure of Marie Antoinette glues in our mind perhaps due to her femininity. Yet, we frothed when the teacher dealt emphatically with her famous quote that was delivered on the balcony of the Palace of Versailles to the starving masses below.

"If you do not have bread, eat cake!"

How heartless of her! But having had the good fortune to read on this topic some 65 years later. I found out that Marie Antoinette never said it. It is actually a quote from Rousseau's Confessions where he has cited an earlier princess when addressing a bread-less crowd that sprang from time to time in this enigmatic country under the ancient regime.

Here is more surprising stuff. The young queen is not French but an Austrian belonging to the royal family of Austria. In fact, her brother ruled Austria at the time. She had been only 14 when she married the king of France, Louis the XVI who made "murderous history" by introducing the guillotine.

In less tumultuous times he would have just gone on reigning for he was harmless. In fact, his pastimes had been hunting and puttering with locks or woodworking or gorging and guzzling at the table. He had even the leisure to tabulate hunted animals in his diary.

Unfit

But of course he suffered from a trait very unfit for a ruler. He was not alert and he did not care about things that happened around. In fact on the day the Bastille, home for political prisoners fell, he had been working on a door lock and when asked whether he was aware of the incident had nonchalantly replied, "I know nothing". A critic described him not as a tyrant but as a 'pussy cat'. Of course, he was born in bad times when France was gradually plummeting to economic doldrums due not only to bad harvests but also to the draining of money from French coffers to subscribe to the American Revolution. The connection between the two revolutions that whirled around the catchwords of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity has actually been underplayed in history and we will get back to poor or fabulously rich Marie Antoinette. The general consensus in France about the king was 'that he did not do his job well'.

Adding to all the ingredients in the dish was the frivolous Austrian princess.

She was so distanced from the suffering peasant masses of France and came from an exotic regal background coming from one European palace to another palace, that was the optimum in extravagance. The palace had been built 12 miles away from the mega city by her husband's predecessor, Louis XIV to get the royal family away from the Parisian mob. But years later the mob had invaded the palace by getting in via a side entrance.

The wedding bills were still being paid when the Great Revolution that shaped world history began. But it is to her discredit that within that short time she had made herself highly unpopular. In fact, a critic said "no queen of France made herself so disliked in such a brief time".

Her attempt to flee France at the height of the turmoil makes pathetic reading. Her intended refuge was Austria. She and Louis were trying to flee in disguise as servants and they would have succeeded had not an observant post master located the likeness of the king's face to an emblem on a postal conveyance that displayed royal insignia. They were brought back for their ordained tryst with the executioner. Louis XVI had pleaded that no one shall suffer on account of his death. That was the extent to which he had humbled himself now that he realised the utter mess he was in. Marie Antoinette rivalled him in her humility while close to death. She apologised to the executioner for treading on his toes.

Destruction

The high water mark of the Great Revolution of 1789 was the destruction of Bastille that housed political prisoners. A historian said, "It is late on the eve of July 14 and all over France people are celebrating the day that they consider as their day of independence, which many countries regard as the day that saw the birth pangs of modern democracy".

While on a visit to France as the tourist guide was going on singing the glories of the elegant Eiffel Tower before which we stood in pouring rain, I asked her whether we could see the Bastille.

"No", she said. "It was destroyed so many years ago". She gave me a withering look as much as to say, "you ignoramus, didn't you know even that?" To this day I do not know the true facts.'Here in the Place de La Bastille, stones embedded in the pavement outline where the hulking fortress stood on the edge of the Faubourg Saint Antoine. In 1789 it was the most impoverished and tenemented quarter in the city and was home to a floating population of that land, then the most populous country in Europe".

Atmosphere

The Bastille also served as a store house of powder in that warren of evil in that rebellious atmosphere of Paris where about 30,000 prostitutes too had their field day. The tension of the situation escalated by irresponsible statements as that of a textile manufacturer who said that anyone could live on 15 sous a day when an average man's daily four pound loaf of bread cost half that. By the end of the afternoon of July 14 the fortress was in the hands of rebels. Anti-climax followed when Bastille was finally bombarded and political prisoners set free.

How many were there? Countless for the seeds of rebellion had been sowing for a very long time.

"There were only seven prisoners". These included four forgers, two lunatics, and a debauched count imprisoned at his family's request. Perhaps in the pre-revolutionary days spiced with much chaos and unrest the rest had fled! But the fall of Bastille continues to be celebrated as the Independence Day of France.