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Create your free OpenLearn profile. Course content Course content. French Revolution Start this free course now. Free course French Revolution. Previous 4. Next 5 Enlightenment, universalism and revolution. Print Print. Take your learning further Making the decision to study can be a big step, which is why you'll want a trusted University. OpenLearn Search website Back to top. Most are authentic, so - after exhaustive checking in the ANF's large archives - they are approved. But there are mistakes and frauds too - men and women who claim to be from the nobility but are not.
These are remorselessly weeded out. One of the most common misrepresentations is from people who think that because their name contains the so-called particule or "de", they are therefore noble. So who are these hundreds of thousands of French noblemen and women?
How do they perceive themselves? Are they noticeably different from the rest of the French? There is, of course, no quick answer. Some families have retained wealth and influence. They live in the better arrondissements of Paris and provide captains of industry and finance. But many others live discreet lives far from the capital, often in old mansions or chateaux whose upkeep is a burden. A typical example are the de Vogues - neighbours of mine in the Berry region of central France.
The de Vogues trace their origins back to 12th-Century Ardeche, and this branch settled at the Chateau de Pezeau near Sancerre before the Revolution. Today Albert de Vogue - in his 80s - lives alone there, looking out on the land that he spent his life farming. Children and grandchildren come at weekends. His children are proud of their forebears - some of whom achieved greatness in different ways. They are Catholics of an undemonstrative kind, and they say that certain values - kindness to others, open-heartedness - are important to them.
But they feel a million miles from the society life of Paris. Some people condemned for more heinous crimes were broken on the wheel. This entailed attaching the criminal to a large wheel and then beating him or her with iron bars over a period of time until the criminal died. Regicides were tortured and then drawn and quartered.
This occurred during an extended ceremony designed to emphasize the particularly awful nature of the crime. His arms and legs were then tied to four horses, each of which literally pulled him apart as they set off in different directions. Not surprisingly, these patterns of violence also shaped the direction and momentum of the French Revolution, the event often regarded as signaling the end of the early modern period. Overall, the French Revolution was characterized with more than its share of executions, so much so, in fact, that the guillotine emerged as one of the defining and most enduring symbols of the revolution.
Joseph Guillotin, a medical doctor and member of the revolutionary National Assembly, championed the guillotine, proposing its use to the state in October The new guillotine was presented as a quick and rational means of execution, perhaps in answer to Enlightenment critics like Cesare Beccaria who had argued against torture and capital punishment in his book, On Crime and Punishment The fear of beheading was always that the headsman might miss, thus requiring multiple swings of the ax before the deed was done.
The guillotine purported to eliminate human error from the equation. It was also seen as egalitarian in that it could be used on nobles and commoners alike. With the guillotine, death could now be nearly instantaneous, with considerably less pomp and circumstance.
Executions by guillotine were certainly well attended, but they lacked some of the extended spectacle of earlier execution rituals. Now the executioner simply pulled a cord, the blade fell, and it was all over except, perhaps, for a display of the head to the crowd. However, what the guillotine lacked in overall drama it certainly made up for in volume. During the period of the French Revolution, and especially during the Terror when the state enacted martial law, use of the guillotine skyrocketed.
Led by Maximillian Robespierre, the Committee on Public Safety enacted a series of decrees that established a system of Terror, enforced by the state, in an effort to root out counter-revolutionaries and save the new Republic from itself. Under this system, at least 40, people were killed. As many as , Frenchmen and women 1 in 50 Frenchmen and women were arrested during a ten month period between September and July Although all social classes and professions were targeted, the death toll was especially high for both clergy and aristocrats.
A rebellion in that area led to the deaths of nearly a quarter of the population at the hands of the revolutionary armies. Many were massacred, shot, drowned, or otherwise killed.
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