III.1.5. THE CURTAIN FALLS ON FEUDAL KINGSHIP

MENU: 3.1.5. The curtain falls on feudal kingship 

ECONOMIC GROWTH MEANT THAT "THE BARRIERS TO CAPITALISM HAD TO BE BROKEN. THEY WERE BROKEN" 

-- Karl Marx on the French Revolution 

-- Main source here: History of the French Revolution by Jules Michelet, 1847,

 dir. Pierre Gaxotte, abridged ed. (in French), 1971

The transformation was inevitable, the fall of the monarchy was not: The queen by breaking the codes and the king by affirming them, explain its end. 

View of the Louvre when the King arrives in Paris on July 17, Escorted by a Great Number of Citizens Armed with Pikes and Guns who Accompanied Him to City Hall by Jean-Pierre Houêl, 1789 / zoom

Louis XVI is welcomed with immense enthusiasm when he comes to Paris a few days after the fall of the Bastille, because his visit is taken to show that he agrees.

In brief

• The queen breaks rules that she does not understand

• A bubblehead rises to the occasion

• "Bonjour Sire!," the greeting that announces calamity

• The king's disastrous flight revisited: the guards' yellow liveries

• The end of the 1500-year-old monarchy

• The "Temple," a prison that could have been worse

• "I have no tears left to cry"

• Marie-Antoinette attains grandeur

• Louis XVII, a story that has no end

• The Obelisk announces a new era 

• How France became a republic   

• French Presidents, heirs of kings

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The queen breaks rules that she does not understand