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Le Incompétent King: Louis XVI of France · Beheaded

0:05
SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to Beheaded.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to season two, episode seven.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm Megan Moore and I'm Elizabeth Black.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: We are back after we skipped a week.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: We're so sorry about that.
0:16
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it was a rough week last week.
0:17
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: This was our first time in our two seasons we skipped our like every other week routine.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: We did not intend to do that.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: We really did mean to record last weekend, but Megan was in the middle of a big move.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: We moved.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: So it was it was one of those things where we both like knew we had to do it at some point.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: I was exhausted.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: And we were like, okay, like Saturday we'll do it.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: We can do it.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: We can do it.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: And Sunday we'll do it.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: And then it completely slipped my mind at one point, which is like weird because I get so excited to always record.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: When was the moment that we both like looked at each other and we just knew it was like Monday night?
0:54
SPEAKER_00: It was like Monday night.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: And we released on Tuesdays.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: We were watching a show or something, and they were talking about, oh, we gotta release our episode.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: It was like something on a show we were watching, and we both look at each other and we're like, oh we had like this moment of like shit, just disappointment in each other's faces.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: But um no, normally we like try to record on Fridays or so, and just the weekend caught up with me.
1:17
SPEAKER_01: It was just a lot going on.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you had a lot to do.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and we and we did it too.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: Like I was here to help.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: I was here to help, but it was I just moved down the street, but yeah, I don't realize how much crap you own.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: I told and I warned Megan this because in the past I did this where I was in um an apartment complex and I lived in a one bedroom there, and then I upgraded to like a two-bedroom, and it was literally like across the tiny little street.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, I don't have to pack, I don't have to get boxes, I'm just gonna literally take one.
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Exactly what I'm like a total of like four or so boxes.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you said that you're like, you know what, because I'm like literally so close, I'm just gonna stuff my car up.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, it's still much car.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: It's like a one-minute drive.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, Megan, I've done this before.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: You still need the boxes, you still need to organize it and like do it the right way.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: She's like, I think I'm just gonna grab things.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: And like we got it done.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: It's done.
2:11
SPEAKER_01: It was just like moving's a lot.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: It's probably one of the most stressful.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: I don't care if it's down the street or across the country.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: Like, I've done both types of moves.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: I've done state to state, I've done down the street, obviously.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't matter.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: It always sucks.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's almost worse when it's closer because when you're moving across country, you feel like it's like a bigger thing in your mind.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, this is it.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: You're ready for it.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: And it's like you can't really go back, like, I'm still making trips to my old place because I still have the keys.
2:41
SPEAKER_01: We don't close on the old townhouse for like another two or three weeks.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: So it's like, yeah, it's I think it it did make it a little bit harder because in my mind I wasn't I really wasn't prepared.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: You think it's easy.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: You're just like, oh, we'll we'll podcast.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: We had a three-day weekend last weekend, so we're like, oh, we have three days to move.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then what else was the other thing?
3:00
SPEAKER_00: Oh, and then the fact that it was so close.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: Like, there were so many factors where we're like, this is easy.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: Like, we don't have to worry, we're just gonna work and we're gonna podcast.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Here we are.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: And then we miss it.
3:08
SPEAKER_01: You're just so like mentally drained after moving, and I all I keep doing is walking around my new place and just thinking of everything to do.
3:16
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well, that needs to get patched up and that needs to get painted.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: This was an instance where I was actually Megan's scribe because she's like, Do you have a notebook?
3:23
SPEAKER_00: I was like, Absolutely.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: She's like, Yeah, write all this down.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: And we went around to each room and we four pages worth of stuff.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we like she we pointed out every single thing that needed to be patched or painted or touched up or whatever, and Megan was just pointing and talking, and I was like, Okay, this is the time I'm happy to be your scribe.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: You did a good job with it.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to have that in like um a spreadsheet or something if you can transfer it over.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: I can't read your tiny little writing.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: For a small fee.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: So today we did get some snacks to uh represent our new person for highlighting.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: We're excited about this one because we feel like this one's coming full circle to a very early episode that we had.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Um and just to tell you what we're eating and drinking, um, we tried to, again, because we're a week late, we're like we have to at least get some themed snacks.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: Uh we have green apple with brie, like melted brie, and some honey drizzled all over it as an appetizer.
4:17
SPEAKER_00: And then we didn't realize this, but we also had a what is it, like a brie and tomato tart.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: That's like a French tart, which is like a flatbread.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: French as well.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: Yep, it says French on it.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: Is it French on the box?
4:30
SPEAKER_00: I get it I get it.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: Very fancy wine with a very fancy label.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: Where's the wine from?
4:34
SPEAKER_00: Uh you can read it.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: Ile de coin.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's from France.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: And it's called a rue souplesse, I think, is how you say it.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: I like the shape of the bottle.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: I really like the shape of the bottle.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: It's one of those bottles that's really heavy.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: So every time you pick it up, you think it's like almost full.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: You're like, look how much wine we have left.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: I know we get disappointed.
4:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know we already drink it.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: I literally before we started, I filled up Megan's wine glass.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: I was like, Megan, we haven't made a dent in this wine.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, just kidding.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: I looked at the bottom.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: It's empty.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: It's almost empty.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: But it's a nice wine.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll show you a picture on our gram, but it's a cool label.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: It's like uh what are those unicorns holding a little crescent?
5:13
SPEAKER_01: It must be the the the shield of the French monarchy.
5:19
SPEAKER_01: Mmm.
5:20
SPEAKER_01: French monarchy, you say.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: That tees up our guests nicely.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: Megan, would you like to tell us who we're uh featuring today?
5:28
SPEAKER_01: Well, episode one, season one, was of Miss Marie Antoinette.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it was.
5:34
SPEAKER_01: And we we've always said this.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: We were pretty bold by starting a very first episode with such a huge person.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: I think we wanted something that was just, you know, eye-catching.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: Considering we had no idea what we were doing.
5:46
SPEAKER_01: Not that we do now, but like our setup was really terrible.
5:50
SPEAKER_01: We literally recorded that episode on a glass table.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: Like we just didn't know how it was it was multiple factors because it was at um my condo, so it was glass table.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: There was a um, like I think the air, the vent was running.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: You were making green chili.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: I was making green chili, which made us both cough.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: And we were hardwood floors, hardwood floors, guitar hero microphones, uh acoustically very bad.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: So thank you for listening to that.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't heard it, you may go back and listen.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: Just don't.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: Just don't be too judgmental.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: I honestly I I re-listened to the first one.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: The content's not bad.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: The content's great.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: No, we're awesome, we're always awesome.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: It's mostly just the sound.
6:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:29
SPEAKER_01: But um, so we did Marie Antoinette and we're gonna kind of retell the story but through a different perspective.
6:36
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
6:37
SPEAKER_01: We are going to talk about King Louis XVI.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Marie Antoinette's husband.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: Because he's, in my opinion, important enough to have his own story.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: He's not just Marie Antoinette's successor.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: People like Marie Antoinette, but they don't know a lot about maybe her husband.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: I agree.
6:53
SPEAKER_01: And he had just as amazing of an execution as Marie Antoinette.
6:58
SPEAKER_01: Just as amazing.
6:59
SPEAKER_01: Um, and but we did do a little bit more digging even more on their history, and like one thing I think we um we've done better at moving forward is getting more into like the why were they executed and like why were they up for trial and what were their charges.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: And I know with Marie Antoinette, we were just kind of like France just hated them.
7:18
SPEAKER_01: She was lavish and she died.
7:20
SPEAKER_01: But we did a lot more research this time on like actually what was happening during the French Revolution.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, what were the actual charges?
7:28
SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, you can tell us if we're wrong, obviously, but I think we've gotten better at just like setting the background of a lot of these stories instead of just focusing on the subject or the like the victim.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: That's my favorite part though.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: I know.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: Of course it's the best part, but I think we're getting, now that we've done, you know, different eras and different places in the world, we're kind of setting the stage more of like, just so you know, this is the snapshot of history.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Like, these are the wars that were going on, this was the famine that was happening, or whatever it is.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: So we have a little bit more, I think, context for you this time, which is exciting.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: We did find a new YouTube channel that we got a lot of information from.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: I'm I really like it.
8:03
SPEAKER_01: I think I'm gonna go and watch like every episode.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: I really like it.
8:06
SPEAKER_01: Does this mean we're immature?
8:07
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
8:08
SPEAKER_01: It's called oversimplified history.
8:10
SPEAKER_01: It's like South Park meets like channels.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: They look like South Park characters almost with like just a big circle head and like you know, stump bodies.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it just over it truly is just an oversimplification of just basic facts of history, but they do a really good job.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: They actually do a really good job.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: It's funny, it's very visual, very funny.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: We were cracking up through it.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: We watched the one on King Henry the Eighth and his wives, and like actually like very good timeline, like very good to the facts, but just so silly.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: And the little things they insert that are like modern, like King Henry VIII brings a little piece of paper to his advisors and it says like disco night question mark, and they're like denied.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: Like you can't have discos, Henry.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, but why?
8:52
SPEAKER_00: Discos are fun.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: Like, so they just add a lot of like really funny little touches of humor and modern day stuff to it.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: And in the um Versailles episode, the French Revolution episode, they talk about like how all the nobility have Porsches.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: So they're like, oh, and then of course everyone gets a Porsche when you're like at Versailles.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: It does a nice job of describing what's going on.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: So obviously that wasn't our only source of learning, but we did kind of go down the rabbit hole on it.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: It was good, it was it was cute.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: Um Louis the 16th.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: Louis, he's honestly I think a very sympathetic creature who like I personally kind of like as a like a little puppy.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's like a sad little puppy with a lot of unfortunate things happen to this poor little boy.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: Um like a like a basset hound.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: You just can feel kind of sad and droopy for him.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: You know, I know he had a droopy?
9:43
SPEAKER_00: Droopy.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: You feel droopy.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: Everything feels droopy.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: Louis XVI was born on the 23rd of August 1754.
9:53
SPEAKER_01: He was born Louis Auguste de France.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: Very original in Versailles.
10:01
SPEAKER_01: I like that the name of his country is just in his name.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: Like of France.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: Like you're Megan of the USA.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: Megan of Arizona.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: Actually being Megan of California.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: There's only one of you.
10:13
SPEAKER_01: Um he was born in Versailles.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: So he's like the OG of Versailles.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: Born and raised there.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh one of seven children.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: He was the second child.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: And his over sorry.
10:27
SPEAKER_01: And his older brother died when he was nine.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: But up until then, I think he was like really overlooked because they just assumed his older brother was gonna be the next king and he he was the dauphine.
10:38
SPEAKER_01: So it kind of reminds me of Henry VIII and his older brother.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, with Arthur.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: Right.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: So it's like you had the, you know, the first heir, the firstborn, the heir, and then the spare.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: Exactly, the heir and the spare.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: So you have your heir that you put all your hopes and dreams on.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: You're like, look at our charismatic, bright, amazing child, and then he dies.
10:54
SPEAKER_01: And then they die, they're like, oh, oh, look at this next one we got lined up here.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: So Louis was very much the spare in this situation.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: But he was very smart.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: He was excellent in his studies, he was fluent in Latin, he liked to hunt, he loved locksmithing of all things.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: Very physically healthy.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he was very well-rounded, but very likable.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: To point out his family a bit, so his mom was Marie Josephine of Sa uh Saxony.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: Is that how you say that?
11:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Saxony.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, you know us.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, so which means she was the daughter of uh the King of Poland.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: So she's obviously a very royal person, and his father was the Dauphin of France.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: So his father wasn't the king, his grandfather was the king.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: So his grandfather is Louis the Fifteenth.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Um so it went Louis the Fifteenth and then Louis the Dauphine of France and then Louis the Sixteenth.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: So it gets a little confusing because when you think, oh, Louis XV, that was his father, you're like, actually, no, that was the grandpa.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: And the Dauphine just means that he's next up in line, right?
11:55
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, so technically his dad should have been the king next, but his dad died before his grandfather died.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
12:06
SPEAKER_01: So his grandfather was still king of France.
12:08
SPEAKER_01: At that point, his dad died of tuberculosis December 20th, 1765.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: He was only 11 years old.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: And that be that means he's now the Dauphin.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: Louis XVI was 11 years old.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: Oh, sorry, not his dad.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: Louis XVI was 11.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: He then becomes the new Dauphine because that means once his grandfather dies, he's next up in line.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
12:28
SPEAKER_01: His mother took it really hard, and she also died shortly after, just a couple years on March 13th, 1767.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: Um, also from TB.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, both of them.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: Figure that out.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: Tuberculosis.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: Can you fix that?
12:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, but Louis was not prepared to be the king.
12:46
SPEAKER_01: Like he was very much just like a rough housing boy.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: He was a kid.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: He was a kid, and they didn't really focus on him needing to be the king.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: So he marries the infamous Marie Antoinette.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
12:59
SPEAKER_01: Um, he was 15, she was 14.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: Marie Antoinette was actually his second cousin once removed, which I didn't realize.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: I think in this age, everyone's inbred.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: Right?
13:10
SPEAKER_00: Everyone marries cousins and cousins of cousins and second cousins.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: It's the mess.
13:15
SPEAKER_01: Even um, like even Catherine Howard, who was on a couple episodes ago, like her uh Thomas Culpepper was her cousin.
13:23
SPEAKER_01: Was her cousin.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: And they were lovers.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: So it just happens.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: It happens.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: And and even not even in that era, because this is what the 1700s, like even in early 1900s, people married their cousins.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: Like it's not that far away from us.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: I could like it's gross when we think about it now.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: I hope, I hope none of you out there married your cousins.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: If you do, whatever it's your life.
13:44
SPEAKER_01: First, there's your cousin, and then there's your first cousin, and then there's your second cousin.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: No, honey.
13:50
SPEAKER_01: That's not right, is it?
13:51
SPEAKER_01: Oh no, it's not.
13:52
SPEAKER_01: Um, but Marie Antoinette's from Austria.
13:57
SPEAKER_01: And the French people really didn't like Austria.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: Austria.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: They had an alliance going at the time, which is why Louis had to marry Marie Antoinette, but they were not okay with this Austrian Austrian alliance.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: No.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: Um, so she wasn't very welcome.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: She was just you know, as a foreigner, exactly.
14:13
SPEAKER_01: People kind of stuck their noses up at Marie Antoinette.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: Um, Louis and Marie only met two days before their wedding, and they're kids, they're 14 and 15, right?
14:22
SPEAKER_01: Right.
14:22
SPEAKER_01: They meet two days before.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, Louis is said to be very shy, kind of comes off a little bit cold to her, but mostly I think it's just like he doesn't know what to say.
14:31
SPEAKER_01: They're just awkward teenagers.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure they had acne and just like embarrassing.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: Learning how to be social.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: And of course, you know, two days after they meet, they're forced into like the consummation bed, like after everyone witnesses.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: With everyone waiting and being like, all right, like go get it done.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so she was very public about the fact that she didn't really like him in that way, like they had a very amiable relationship, but it was distant.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, they had they were together because they had to be together, and they were friends more than they were lovers.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: Like she had had written in letters to friends and things, like that she he's just completely incompetent in the bedroom.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: And like, let's talk about that for a sec.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: So they originally reported that they consummated their their marriage July 1773.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: Right.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: We find out though it didn't actually happen until 1777.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: Which is seven years after they're married.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: Because they got married in 1770.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: That's seven years after they're married.
15:29
SPEAKER_01: Imagine being with someone for seven years, sleeping in the same bed and never doing anything.
15:34
SPEAKER_01: Especially when you're a teenager, right?
15:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, because you're you got urges with your teenager.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: One of the theories is that um, and I went down a Wikipedia hole on this.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh, good.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: Those are fun.
15:46
SPEAKER_01: Unintentionally.
15:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, phemosis, it's when the skin doesn't stretch properly during an erection.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: During an erection.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: And they said it's really painful.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: Like it's a thing that they have now, I guess.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know this.
16:02
SPEAKER_01: I also didn't know that you could put pictures on Wikipedia of graphic nature, but I accidentally ran into it.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: On Megan's work computer, I look over.
16:11
SPEAKER_01: I deleted it so fast.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: Megan.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: Megan, what you looking at over here?
16:16
SPEAKER_01: She was I wouldn't do Famosis wrapped up.
16:18
SPEAKER_01: I'm looking up for Moses.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know this would happen.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: Oh you did it.
16:22
SPEAKER_01: I did it.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: It was disturbing.
16:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, but he was like the joke of the town.
16:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: And so they thought maybe there was a medical reason for why.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: Maybe he had so he wasn't just interested in women, but yeah.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: There wasn't a lot of evidence on that.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: Which is honest.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: Honestly, yeah, we we both expected there to be more evidence of the fact that well, we don't know it's a fact, but of the theory that he was gay.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: Because I think those we talked about this before, but Marie Antoinette, the movie, um uh directed by Sophia Coppola, uh, it's like it's kind of a tongue-in-cheek, like, oh, he's gay.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: That's why they never had much of a love life.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: But we thought that would come, you know, to the surface more through our research, but everything we looked at, nothing implicitly.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Nothing really invited.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: They were more or less like, oh, maybe it was a medical condition.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: Right.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, but there were even pamphlets that were going around in Paris and France, um, just mocking.
17:14
SPEAKER_01: Paris and France?
17:15
SPEAKER_01: Paris and France.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: Like all of France.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: Paris and Greater France, sure, yeah.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: Paris within the France.
17:23
SPEAKER_01: Paris within the France.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: Um people just mocked their infertility, though.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: They came out with these pamphlets that was like, Can the king do it?
17:30
SPEAKER_01: Can the king can't do it?
17:32
SPEAKER_01: Or something like, Can't the king do it?
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they had a lot of like political satire stuff.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: Cartoons, cartoons, just making fun of them.
17:38
SPEAKER_00: Like having awkward, you know, sexual encounters.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: Um, there's also a theory that maybe if he actually had famosis, was he circumcised, which would have fixed it at an adult age.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: Imagine an adult circumcision.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, imagine it without um Anna like Anest an aesthetic.
17:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, or like numbing or anything.
18:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: Ugh.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: They say that that probably didn't happen just because like he was again very active.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: He rode horses all the time.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: Like, if he really got an adult circumcision, they would have known.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: They would have known.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: He would have been like bedridden.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: He had journal entries that talked about him going hunting like two days after when so-called this procedure happened.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: Right.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: So they don't think it actually happened because he would have been out for a few more weeks not riding a horse, bobbing around.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Bobbing alone.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: Not the first thing I would do.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: Um, so supposedly then Marie's brother is the one who had a little man-to-man chat with him.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: Um, found out he just needed to try a little bit harder in the bedroom.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: Like he just gotta put a little bit more effort into it, and I think just helped him realize this is your job.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: Like, you have to get an air.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: Right.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: You we don't ask a lot of you, you're not that great of a king.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: You're responsibility is to keep the bloodline going.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: And we talked about this a lot with like the Romanov episode.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: How again, when you're first like a new king and you have a new wife, like that's the first thing you should do is just start having babies because you have to secure the line.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: You you know, that's your way of ensuring a successful future.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: So we think of it today like, oh, really, like that much emphasis on kids.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: But back then, yes, it was a huge deal.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: Like you needed them again, not just heirs, but spares and spares of spares, like you needed as many.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: With all four tires on there.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: Good analogy.
19:28
SPEAKER_01: Eventually, they did have four kids, two boys, two girls.
19:31
SPEAKER_01: One girl did die, I think Sophie was her name, died as an infant.
19:35
SPEAKER_01: Um, but you go on you you read a little bit more about this than I did, but I didn't realize they adopted children.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, what's funny is they said Louis the 16th adopted.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't say like them as a couple adopted, but he had like his own family on the side.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, he just adopted a bunch of kids.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: But they said he adopted up to six kids, which is very like brangelina of them to be like, oh you know what?
19:57
SPEAKER_00: But they were they were from all sorts of backgrounds.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, like one of their servants had passed away, so they adopted the two kids the servant left behind.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: One of um their adoptees was like uh it used to be like an enslaved child.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: They literally just kind of whoever they saw like as a sympathetic small person, they were like small person.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, like That's me, I'm small.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: Small person.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: Come join our family.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, so it was kind of funny because they had four kids and then they adopted six more.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: So they had a pretty, pretty big family.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: And not all of the adopted kids lived with them directly.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: I think there were only three that actually like lived with them at Versailles.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's kind of how they lived their life.
20:36
SPEAKER_00: Like people paint them as these very ignorant, silly people, like frolicking around Versailles, but they did have big hearts, and like anytime they saw, like, you know, saw not injustice, but just someone, you know, not doing so well.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: They they did what they could to like help people out.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: If it was in their empathetic, yeah, very if it was in their line of sight, like they did something about it.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: But that's the problem, is nothing was in their line of sight because they were off at Versailles having large parties and not in France seeing like starving people in the streets.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: So Exactly.
21:08
SPEAKER_01: Um, so in 1774, his grandfather dies.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: He Louis the Sixteenth is 19 years old, and he's now the king of England.
21:16
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of responsibility for it.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: A lot of responsibility.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: And not only is he 19, but again, he has not been trained for this.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: They thought his father would live much longer.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: They thought his grandfather would live much longer.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: So it's supposed to go, okay, grandpa, grandpa, you're you're 95, now you're kicking the bucket.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: Now here's my dad, and I get to spend, who knows, 30, 40 years under him, and then I become king.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: You're not ready as a 19 year old to be like, all right, here's France.
21:44
SPEAKER_00: And not only here's France, but here's France, and we have extreme debt.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: There's starvation in the streets.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, you've lived in Versailles your whole life, so you have no idea what's going on in Paris or other parts of the basically because of bankruptcy.
21:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:57
SPEAKER_01: Um, so at this time, France just got out of the Seven Years' War with England and they lost miserably.
22:03
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: And so then they lost a lot of money with that too.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: And the people are poor and they're angry and they just want bread, and bread prices are going up, up, up, up, up.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: Um.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: And he was very aware that he wasn't qualified to rule.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: I think that's one thing, then that's maybe why he is such a sympathetic creature to a lot of people.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Because people know, like, he was smart, like he was well educated.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: He did really well with all of his courses and things.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, but he also had instructors that kind of told him, hey, as a king, you don't want people to read your thoughts.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: As a king, you should be more timid and very moral.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: You know, so when he became a king at 19, he's like, Okay, well, I'm not gonna be very aggressive and I'm not gonna make a lot of decisions that are gonna upset people.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna be the nice guy.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: He was the nice guy.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: And he wanted just to people to love him.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: He admitted that several times.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I do have one quote from him.
22:54
SPEAKER_01: I like this quote.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: He people just said he lacked firmness and decisiveness.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so on one of the subjects of like everyone was advising him otherwise, like, don't do this, Louie.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: His response was it may be considered politically unwise, but it seems to me to be general wish, and I want to be loved.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: He's like, well, they the people want this, and I want them to like me, so I'm just gonna pass this law because it'll make people happy.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: But all of his counselors are like, Louis, don't be an idiot.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: Like, make up your decision, be firm, and this is how it is.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: And he wasn't like that.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: So he flip-flopped on a lot of things.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, some of the things that he wanted to do when he uh first became the king was he wanted to abolish serfdom.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: He actually did want to remove um land and labor taxes.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, he implemented an edict of tolerance, also known as the edict of Versailles, meaning there was like religious tolerance, so it wasn't just like everyone had to be Catholic in France, you could basically be whatever you wanted.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: So again, he's trying to be all things to all people, but then it kind of backfires on him because they're in such extreme debt that they did had to have to end up taxing people.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: So his whole you know ambition was to be like, let's remove all these taxes, but then it was like, ooh, actually, we really need that money.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: And their taxes were ridiculous.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: We're going to extremely tax the poor.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: And all people were taxed differently.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: It was very inconsistent depending on where you were in the country and which class you were.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: There was no consistent like tax rulings.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: It was like they would just go about and be like, Oh, we were watching again that doc or uh, I guess you'd call it a documentary.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: Can we call it a documentary?
24:29
SPEAKER_00: I think so.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: Educational spoofy film.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: Cartoon?
24:34
SPEAKER_00: Cartoon animated classic.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's funny because there was a part where like there's a little um tax guy going to a land, and they're like, they're like, Oh, okay, how many windows does your house have?
24:44
SPEAKER_00: Three, ooh, that's gonna be another tax.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: And like, how much salt did you buy?
24:47
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know, seven kilos.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, that's gonna be another tax.
24:50
SPEAKER_00: And did you save some of that salt for the following year?
24:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're gonna get taxed on that too.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: They just taxed them up the wazoo on everything.
24:57
SPEAKER_01: Right.
24:57
SPEAKER_01: Um, so and the other thing too is what was it, like 90% of the population of France 98%.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: 98% of the population of France were Essentially peasants.
25:10
SPEAKER_01: The peasants, the poor people.
25:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, and like I it was about 80 million peasants compared to the small 2% of the nobility.
25:18
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, did you not think eventually that they could overrun that?
25:22
SPEAKER_01: If they were upset, yeah.
25:23
SPEAKER_01: If there's enough people who are upset, like they started getting together and like, guys, why are we listening to them?
25:29
SPEAKER_01: Why are they why are we letting them tax us?
25:31
SPEAKER_01: Why are we putting up with the 2% that are controlling everyone and making our lives miserable?
25:36
SPEAKER_00: And it's very reminiscent of um when we talked about the Romanovs and their rise to power, because like the Romanovs, you know, who had ruled for 300 years in Russia, like Louis XVI is coming into ruling for hundreds of years in France.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: So it's the same thing where it's like, you know, these spoiled like children are raised in Versailles and told, hey, you're a divine ruler, and God wants you to be on the throne, and these are the people who are going to serve you.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Great, sounds fun, let's have some parties.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, don't tax him too hard, but I guess if you gotta tax him to get us out of debt, sure do it.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: So he's just again ignorant and he's not seeing the suffering in the streets.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
26:13
SPEAKER_01: Um, the other thing that really put France behind as well is so they lost the war with England.
26:19
SPEAKER_01: With England, and Louis really just wanted to like get revenge, yeah, pay back England.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: So when US Americans had the American Revolution, uh Louis was a big supporter of it, which was awesome because he sent over, you know, resources and ships, money, soldiers, and money and money, and money, and more money.
26:37
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
26:37
SPEAKER_01: Um, and all of that was just because like he hated England.
26:41
SPEAKER_01: I don't think he said he loved America or what America could have been.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: Right.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: He just hated England.
26:46
SPEAKER_01: Right.
26:46
SPEAKER_01: Um It's also just so ironic.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: More debt! Yeah, it went it they went back into way more debt, France did, because of them helping the Americans.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: And it's also so ironic because here you are as a French like monarch sitting on your throne, and you're helping revolutionists like basically overrun their, yeah.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, different revolutions.
27:09
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't realize, oh, I'm supporting revolutionaries.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: He's like, here revolutionaries, like, go get your king, go at him, and then he's not even thinking, oh wait, I'm a king.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm also a king.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: What if that were me?
27:21
SPEAKER_00: What if I had revolutionaries?
27:22
SPEAKER_00: It's just so like I again ironically.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: I just don't think he was very smart.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: I think he was smart.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: I think he was just sheltered.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, because I mean there's no proof, like there's there's no doubt that he was like, again, an educated person who like had good morals and whatever.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: Like he wasn't just this buffoon, but at the same time, he just again wasn't streetwise.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: He had no connection to reality and like the real problems going on.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: Um and there was actually something funny that happened in 1781.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: So they had this finance minister named Jacques Necker.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so he was like, I have a great idea to help the people understand kind of the financial situation France is in.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to publish all of the French crown's expenses and accounts.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's gonna be very public, so no one like is you know unclear about what's happening with our finances.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: But he puts out this basically like public thing that says, Hey, if you're curious, this is how France is spending their money.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: But it was severely misrepresented, and people looked at it and they said, Oh, well, France has a surplus.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: Like it looks like they're doing well, but we're not seeing it on the streets, like we're all starving, like nothing's coming to us, which again points it back to Versailles, like you're the ones that are taking up this surplus, like you're the ones living luxuriously.
28:34
SPEAKER_00: But in reality, like they were in crippling debt.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: So in his attempt to kind of show, hey everybody, like, just so we're clear, like this is what the finances are, it actually really backfired, and people were like, What?
28:44
SPEAKER_00: What are you spending?
28:46
SPEAKER_00: Like, Lucy, Lucy, you have some splaining to do.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: So they're like, Um, yeah, you need to splain.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: Uh so so at this point, Louie doesn't know what to do because again, he he's not used to making decisions by his own.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: He's still very young, all the crippling debt compiles, so he's kind of at a loss uh of options.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: So he says, Okay, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna summon the Estates General, which is basically like a legislative assembly.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: It's like a you know a Congress, really.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, but this assembly hasn't met since 1614.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: So that's what, like, you know, over 150 years ago.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, he decides, okay, this worked for previous kings, whenever they were out of touch with their citizens, whenever they were in a situation where they needed help.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: Like, let's get these people together and get some representatives in here from all over France and we'll figure it out.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: So uh they get this assembly together, but the funny part is because they hadn't met, you know, and again, over 150 years, no one knew how to run these meetings.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: They all look at each other, they all go into a room, they look at each other, and they're like, Who talks?
29:48
SPEAKER_00: Like, who who speaks?
29:48
SPEAKER_00: Do I do I speak?
29:49
SPEAKER_00: Do you speak?
29:50
SPEAKER_00: Does the king speak?
29:51
SPEAKER_00: Like, what traditions are being upheld?
29:53
SPEAKER_00: Like, what do we wear to these things?
29:55
SPEAKER_00: No, what do I wear?
29:56
SPEAKER_00: Like, like all these things were like, okay, but they didn't want to just make up rules as they went along.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: So, what do they do?
30:01
SPEAKER_00: They decide to resurrect everything that they used to do in the 1600s.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: Because that's not outdated.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: Because that's not outdated, and they said, Okay, well, we don't want to look like we're just making up rules here, so let's go back to the old rules, the old regime, the older aristocracy type of rules.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: And that really upset people because they're like, Okay, the your response to our crippling debt and us kind of knowing your financial situation, your response is to now bring us back to the 1600s and make it even more of like yeah, like an archaic, you know, aristocracy.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, but the estates general was made up of three different classes, yeah.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: They're called estates, three estates.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: So the first estate was the clergy, so that's kind of the top dogs of the assembly.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: And then you had the second estate, which was the nobility, and then the third estate was was essentially everybody else, like the you know, the peasant representatives, which was again over 90% of the population.
30:55
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
30:56
SPEAKER_01: And this is what's so funny.
30:57
SPEAKER_01: So the clergy is a small group and they got one vote.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: One vote.
31:01
SPEAKER_01: The nobility is another small group, about two percent of the people.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: A little bit bigger than the clergy.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: A little bit bigger, but still, they get one vote.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: The peasants, who are about 80 million people representing this, got one vote.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: One vote.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: Very fair.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: So if the clergy votes on something, and the peasants are like, whoa, no, I actually don't like that.
31:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna vote no, we get our one vote.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: Right.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: But then the nobility votes yes, tiebreaker.
31:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's zero tie, like there's no voice or representation.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: They have yeah, they can't win.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: They're basically there to witness all the atrocities that are happening before them.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: They're like, okay, cool, so every like we always win, I mean, we always lose two to one because the clergy and nobility are always together.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: And they're only worth one vote, and it's the entire country.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: So Louis, yeah.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: Louis's brilliant plan of getting this assembly together again is like another thing that just backfires and explodes in his face.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, so at this point, the third estate now sees the clear disparity in classes and knows they don't have a voice, and they say, Okay, you know what?
32:04
SPEAKER_00: We're breaking apart from this assembly, and we're gonna create our own assembly away from you guys, and we're gonna call ourselves the National Assembly.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: And that's when whisperings of revolution start to come.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: Because now they have the power, they see the numbers that they have, you know, and they know that whatever's happening at Versailles and in the palaces, they're like, this can't last forever.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: Like, we're so much stronger and bigger than they are.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: So in um 1789, July 14th, they actually decide to storm Bastille.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: So Bastille is kind of the representation of royal authority.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: It's this big armory, it's this big fortress, it's in the middle of Paris, and they they storm it and say, Hey, like, you don't think we're powerful?
32:46
SPEAKER_00: Like, watch us do this.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: So they take Bastille and the revolution begins at that point.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: The French Revolution commences and let it be so.
33:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, there was another one, the September Massacres, where basically the the revolutionists went to the prison and just pulled out people who prisoners there and just on the spot did sentencing and executions.
33:15
SPEAKER_01: Right.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: Which I mean, there was no formality about it.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: It they had that's kind of like their representation of like, oh no, but this is us like falling through on a trial and getting things done and getting these people out of here.
33:26
SPEAKER_01: Um, overall, they executed up to 1,600 people that day.
33:32
SPEAKER_01: Just on the spot, like barely a trial, and and that's just a massacre at that point.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: They were just killing everyone.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: And it's just such a result from all the resentment of anger they've had for years and years, not being listened to and you know, Louis trying to make decisions, but not actually being decise about anything and not actually helping anyone out.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: So they revolted.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: And of course, one of their favorite things to do was to cut off someone's head and put it on a pike and parade it all around in their stampede of a riot.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: And we talked about that on our first episode when we talked about Marie Antoinette's best friend.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: And you know, she her head was cut off and put on a a pike and paraded around in front of her at Versailles.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: But this was a thing that that just became so I guess commonplace because at the point, like, people wanted blood.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, people were angry all about getting the gore and getting the message across in whatever bloody way possible.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: So this was by no means like peaceful protests and them just expressing their thoughts.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: They were pissed and they were gonna make everyone suffer for it.
34:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, they were also starving, yeah, and getting taxed.
34:36
SPEAKER_01: Desperate.
34:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're desperate.
34:37
SPEAKER_01: Um but at this time then they are reducing the powers of the king, basically just stripping all of his powers from him.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: Until eventually, like, I mean, the whole goal is to not have a monarch anymore.
34:49
SPEAKER_01: That's what they want.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: They they want a democracy.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: So they reduce his powers slowly and slowly, and because Louis's such a people pleaser, he's a nice guy, you know.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: He's Yeah, yeah, I like the I like the revolutionary idea of you guys.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: He goes, he goes, Oh yeah, you revolutionaries, great, all about what you're doing.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: Love you guys.
35:06
SPEAKER_01: He even wore the red revolutionary bonnet.
35:10
SPEAKER_01: Like there's a picture of him.
35:11
SPEAKER_01: You've got to Google that.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: Wearing, I'll I'll post it.
35:14
SPEAKER_01: Wearing the bonnet that the revolutionaries wore.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: The support to support the downfall of the king.
35:20
SPEAKER_01: He's like, He's like, Yo dad, guys, me too.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: I got the I got the bonnet.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: You see it?
35:25
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: It's like old hit dad being like, guys, I'm with you.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: And he's wearing filas.
35:30
SPEAKER_00: Here's my filas, here's my cap.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm cool like you guys.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh so he starts to again sympathize with them, and he really shows, like, guys, we're not all that different, you and me.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: Like, it's okay.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: And again, his whole goal is just to be loved.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: Louis just wants acceptance.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: He wants to be a good king.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: He's a puppy.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't know what to do.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: He's just trying to make everybody happy.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: So then the tides turn a bit because at this point in 1791, he attempts to flee with his family.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: To Austria.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: To Austria.
36:03
SPEAKER_00: Because obviously Marie Antoinette, his wife, is Austrian.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: So he says, Okay, let's leave all this behind.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: Clearly, like shit's just getting worse in this country.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how much longer, like, you know, we can hold out.
36:14
SPEAKER_00: We gotta just go to Austria.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: So they are disguised as servants.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: They leave.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: Cool.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: Let's play it cool, you guys.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: Yes, guys.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: Marie, maybe take that boat out of your hair.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: Who else was it who disguised as a servant?
36:27
SPEAKER_01: Was it Joan of Arc?
36:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, we talked, no, we said if you were Joan of Arc, how would you escape?
36:33
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Oh, we made that up.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we made that up.
36:35
SPEAKER_00: Never mind.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: But I have Mr.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: Toad.
36:38
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: Very reliable reference.
36:41
SPEAKER_01: Mr.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: Toad's Wild Ride.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: So they say, guys, Mr.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: Toad idea, let's get in servants' outfits.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna sneak out in the middle of the night and we're gonna go to Austria.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: And they actually had a pretty well-prepared plan, but they got caught at the border of Austria.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: And it was literally a guy who had like seen Louis's face on coinage and postage and whatever and was like, Aren't you the king?
37:03
SPEAKER_01: Could you honestly though compare like an a silhouette on a coin to the person and be like, I know that nose these days.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: These days I don't think you could.
37:13
SPEAKER_01: Back then, who knows?
37:14
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
37:15
SPEAKER_01: Maybe they looked at the city.
37:16
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they had cartoons and satire and pamphlets and I'm sure they weren't all those jokes of impotency.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure Marie Antoinette's hair gave her away.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: He's like, mm, you don't really look like a servant I've ever seen.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: Uh, is that a ship in your wig?
37:30
SPEAKER_00: Ooh.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: The the spoof documentary we watched too also showed what was it?
37:34
SPEAKER_00: I forget what those things are called from Star Wars.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: The robots from Star Wars.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: But it was like, yeah, these big like robots in her hair from Star Wars.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: It's like that's how intricate her hairstyles got.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: Um anyway, so they get caught, they get caught at the border.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so now they know that he's fleeing his country, that he essentially kind of betrayed his people and is just looking out for himself and his family.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: And then they go through his things, like in his room at Versailles.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: Rude.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: And they find all of this incriminating evidence, like letters and correspondence, and his own, like it wasn't it wasn't a memoir, but it was like a doctrine that he had created for himself, and it was basically all renouncing the revolution, basically all of it saying, Hey, as he's wearing his bonnet, yeah, yeah, yeah, guys.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm into this.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: So he was now just saying, like, you know, I don't really agree with this revolution idea.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't think they like me.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: I don't think they like me.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: I don't think they want a king.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: I think it's gonna get worse, and I'm not sure if I'm down with just being kicked out.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: So all of this starts to turn the tide.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: So now he's not just backing out of monarchy slowly.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: Now it's to the point where he is essentially arrested and he's sent to the temple, which is kind of the French equivalent of the Tower of London.
38:44
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
38:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's at this point it is August 13th, 1792.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: He is sent to the temple, the mo the monarchy is officially abolished, he's officially stripped of all titles and honors and everything.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: And they start to say, Okay, you're gonna have to go on trial now.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: And for them, it wasn't just this is our trial against Louis XVI.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: It was really symbolic of like this is the trial of the monarchy, like all the crimes the monarchy you know has committed, like you are gonna be the essentially scapegoat, you're the example.
39:15
SPEAKER_01: It and his accusation was for high treason, which again that that treason is a big blanket statement.
39:23
SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's kind of treason just against the new rules that the revolution has made.
39:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:30
SPEAKER_01: And yesterday.
39:32
SPEAKER_01: Yesterday.
39:33
SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, it's very much so like what Elizabeth was just was just saying is it's not even so much specifically what he did, it's just what he represented.
39:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:44
SPEAKER_01: And there and he knew all along, he knew going into this, and he even knew like talking to his lawyers like before the trial, like, guys, I don't stand a chance.
39:52
SPEAKER_01: They already know what's what the end goal is.
39:54
SPEAKER_01: They already know that this is all to get me out of here, and they're not gonna they're not gonna let me just like go off and sit pretty in another country and just like mind my okay, well, you learn your lesson, don't be king now.
40:05
SPEAKER_01: Don't do those things again.
40:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, he knew that it wasn't gonna look very good.
40:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, so and to be fair too, I mean, you know, Louis was probably the least offensive of the French monarchs.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: Because if you look at Louis XV, Louis XIV, we just watched a little bit of a documentary with Lucy Worsley um on Louis XIV and how ridiculous he was because he likened himself to a god and he put, you know, pictures of his face on the sun, like and everything in Versailles.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: Like he was the epitome of like, I am a god on earth and I am the king of France and all of that.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: So it's like Louis XVI by comparison, he's just again trying to be the good guy and trying to get by.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: So it's funny that of all people they pin this guy are like you represent the monarchy and you represent all that's bad, you know, about this world.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, but there was also some competing ideologies within uh the Revolutionary Party.
40:53
SPEAKER_00: So again, within the National Assembly the National Assembly, you had the radicals.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: You had the people that were like, all monarchy needs to be wiped out, they need to be executed today, let's like get get this thing at the roots and just get rid of it now.
41:07
SPEAKER_00: But then you had the moderates who said, Hey, we know monarchy isn't best, but let's do a constitutional monarchy, or let's just, you know, deport like Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI to another country while we kind of you know figure out this government.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: So there were people that were like on both end of the spectrums and they're all trying to figure out what to do with Louis at this point.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: So during his trial, there was basically like three areas that they needed to to look at and vote on.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: The first was was he actually guilty?
41:39
SPEAKER_01: Right.
41:39
SPEAKER_01: Decide on that first.
41:41
SPEAKER_01: If so, what should his punishment be?
41:44
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
41:44
SPEAKER_01: And then the last part was should his punishment be put to a national appeal?
41:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:50
SPEAKER_01: So there were 721 deputies.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: At first, just getting through the first part of like, was he even guilty?
41:57
SPEAKER_01: Right.
41:57
SPEAKER_01: 693 people voted guilty.
42:00
SPEAKER_01: Guilty.
42:00
SPEAKER_01: So that's not looking very good.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: 0% said that he was not guilty.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: And 23 people said, I'm not gonna answer that.
42:10
SPEAKER_01: I don't, I feel like this is going in a bad direction.
42:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: So once they figured out, okay, like he for sure is guilty, the next part's like, okay, so what should his punishment be?
42:19
SPEAKER_01: From there, 288 of the deputies voted against death, and they were like something alternative, like let's put them away in another country.
42:27
SPEAKER_01: Right.
42:28
SPEAKER_01: Um, 72 of them did say, Yeah, I think he should get the death penalty, but let's wait on it.
42:33
SPEAKER_01: Let's get a later date.
42:34
SPEAKER_01: Give it some time to do that.
42:35
SPEAKER_01: Maybe just keep it in prison a little bit.
42:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: And then out of all of that, 361 said now.
42:45
SPEAKER_01: Did I get that right?
42:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm trying to do the math.
42:47
SPEAKER_01: Okay, 361 said, we want immediate execution.
42:50
SPEAKER_01: Right now.
42:51
SPEAKER_01: One of those was his cousin.
42:53
SPEAKER_01: You can go on with that.
42:54
SPEAKER_01: The Duke of Orleans, his own cousin was like, kill him now.
42:58
SPEAKER_01: Why wait?
42:59
SPEAKER_01: Why wait?
43:00
SPEAKER_01: I have supper coming at seven, my DoorDash is on its way.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: But jokes on Duke of Orleans because he was actually killed later on the same guillotine that Louis XVI was killed.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: The next day, after so they went through 36 hours of deciding what was gonna happen.
43:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:18
SPEAKER_01: Um so it went into the next morning.
43:19
SPEAKER_01: By the next morning, the way that they landed was 310 deputies said, let's give him mercy.
43:25
SPEAKER_01: 380 said, execute him right away.
43:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: So not looking good.
43:30
SPEAKER_00: Nope.
43:31
SPEAKER_00: So on January 21st, 1793, Mr.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: Louis the Sixteenth, well, actually Mr.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: Because he yeah, he got his title taken away.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: Because he's a mister.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: Mr.
43:42
SPEAKER_00: Louis.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: So what was his new name?
43:44
SPEAKER_00: Do you do you have it on you?
43:45
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know he had a new name.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: They literally gave him a different name because he's no longer Louis the Sixteenth.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: He's not he's not Louis XVI of France.
43:52
SPEAKER_00: He was like Louis Smith.
43:54
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't Smith, it was like a French last name.
43:57
SPEAKER_00: Um Jerry, this is Jerry.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: Um, Jerry's gonna be beheaded today.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: So they escort Jerry to the guillotine.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: Are you laughing?
44:06
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I'm not laughing.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: It's not funny.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: It's not.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: Death is no laughing matter.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, but they take him to the guillotine.
44:12
SPEAKER_00: There was 20,000 people in attendance to see the public beheading.
44:18
SPEAKER_01: I have a little bit even before he gets to the scaffold.
44:21
SPEAKER_01: Oh.
44:21
SPEAKER_01: This is where I did my deep research.
44:23
SPEAKER_01: This is where you You were all about the laws and the politics and the climate of France.
44:28
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, yeah, but what happened?
44:29
SPEAKER_01: But the blood.
44:30
SPEAKER_01: The blood.
44:31
SPEAKER_01: So it was Monday, January 21st.
44:33
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
44:34
SPEAKER_01: Um, he woke up very early that morning and he had his Irish priest, Henry Essex Edgeworth, um, came in to make his last confession.
44:43
SPEAKER_01: He heard his mass, um, he received communion.
44:46
SPEAKER_01: He had the choice to say goodbye to his family because Marie Antoinette was very close by, like in the temple also.
44:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:54
SPEAKER_01: Um, but he avoided it because he just thought it would be too painful to see his kids and his wife and everything on the morning of.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: Um by 7 a.m., a green carriage came up and they were waiting for him.
45:06
SPEAKER_01: And then it took uh almost two hours for him to travel all the way to the scaffold.
45:13
SPEAKER_01: Um, it was like a very grim, he had a couple militiamen in there with him, but they said he just prayed the whole time and he was very quiet.
45:20
SPEAKER_01: And of course the streets were lined because everyone wants to see the king of England, or sorry, the king of France is going down.
45:27
SPEAKER_01: Um, they intentionally played drummers all the way down to try to drown out any of the supporters who were like cheering for the king and like you know, like praising him and supporting him.
45:37
SPEAKER_01: They didn't want any of that, so they on purposely drowned him out with drums.
45:42
SPEAKER_01: About 7 a.m.
45:43
SPEAKER_01: He arrives at the scaffold, and again, like you said, there was 20,000 people there, so huge.
45:48
SPEAKER_01: That was the event of the year.
45:50
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
45:51
SPEAKER_00: Ugh, that's like half a basketball arena.
45:55
SPEAKER_01: So last time when we talked about Marie Antoinette, we talked a lot about the executioner.
45:59
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
45:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm fascinated with this guy.
46:01
SPEAKER_01: Like I need to go find some, I need to go find some other books on this guy because he's really cool.
46:06
SPEAKER_01: You've learned even more about him today.
46:08
SPEAKER_01: So I apologize if some of this is just a repeat from the first episode.
46:12
SPEAKER_01: Either maybe you forgot about that or the quality was so bad you stopped listening to it.
46:16
SPEAKER_01: So here's another recap.
46:20
SPEAKER_01: Um Charles Henry Sanson was the executioner.
46:23
SPEAKER_01: Right.
46:24
SPEAKER_01: At the time, he was high executioner of the first French Republic, so he was like head honcho guy.
46:30
SPEAKER_01: He was an executioner for 40 years, and he's the fourth and a sixth generation family of executioners.
46:37
SPEAKER_01: That's a lot.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: And like we've talked about the before, how being an executioner was very much a family trait.
46:42
SPEAKER_01: It was like you were a blacksmith.
46:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:45
SPEAKER_01: It's like you were that the family executioner.
46:49
SPEAKER_01: Um, but it wasn't necessarily a good thing.
46:51
SPEAKER_01: Um so originally he went to a really nice school up until 1753, and a father of one of the students recognized his father who was the current executioner, and they kicked him out because they didn't want the family the sorry, they didn't want the school to have that bad reputation of hosting an executioner's son.
47:10
SPEAKER_01: That's sad.
47:10
SPEAKER_01: Give him a chance.
47:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, they were really like people didn't like them.
47:14
SPEAKER_00: Like, well, you said people would cross themselves when they walked past them.
47:18
SPEAKER_00: There's like a kind of a stigma.
47:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:20
SPEAKER_01: It was unlucky.
47:20
SPEAKER_01: They were very unlucky.
47:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:22
SPEAKER_01: Um, when he became the executioner, his nickname was the Gentleman of Paris.
47:26
SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
47:27
SPEAKER_01: Kind of creepy.
47:29
SPEAKER_01: Um, his son was also an executioner, would sometimes work as his assistant, and he was the one that we've talked about who died when he held up the head of one of his like victims.
47:41
SPEAKER_01: Right.
47:41
SPEAKER_01: And he slipped on the blood, fell off the scaffold, and he died.
47:45
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we were saying.
47:46
SPEAKER_01: That was like the two for one.
47:47
SPEAKER_01: The two for one from our first episode.
47:49
SPEAKER_01: You got the execution plus the death.
47:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
47:51
SPEAKER_01: You see one, but do you know you were getting two?
47:54
SPEAKER_01: His uncle, who was the um high executioner before him, also named the same.
48:01
SPEAKER_01: I guess it they very much just kept things the same way.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: Um, so also named Charles Henry Sanson.
48:08
SPEAKER_01: Okay, this is wild, and maybe this needs to be like its own episode, but I I have to go on a tangent.
48:14
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
48:14
SPEAKER_01: Just let me give me this moment.
48:16
SPEAKER_01: I gotcha.
48:16
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so he ended up resigning as being executioner because his last execution, which was the very last drawn and quartering of France, was like the most gruesome, most difficult thing.
48:32
SPEAKER_01: And to be an executioner, to be like, yeah, I'm out, that's kind of pretty bad.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: So this is what happened.
48:37
SPEAKER_00: And really quick to preface this, like, Megan had kind of told me this, and I was half listening.
48:42
SPEAKER_00: I was kind of working.
48:43
SPEAKER_00: Of course, as our life is.
48:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, uh-huh, Megan, what?
48:45
SPEAKER_00: But she's like, listen to this execution.
48:47
SPEAKER_00: I was like, Megan, we talk about executions all the time.
48:51
SPEAKER_00: Like, it's part of what we do on our podcast.
48:52
SPEAKER_00: Like, it's always something we bring up.
48:54
SPEAKER_00: How is this any different?
48:55
SPEAKER_01: And we've become we become so immune to it.
48:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, yeah, and then they cut off his head, and then they take out his bowels.
49:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, hurt it all.
49:02
SPEAKER_00: But you gotta listen to this one.
49:03
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so the person who this is, um, he was he tried to assassinate the king.
49:10
SPEAKER_01: The victim.
49:10
SPEAKER_01: The victim did.
49:11
SPEAKER_01: Um, what is his name?
49:13
SPEAKER_01: Damien, this is all I have is his last name.
49:15
SPEAKER_00: Damien, that's enough.
49:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, his name's Damien.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: That's a ominous name.
49:20
SPEAKER_01: So he was first subjected to torture where his legs were painfully compressed by devices called boots.
49:26
SPEAKER_01: And then he was Oh, I have those, yes, they're painful.
49:29
SPEAKER_01: Yes, they are painful, especially when you get those high heels.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: Uh no, but then he was tortured tortured with red hot pincers.
49:36
SPEAKER_01: The hand that he was gonna hold the knife in when he was gonna kill the king was then um boiled and burned with sulfur.
49:44
SPEAKER_01: And then they took molten wax, molten lead, and other boiling oil and poured it into his wounds.
49:52
SPEAKER_01: And then on the day of the execution, so that was all like pre-torture, and then he's actually gonna get executed and he's gonna get drawn in quarter.
49:58
SPEAKER_01: Or just an appetizer to the main event.
50:00
SPEAKER_01: That's a nice way to put it.
50:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:02
SPEAKER_01: Um, so first he emasculates him, which, as we know, means you cut off the junk.
50:07
SPEAKER_01: The cod piece.
50:08
SPEAKER_01: The cod piece.
50:10
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then this is so you've mentioned this, so there's different ways that they would draw in quarter.
50:14
SPEAKER_01: Because we've talked about ones where they just take the axe and you just take off the limbs.
50:18
SPEAKER_01: Right.
50:18
SPEAKER_01: This one is like hardcore.
50:20
SPEAKER_01: This is when they tied each of his limbs, his arms and his legs, to differ to four different horses.
50:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:25
SPEAKER_01: And they had the horses run off in different directions to pull out the limbs.
50:29
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
50:30
SPEAKER_01: It gets worse.
50:31
SPEAKER_01: It gets worse than that.
50:32
SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna believe this.
50:33
SPEAKER_01: It gets worse.
50:34
SPEAKER_01: Stay tuned, quick ad.
50:36
SPEAKER_01: I'm just kidding.
50:36
SPEAKER_01: And then in have we talked about Trader Joe's wine yet?
50:40
SPEAKER_01: Speaking of Trader Joe's.
50:41
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
50:41
SPEAKER_01: No, let me get in the middle of this.
50:42
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so the limbs do not separate that easily.
50:46
SPEAKER_01: So this is where the executioners like starting to have a difficult time.
50:50
SPEAKER_01: The officiants ordered him to cut off his tendons, like saw them off while the horses are pulling on his arms and legs.
50:59
unknown: Yikes.
51:00
SPEAKER_01: Reportedly, um, this did not kill him yet.
51:03
SPEAKER_01: Nope.
51:03
SPEAKER_01: Um, and the face right now.
51:06
SPEAKER_01: My face right now just crazy.
51:08
SPEAKER_01: The crowd was applauding and having it all.
51:13
SPEAKER_01: Um reportedly, his still living torso.
51:20
SPEAKER_01: Then so imagine this nub of a man with no arms, no legs, still alive, is then burned at the stake.
51:29
SPEAKER_01: Other accounts say he died when his last remaining arm was removed.
51:35
SPEAKER_01: So that was his uncle, to give you an idea of the background of their history.
51:39
SPEAKER_00: And after that execution, he said, I think I've seen enough.
51:42
SPEAKER_01: He's like, I'm done.
51:43
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, my my nephew's gonna take over.
51:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
51:46
SPEAKER_01: I think after all of that, we're done here.
51:49
SPEAKER_01: So going back to Louis XVI and his executioner, I'm just gonna call him Sanson, his last name.
51:54
SPEAKER_01: Cool.
51:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, Sanson, kind of cool though.
51:57
SPEAKER_01: He was the first executioner to use the guillotine.
52:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
52:01
SPEAKER_01: Which we talked about last time, too.
52:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and the guillotine was basically they actually Louis passed this law of ironically.
52:10
SPEAKER_01: He passed a law called the equality of execution, so that regardless of the type of crime, so like we don't have someone getting drawn and quartered, everyone was just executed with a guillotine the same way because it was like quick and hopefully painless.
52:23
SPEAKER_00: It was quick and it was it didn't matter on your social standing, what you had done to deserve death, but either way, it's like there's no more hangings, there's no more botched executions by sword or axe or again drawn and quarterings.
52:35
SPEAKER_00: It's like everyone just lines up and you just go to the guillotine.
52:38
SPEAKER_01: Burning for heretic, besetting for nobly, drawn and quartered for traitor, like, yeah, all of that stuff.
52:43
SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
52:44
SPEAKER_00: Like heresy, guillotine.
52:46
SPEAKER_00: Uh, treason, guillotine.
52:48
SPEAKER_00: Like whatever it is, guillotine.
52:49
SPEAKER_01: Stolen apple, stolen guillotine.
52:52
SPEAKER_01: Lie to your teacher, you're a woman and you read a book, guillotine.
52:56
SPEAKER_00: Guillotine.
52:57
SPEAKER_00: Now we're getting handsmaids, Taylor.
52:59
SPEAKER_01: Uh okay, and then Sanson, overall during the French Revolution, he performed 2,918 executions with the guillotine.
53:07
SPEAKER_01: He got good at it.
53:08
SPEAKER_01: That's a lot.
53:09
SPEAKER_01: He had a guillotine arm, I'm sure, like it was a little bit buffered than the other one.
53:13
SPEAKER_01: And he had like a special glove, I'm sure.
53:15
SPEAKER_01: And he would make some of that up.
53:17
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
53:18
SPEAKER_01: Um, anyways.
53:19
SPEAKER_01: Oh.
53:20
SPEAKER_01: Um, we're not done with Louis XVI's.
53:22
SPEAKER_01: We're not.
53:22
SPEAKER_00: No, we're still going on.
53:23
SPEAKER_01: Um we're still here, folks.
53:25
SPEAKER_00: But the the executioner, um, Sanson, did say that he that he being Louis XVI bravely met his fate.
53:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, and he was really dignified and resigned.
53:36
SPEAKER_00: And as we mentioned before, he kind of knew this was coming.
53:38
SPEAKER_00: He's he he knew he was fighting a losing battle, and he's kind of been this way his whole life since he's been king.
53:43
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Yeah, I know I'm not a great king.
53:45
SPEAKER_00: Like, I just want people to like me.
53:47
SPEAKER_00: Like, I know I'm gonna die.
53:48
SPEAKER_00: He tried, did my best, guys.
53:50
SPEAKER_00: Like, I wore my red little cap for you.
53:52
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want that.
53:54
SPEAKER_00: Sorry I ran away.
53:55
SPEAKER_00: I was panicked.
53:56
SPEAKER_00: But so he was very resigned, um, but you know, took it like a man.
54:00
SPEAKER_01: He also refused to have his hands tight at first.
54:03
SPEAKER_01: He really didn't want Sanson to do it, and then Sanson had to, but he was kind of nice about it.
54:07
SPEAKER_01: He used a handkerchief instead of the rope to make it feel a little bit more dignified, I feel like.
54:11
SPEAKER_01: Nice, yeah.
54:12
SPEAKER_01: Um but then he cut off his hair.
54:14
SPEAKER_01: Why?
54:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why he cut off the hair.
54:16
SPEAKER_01: I mean, is it like um is it more for like the statement?
54:20
SPEAKER_00: The symbolic nature of it, but what does the hair mean?
54:22
SPEAKER_00: Like, I guess the hair is like an excessive thing.
54:24
SPEAKER_00: Or is it like, I don't want your little ponytail nub to get in the way of the giant blade in front of me.
54:31
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that's about.
54:32
SPEAKER_00: I don't know either.
54:33
SPEAKER_00: But but his last words, um, I don't have the exact words in front of me if you do, but he essentially what he did was he claimed his innocence again, he r pardoned all of those that were the cause of his death.
54:44
SPEAKER_00: He was very sweet about it, and he basically said that he hopes his blood doesn't reflect badly on France, like he still believes in France.
54:51
SPEAKER_00: And I think he went on to say more, but the drummers were like, Alright, let's get this going.
54:55
SPEAKER_01: So his speech was halted with a big drum roll that just drowned him out, and then it was just a way to shut him up, was just like, come on, give him his last moment here.
55:05
SPEAKER_01: It was a very short speech.
55:06
SPEAKER_01: He got drowned out, um, and so then they they put him on the plank.
55:11
SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say like lasso'd him up, I guess that's not the right thing.
55:15
SPEAKER_01: Tied him to a plank.
55:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was like a strapped into a plank that would then slide up and you go in like head first and you're laying on your stomach looking down, looking down at the basket.
55:24
SPEAKER_01: Ooh.
55:25
SPEAKER_01: And then sometimes there's heads in the basket.
55:28
SPEAKER_01: Ooh.
55:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:29
SPEAKER_01: Creepy.
55:30
SPEAKER_01: I feel like they reserved the day for him.
55:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but if you're a peasant and you start others in the basket for sure.
55:38
SPEAKER_00: Oh looking at you.
55:39
SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, and then the executioner held his head up for everyone to see, and the crowd went wild, folks.
55:46
SPEAKER_00: People went like they took their handkerchiefs and absorbed a lot of the blood.
55:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, and literally they've done like DNA matches to prove that there's certain like handkerchiefs that exist in history with his blood on it.
55:58
SPEAKER_00: Because people were like through the family.
56:00
SPEAKER_00: That's like gruesome little souvenir.
56:02
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh I was here.
56:04
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like saving your um like your tickets to the game or something.
56:08
SPEAKER_01: That's a little different.
56:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm a person, trust me, I I keep my movie tickets, my my sports tickets, I keep everything, but I don't know if I'd have a bloody handkerchief just hanging out in my room.
56:18
SPEAKER_00: A little different.
56:19
SPEAKER_01: I would frame it, if anything, not just like hanging out or just like dry sign like an old rose.
56:24
SPEAKER_01: I have a sign it.
56:26
SPEAKER_00: You just can you can't get your finger real quick.
56:28
SPEAKER_01: Really quick.
56:28
SPEAKER_01: I know you're busy.
56:29
SPEAKER_01: Just can you just do a little scribble?
56:31
unknown: Yeah.
56:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, so there are a couple different accounts.
56:34
SPEAKER_01: One of two accounts suggests that maybe the blade didn't sever his whole neck in one go and it wasn't a clean cut, which I find hard to believe for many reasons.
56:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, with the guillotine, no.
56:45
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard of a botched execution from a guillotine?
56:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
56:48
SPEAKER_01: Um they also thought there was an account that said it like he screamed out.
56:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like it severed his spine more than his neck, which also doesn't make sense.
56:59
SPEAKER_01: And he wouldn't have and then they said like he uttered a terrible cry.
57:03
SPEAKER_01: That wouldn't have happened though.
57:04
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, they said it went in instead of cutting his neck, they said the cut went through the back of his skull and into his jaw.
57:11
SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't scream if that happened.
57:14
unknown: Yeah.
57:16
SPEAKER_00: I I don't agree with any of that.
57:17
SPEAKER_01: Um, other historians don't believe it so much either.
57:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
57:20
SPEAKER_01: I think it's one of those things that it's like when you're there, you kind of like it.
57:23
SPEAKER_01: It's like the telephone game and it just gets exaggerated.
57:26
SPEAKER_01: Oh, did he scream?
57:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he screamed like, you know, one of those things.
57:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's 20,000 people, there's gonna be different accounts.
57:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they said it took two times to slice off slice off his head from his neck due to the fact that the king was fat in weight.
57:37
SPEAKER_01: Oh.
57:37
SPEAKER_01: And he screamed out pain before the second time successfully decapitated him.
57:41
SPEAKER_01: I I don't know about that.
57:43
SPEAKER_01: Not with the guillotine, that's foolproof.
57:45
SPEAKER_00: I think because the uh the executioner said he bravely met his fate, I think that uh summarizes everything.
57:52
SPEAKER_00: I think he would have said, Oh, it took a couple tries.
57:56
SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, so he was buried into a mass grave um at the Madeline Cemetery that was nearby, as was Marie Ann Touinette later.
58:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, but he was in 1815 moved to the Basilica of St.
58:09
SPEAKER_00: Denis, both Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI.
58:11
SPEAKER_00: And their heads.
58:13
SPEAKER_00: And their heads, I believe, yeah.
58:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we actually, I don't know if anyone knows this for sure, but we saw different accounts.
58:19
SPEAKER_00: We had read that the that people were petitioning for him to become a saint and a martyr, saying, like, oh, he died for the Catholic cause, but apparently he was denied because um, you know, did not exactly for himself.
58:32
SPEAKER_00: He he had it was a political death, it wasn't a religious death.
58:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I we also saw in the again the documentary that we were watching that he was canonized and that he did become a saint, and there's like statues of him.
58:44
SPEAKER_00: Not the not the cartoon one, like a legit documentary.
58:49
SPEAKER_00: So we were we both looked at each other, we're like, we everything we read said that he did not become a martyr, but there was one account that we saw.
58:55
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if anyone knows for sure, if maybe you studied this in college, I don't know.
58:59
SPEAKER_00: But we we weren't sure if he in fact was um canonized, as we learned from our last episode.
59:05
SPEAKER_00: Canonize that.
59:06
SPEAKER_00: Canonize that.
59:07
SPEAKER_00: Louis the 16th might be on the list.
59:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're gonna go to one more segment before we end up.
59:11
SPEAKER_01: Is it canonize that?
59:13
SPEAKER_01: It's not.
59:13
SPEAKER_01: Are we ever doing that again?
59:15
SPEAKER_01: Probably not.
59:16
SPEAKER_00: Oh.
59:16
SPEAKER_00: But you never know.
59:17
SPEAKER_00: We like we get random strokes of inspiration.
59:20
SPEAKER_00: Um random strokes for different I I think for a segment today, we're gonna just wrap up on our punishment fits the crime.
59:29
SPEAKER_00: That's my favorite.
59:30
SPEAKER_00: I really like this one because I you know me, I have a lot of annoyances with modern humans.
59:34
SPEAKER_00: You do.
59:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I was thinking about it in terms of context of Versailles, because I was like, you know, and I think maybe because of COVID, this is a little more highlighted, but sometimes you just judge people in this day and age for how they like party or like emphasize their like life on social media, especially in COVID, when like you really shouldn't be at these parties and like around a bunch of people and like doing all these things publicly, you know.
59:59
SPEAKER_01: Or that's like back when quarantine, like the shutdowns were first happening back in March.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_01: Right, and there was no toilet paper.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know which one it was, it was Chloe or Courtney, one of the Kardashians um thought it was like really cute.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_01: She TP'd her sister's house full of toilet paper, and people got so angry, they're like, I'm sorry, I just waited three hours in line at Costco just for the toilet paper to be gone.
1:00:24
SPEAKER_01: Like and you're gonna just waste it all on this house.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
1:00:28
SPEAKER_01: So maybe it's a copy of the completely ignorant, exactly.
1:00:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's very uncapped touch.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_00: Like read the room.
1:00:33
SPEAKER_00: You're just just gonna yeah, read the room.
1:00:34
SPEAKER_00: So I I maybe it's because of the quarantine lens or whatever, but I feel like sometimes we just judge people so harshly, like, God, you're not like be more respectful of current events and whatever is going on.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_00: So I was thinking about like how you would punish these people.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_00: Punishment fits the crime.
1:00:49
SPEAKER_00: And I think the perfect solution for these type of people is to send them to an island.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_00: Ooh, I like where this is going.
1:00:57
SPEAKER_00: Just like if you guys have seen the documentary or heard of it.
1:00:59
SPEAKER_00: Oh Firefighters! Yes! Like, okay, if you guys are unfamiliar with Firefest, it's essentially it was it was before COVID times, but it was promised to be the world's like biggest party ever.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_00: They were like, hey guys, like if you're between, you know, 21 and 30, like go to this island, and there's gonna be Instagram models there and influencers there, and we're gonna have unlimited drinks and it's like a festival.
1:01:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like you rent your cabana, and there's like all these musicians performing.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be like the biggest festival party.
1:01:30
SPEAKER_00: Coachella times 10.
1:01:31
SPEAKER_00: Coachella is Coachella meets Burning Man meets just like I don't know, desert island fantasy.
1:01:37
SPEAKER_00: Like, go and have the best time of your life.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_01: Those are also music festivals in case I forget.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_01: We have listeners in like England.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's what I'm saying.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, they they kind of they might know some of these.
1:01:46
SPEAKER_00: Probably Woodstock.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_00: They're smart, but um, but anyway, so so it's supposed to be this giant event, and what happens, like the moron that's in charge of it literally didn't plan it.
1:01:58
SPEAKER_00: He like he got there, and everyone else got there, and they're like, Oh, dude, like, where's my cabana?
1:02:03
SPEAKER_00: I paid$13,000 for, I don't know what the prices are.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, he's like, Oh yeah, well, we have cabanas, but like the keys are like missing.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_00: They're like not set up yet.
1:02:13
SPEAKER_00: So we have to set them up for you.
1:02:14
SPEAKER_00: Like, just wait.
1:02:15
SPEAKER_00: People were literally like bougie Americans and other people from other countries were like literally stuck out on this island, like like literally like on the shore, like having to set up camp and like finding tarps and finding mattresses and like finding things to sleep on.
1:02:29
SPEAKER_01: They had like little like ham sandwiches, right?
1:02:32
SPEAKER_01: Like really crappy, like survivalists.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like you went thinking it's gonna be the best experience of your life to now, like literally trying to survive on an island and being like, What did I just get suckered into?
1:02:42
SPEAKER_00: So I think that is the perfect punishment for people that are like being irresponsible, not just in like COVID times.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, like when it's like when you're not reading the room and you're just like having these lavish parties and not listening to your starving peasants in Paris, it's like, you know what?
1:02:55
SPEAKER_00: Go to this huge party.
1:02:56
SPEAKER_00: You you're gonna love the kind of person that would bring it up.
1:03:00
SPEAKER_00: Bree Louie, go join, go join the party.
1:03:03
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be the best party you've ever seen.
1:03:04
SPEAKER_00: Macarons and cakes and champagne everywhere, and costumes.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be in costumes every night, and your hair's gonna be in all these different styles, and you're gonna have the best time.
1:03:13
SPEAKER_00: You go.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_00: And then they get stuck, and then they get there, and they're like, but but where's the champagne?
1:03:19
SPEAKER_00: You're like, guess what?
1:03:20
SPEAKER_00: You've got sparkling cider.
1:03:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're just gonna have to drink the seawater, actually.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_00: It's a little salty.
1:03:26
SPEAKER_00: You like the apple cider, right?
1:03:28
SPEAKER_00: The what's it called?
1:03:29
SPEAKER_00: The sparkling martinelli's.
1:03:32
SPEAKER_00: We have a bottle of martinelli's or something alcoholic.
1:03:35
SPEAKER_00: It's only$200.
1:03:37
SPEAKER_00: I just think that would be the perfect.
1:03:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I actually I don't think I can beat that.
1:03:41
SPEAKER_01: I think that's a good one.
1:03:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying, let's send them all to an island again.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_00: Send them all up.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_00: Let's let's you and me go and we're gonna create Firefest 2.
1:03:50
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, hey, no, this is the real Firefest, and let's just lure all of them there and then all the influencers.
1:03:55
SPEAKER_00: Make sure they don't leave.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_00: Make sure they don't leave.
1:03:57
SPEAKER_01: You and I are basically influencers on Instagram.
1:04:00
SPEAKER_01: So you I'm gonna end with just um a quick ta a quick uh shout out to us.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_01: Is that allowed?
1:04:08
SPEAKER_01: Um sure.
1:04:10
SPEAKER_01: Um you should follow us if you don't.
1:04:12
SPEAKER_00: Beheaded.podcast.
1:04:14
SPEAKER_00: Now that we're we're getting Megan settled into her new house, I think we'll be more active on social media.
1:04:19
SPEAKER_00: I've been saying that for about a year.
1:04:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm really bad at it.
1:04:22
SPEAKER_00: You should just take over.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_00: You're better at it.
1:04:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm really not, but I shall try.
1:04:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, but she's been a handful.
1:04:28
SPEAKER_00: Now that she's not a handful, I will try to take over social media.
1:04:31
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:04:32
SPEAKER_01: Um follow us, like us, like us on Apple, Spotify, and we'll snack the mic over.
1:04:39
SPEAKER_01: Um anyways, any any final words, Elizabeth?
1:04:44
SPEAKER_00: I would say send him to an island and let him eat cake.