What Caused the French Revolution? | The Life & Times of Louis XVI 

me when

Balls

I love your snarky-ness and your video's. They are so funny. Can't wait for parts 2 n 3 of this video.

Nice, now cover the other 17 louis'

Please do a Lafayette viedo

Dimitri: Hey you, you're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there.

@@akechijubeimitsuhide i was an adventurer till i took an arrow to the knee

There's no evidence of a surgery or of gaps in Louis XVI's public activities for a secret surgery and recovery to take place. It was that the two didn't sleep in the same part of the palace so Louis would have to walk down a public corridor letting everyone there know what he was about to do which he found embarrassing, that as she grew up Marie became a night owl so she wasn't in her room when Louis wanted to go to sleep for the day and he stopped checking in on her, and that Louis hadn't figured out he needed to actually move during the act and finish inside her until Joseph told him.

Well damn. Poor guy and gal

Poor both of them. History just kinda screwed them over royally. Pun intended.

@@just_radical Marie Antoinette was a night owl? Damn, now relatable. I just thought that was a modern thing. So, that certainly gives me a insight on Marie.

@@jestersareawesome4332 presumably much earlier than today because no lighting everywhere but yeah she would stay up drinking and gambling. Louis's hobbies like hunting required daylight so he would go to sleep sooner.

As the man himself said “You can’t have a revolution without a revolution” and the revolution was by NO MEANS over.

Robespierre was never in charge of France.

@@TheFiresloth then who was in 1793-94

@@defaulter264 The national convention, wich was itself led in majority by the jacobins montagnards. It was a complex system of small parties, but two comitees stood out : the comitee of general safety, wich is the one that effectively did all the guillotine stuff, and the comitee of public salvation, wich was led officiously led by Robespierre and was more concerned about preserving the revolution from internal treasons. For a year, the comitee of public salvation was given predominance. Robespierre was the most influential member of his party, but he never ruled over it and his ideas were disliked by the Marsh and the Plain (the moderates). In Thermidor, he was betrayed by fellow montagnards who wanted to scapegoat him for the excess of the revolution, and brought down by a coalition of politicians from his left and his right.

@@TheFiresloth Seems to me we could do with something similar today!

He was a good person and a competent administrator. He was just very weak willed and that wasn't what the country needed.

Ehhh, he was a decent person but by NO MEANS was he progressive in any sense. He still saw himself as an absolute ruler, hell the previous King of France was the damn Sun King! Louis was not gonna be hopping into any reform plans (willingly) is all I’m saying.

@@michelsand5399 he tried to reform the country. He didn't go the liberal democracy route, but that doesn't mean that he couldn't have fixed the economy and given the people more rights. If anything, having to share power with the nobility is what ruined him.

@@maddermanner7776 eh, far stretch. Austria already had the type of reforms France would have needed to stay afloat and it was by no means liberal. Stability and economic prosperity are not always in line with democratic-liberal minded reform. Hell, they tried introducing free market reform and that got them nothing but more popular resentment.

@@michelsand5399 well, yeah, that was my point. You don´t need to be a liberal to make your country work.

Poor Louis felt that burn in the afterlife.

He's rolling in his grave faster than his head rolled! ;3

STOP! STOP! HE’S ALREADY DEAD!

His head popped off as fast as the revolution did ... OAH HEWL NOH I JUST DINT! Welp, see ya in hell comment section, we're all going there now.

I would say "too soon", but it's been a couple of centuries.

And too agreeable by half to those more than ready to stab him in the back whenever convenient.

'Well, now that I think about, I might have taken the executions a little too far. Just a tiny bit.'

eh, that's rich coming from an infallible absolute monarch who would rather put into his country into even more debt rather than challenge the nobility and church in a meaningful way.

@@michelsand5399 Yeh, but still. There's being an ineffective leader who puts his country into further debt, and then there's being a kill crazy zealot like Robespierre. Apples and (mass murdering) oranges.

@@michelsand5399 Didn't France go through decades of the nobles ruling France after weakening the monarchy when it tried to force it's will on them? By Louis' point of view, really trying to reform and anger the Nobility and the Church would be going up against all the powerful in France alone. And he was a weak willed person to begin with. He was an 'absolute' monarch only in that what he wanted didn't go too far against the nobility. If he was 'absolute' he'd have just demanded the nobles do their job and help fix the economy with their wealth, but he knew he couldn't do that as they'd never go along with it.

@@michelsand5399 he did try

**Louis Proceeds to Die in Episode 1** So my guess is either we’re covering Robespierre and Napoleon in episode 2 and 3, or we’re getting up to some Dimitri Ivanovich shenanigans.

@@InquisitorThomas well, there was a lot if conspiracy theories about him so it is possible

In the end it all came to a head.

Wait I think the first one was hated because she was Catholic but I might be wrong

And yet Catherine the Great, who was German, but loved by the people of Russia and her husband was hated and would end up stealing the throne from her Native Russian husband Basically if you want to stay a monarch get the people, and the army, to love you

@@jonathanjones3516 You're correct. The wives of Charles II and James II were hated for the same reason.

Or maybe just don't be a monarch and don't get in The People's way.

Or maybe the people are pretty terrible in accepting foreign people. I don't see them coming out as the good guys here.

"If you try to make everybody happy,nobody will be happy"-paraphrasing a saying

"It is better to be feared than loved if you cannot do both" - Machiavelli

"Friend of Everyone, Friend of None"

Would that he had had a Klause Schwab to hand, back then!

They were good people, just not very fit or be rulers.

I feel kind of the same way about Tsar Nicolas. Like he was genuinely a nice person, just out of touch. People didn’t like his wife either because she was foreigner (German), so they have that in common.

@@michaelsayavong2656 Tsar Nicholas is a tragedy, he was cheerful and down to earth. He wanted to be remembered as the great warrior king by visiting the frontlines of WWI only to have the court back home ruined.

LOL Jesus fucking christ they literally sold the military secret to the Austrian and ran off despite of having agreed to be the Constitutional Monarch A person is not a fucking playtoy. You can't fucking say someone loved their people when the moment they said they wanted their right,you abandoned and backstabbed them. Hate for being an Austrian? More like hate for being a reactionary traitor.

Sounds like something a commie would made up. Russia is far better under Romanov absolutism than Bolshevik terror.

Then again with people like Robespierre running around it might really be just how long until everything goes tits up, execution start rolling in and Louis getting killed.

@@drunkenthoughts6072 At that point Louis would've already been out of the country

Yeah! Probably

They wouldn't let Louis went to other country. They were afraid he might rally counter revolution while in exile.

LOL people like Robespierre were those who told the Girondist Jacobin to chill the fuck out with the war and the republician like Danton to chill the fuck out with the radicalism like Danton at Champs de Mars massacre

Oh no...

@@mayukhmitra5819 Actually, that same person also ended up getting executed and his son became the King of France in 1830.

@@billcipherproductions1789 I know that. His Son's regal name was Louis Phillippe.Right?

@@mayukhmitra5819 Louis Philippes Father's Name Was Philippe of Orleans, later renamed *Philippe Egalite*

It was actually Louis Egalité (the guy who voted on the death penalty) son, Louis Phillipe who became king.

Sounds right. After all, in the UK to this day the room in Parliament where the Monarch dresses for the State Opening has Charles I's execution order framed in plain view as a reminder.

stories are facts now huh

Somehow, Louis returned

Of course, you have the revolution, the counterrevolution, and the War in the Vendee in which somewhere between a quarter to a little over half of the population of a region was killed for not liking the idea of rule by the majority.

Louis survived just like Dmitri did. I'm just waiting for the alt history video showing how Louis took back his throne with help from the Doctor. Then, he led a revolution to restore the Roman Empire with a French Emperor. C'mon Jack, where's that video?

When Napoleon was defeated, the former king's non-secret younger brother took the throne. And thus, the monarchy was restored, until the French decided to have another revolution.

Mm. Often revolutions happen because someone lifts the lid slightly, rather than pressing down even harder on the unhappy masses.

@@lewisirwin5363 Its one of those examples of, give them and inch and they'll take a mile. Anything from the left-side of politics works like that, its a gigantic slippery slope fallacy that just so happens to come true each and every time.

@@learningagain4094 Somehow painting deposing an absolute monarch as a "gigantic slippery slope fallacy" is a big "yikes" moment. How the comments in this video always seem to dissolve into someone going "everything would've been fine if the peasants stayed peasants/if the serfs stayed serfs" is just beyond me.

​@@hirocheeto7795it would have. hierarchy is the rule of nature, end of man

@@Laotzu.Goldbug Your definition of fine begets human suffering. We have outstepped our niche in nature a very long time ago, and this naturalistic argument for why humans should be violent towards one another is worn out, illogical, and trite.

I just found the Narration too irritating, possibly an 'age' thing!

You forgot Edward for the English.

Also Phillip and Henry

Spanish kings: Philip

@@aleasyah3032 Amen 😂

@@lewisirwin5363 I did have Henry and to my knowledge there was no King Philip

Yeah I know it's like saying there son. Louis the 17 deserves to be abused, neglected, and tortured just because his parents made other kids lives miserable. It's just so sick and discussion😔

Then they will not joined robespierre in that conversation because he liberated the french but killed many people than marie and her husband, really french are narcissistic who doesn't even know that the economy of france was broken even before louie and marie became rulers

@@cyrilmarasigan7108 yeah because of greed and corruption

Unfortunately the winners write history. Recently they are getting a bit of break with modern people so there's that

There tends to be a fair amount of overlap between those people and the same people who say that the Romanov kids deserved getting murked by Bolsheviks.

It’s interesting that Stephen Zweig noted that Louis had a painting of the English Civil War hung in one of his offices to remind himself to avoid the mistakes Charles I made, only to summarize that he failed to understand that the French Revolution was inherently different from the English Civil War.

Seems like the same principle is about to be applied in this present day!

Michelet himself deserves an episode, the guy is really interesting, and his work still is a good read today.

Oh that poor lad

Bro can't catch a break

And that's fun because...?

Also “The Story of One” which has the most adorable animated numbers you’ll ever see.

Un pain au chocolat, monsieur. Personne ne dit "Croissant au chocolat", à part peut-être les barbares qui osent prononcer "chocolatine".

Croissant!

Croissants are Austrian, so that might have given way to conflict...

@@lordfridge491 CROISSSAAAAAAAAANNNNNNTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@@lordfridge491 Croissant originate in Austria, but it was in France that they were made edible.

*when you spell Monsieur messieur

*when you spell Monsieur messieur

@@liamnevard1591 She ACCIDENTALLY tripped over the legs of many executioners ...

Those are called child marriages and still happen. In my country is the most popular with the gypsie population,but less so now compared to a few years before.

@@alexandrub8786 which country though?

Two teenagers meeting each other for the first time on their wedding day because their countries are trying to gain something from one another. Truly, the seeds of romance.

Everyone’s reaction

Oui oui! (Say that out loud by the way, speaking at a normal speed)

Bastille topling. Head chopping. King popping

@@cgt3704 OUI!!! VIVA LA FRANCE!!!

@@lesenigma2536 le horray- Oversimplified

Who?

Bro what the fuck 💀 how has rackham not already covered this

"Le horay" - Napoleon probably

"Hey! I'm average height for the time, you jerk!" - Napoleon

Quoting other channels?? Dude!... Uncool.

@@AR15Si "I did not nee this coming"

*"There's A Tax For That!!!"*

!!! My kindergarten bully !!!

Not really an Empire. Empires specifically are defined by having multiple cultures/religions/nations within their borders. The HRE was culturally and religiously similar, also how were they in any way holy?

@@AeneasGemini the HRE was an empire and was holy(emperor crowned by the pope) but definitely not Roman.

Imagine Romans getting sacked by Germanic tribes then finding out that those barbarians' descendants will claim the title as "their" Emperor for almost a millennium.

Psst, hey kid! You wanna buy some...books?

Marie-Antoinette and the brothers of Louis XVI played as actors in a theatre play at Versailles (The barber of Seville) while this play was banned XD

Makes you wonder if maybe there'll be a repeat

@@LordVader1094 Not as crazy as this. America is too stable plus technology has brought the need and want to fight down.

Not a Hollywood, but a Jollywood if you will

I don’t think they were bad people, but you have to remember that they were symbols of the monarchy. Their children didn’t deserve to be locked up, but Louis’ lack of a strong will and Marie’s lack of political knowledge (she was easily manipulated by court factions) were contributors to their death.

Propaganda from people who think The French Revolution was the greatest liberation event ever, but the American Revolution was basically an oligarchic coup. The truth was always more complicated.

Really ? Even in France, we consider Louis XVI more as a victim of his time, who made to many mistakes and paid for it. No one would think of him as a monster, even the most republican.

@@augustin5611 yeah I remember them saying that people revolted against loius because he viewed h in mslef as chosen by God to lead people and taxed people horribly. They didn't reveal any of this other stuff about him

It's because you were given a biased understanding of him, and now you're getting another biased interpretation but this time it's """"funny""""

"Oui"

Hed be deposed regardless. The nobles conspired with the clerics, Louis had no power to defeat them. The best thing he could do was to step down, abdicate as the king.

I think that point is already too late. Shouldn't have helped the American Colonies actually.

@@harukrentz435 True, but as the end result shows, the nobles still lost. Most either fled or were killed, and some of the clerics likewise switched to the side of the National Assembly. The National Assembly and its derivatives eventually took over France, failing only in their over-reliance on the ambitious and talented Napoleon who usurped power from them. If Louis deferred to the National Assembly, been more accepting to conditions of cooperation, the united front might have dissuaded or quashed rebellions among the nobility early, negating the creation or necessity for Napoleon's strength, popularity, or authority as France's civil war or the war with Austria waged during that period. The French people would have taken it as a sign of Louis' sincerity to help them, try to improve their lives with new ideas or policies. Louis probably would've lost the majority of his power over time if not all at once, but he might've retained enough popularity or goodwill among the common people - and more importantly, the people who held his life in their hands - to retain his head. Louis's execution was one of the main causes of war and strife that plagued France internally and externally for much of that period, besides the famine. Keep the more cooperative king alive, and there's no war with Austria and no civil war except the inevitable noble rebellion. But, you know, nobody really likes nobles, so - again - it wouldn't be a hard war to win, not with Louis's army and the National Assembly's army against one of the least liked parties in France. The real issue would still be that people have no food to eat, and are being bled dry. That was one of the major failings of both Louis and the National Assembly. Maybe once they defeated the nobles, they could've seized their lands and converted them into farming resources or taxable property put to sale to the French people. They could've had more freedom and flexibility in dealing with France's legal and economic issues.

@@harukrentz435 The kings of France could not abdicate. It was a specificity of the French monarchy.

This is actually not entirely incorrect. The European monarchies drew their primary political backing from the urban middle class and the rural peasantry, acting as their protector and counterbalance against an often exploitative nobility (never mind that the King never seriously punished most nobles because the state still needed their support too). What doomed Louis was losing that support due to famines and rising rents in the countryside upsetting the peasants and rising taxes upsetting the middle class. Even so, many peasants were still outraged and rose up in revolt against the Paris government when they heard the King had been executed, they had still generally blamed the nobility over the monarchy.

It is talking about french people. What do you expect?

Bruh. Don't come to Jack's channel for 100% accurate history.

You seem quite knowledgeable. I remember reading about how all monarchists were systematically executed thereafter by the revolutionaries, even a boy that was like 5 years old. Would you mind telling me why this was done?

@@ANSELAbitsxb don’t remember any official executions of five year olds. That’s the Bolsheviks who executed the Tsar’s kids. Anyway I recommend reading books on the French Revolution, such as RR Palmer’s The 12 Who Ruled.

@@arthur4350 From a quick google search I found that in The French Revolution: A History by Thomas Carlyle and Barbara Levy's Legacy of Death mention children being guillotined. It seems like it was to kill off noble families and typical mob mentality for the most part.

@@ANSELAbitsxb Carlyle’s book isn’t considered legitimate history anymore. Don’t know about the other book anymore. Anyway I don’t know what any of this has to do with my OP. It’s irrelevant.

Indeed. He let the general estates decide what to do

Louis XV was his grandfather.

I may have become slightly obsessed with the French Revolution after the Talleyrand episode

@@JackRackam oui! Man was on our side!

This is a myth. Although he was not incredibly well-treated, he most likely died of Tuberculosis. They did have him sign a document he probably didn’t even understand accusing his aunt and mother of incest. This accusation disgusted the revolutionaries and wasn’t taken seriously (Robespierre thought it was stupid).

I don’t know what you mean here. He wasn’t a terrible person, but he was not a ‘good’ King. In the sense that he was terribly unfit for being King although he tried his hardest.

This comment however, didn't even have a bidget for a proof reader

@@Praqueue of course not, this is youtube

This is much easier said than done. Who would support the King here when the vast majority of the nobility did not? The people might support him, alongside such finance ministers as Turgot, but they also might think he was trying to gain power in order to become a tyrant like Caligula or Commodus. Louis didn’t have the strength of character or the intelligence to do so.