Latest / Beheaded / How to Win Friends Then Guillotine People | Maximilien Robespierre (Part 2)

Transcript

How to Win Friends Then Guillotine People | Maximilien Robespierre (Part 2) · Beheaded

0:04
SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to Beheaded.
0:06
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to season seven, episode 13, part two.
0:09
SPEAKER_02: I'm Megan Moore.
0:10
SPEAKER_01: And I'm Elizabeth Black.
0:12
SPEAKER_02: We took a quick break.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: Just a little break.
0:15
SPEAKER_02: A little breaky break.
0:16
SPEAKER_02: Don't know how long the break was for you, but for us.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: Quick break.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: As you see, we're still in our same clothing on the YouTube.
0:22
SPEAKER_02: It would have been funny if we just switched outfits.
0:24
SPEAKER_01: Like I wore your shirt.
0:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we should have thought of that.
0:26
SPEAKER_02: That would have been funny.
0:27
SPEAKER_02: It's not too late.
0:28
SPEAKER_02: You want to do it?
0:30
SPEAKER_02: Only for the YouTube music.
0:31
SPEAKER_02: Ooh, YouTube bro.
0:32
SPEAKER_02: We're getting little ones for us.
0:35
SPEAKER_02: You know, we're in part two because I switched to uh Cherry Coke Zero in my fancy French coup glass.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: That looks delicious.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: You know what?
0:45
SPEAKER_01: Did you call it a coup glass?
0:47
SPEAKER_01: Coupe glass.
0:48
SPEAKER_02: I thought the pea was silent.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: No, that's like a coup d'e.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: Sil, like that's silent, but that I believe is phenomenal.
0:55
SPEAKER_01: Ooh.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: We're not quite there with our transition yet, but that is a good transition.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: I'll hold on to that one.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: Maybe bring it up, bring up your glass in a bit.
1:03
SPEAKER_02: Well, cheers.
1:05
SPEAKER_02: Cheers.
1:06
SPEAKER_01: Cheers episode.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: Maybe ever.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: Don't say that.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: I told Megan before this, I made her commit to ten seasons, so that's happening.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: God help us.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna bleed twice if I need help.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: No, no.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: Ten seasons.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: First of all, this might never die.
1:22
SPEAKER_01: We might be we're gonna We might die before this podcast dies, but we're committed to at least ten seasons.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm not just giving up after seven, please.
1:29
SPEAKER_01: And we got big plans to do this.
1:31
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:31
SPEAKER_02: You can't just end at seven.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: Or eight is you can't end on if you're gonna go to eight, you might as well go to ten.
1:37
SPEAKER_02: You can't do nine.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: No.
1:38
SPEAKER_02: Maybe fifteen.
1:40
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:41
SPEAKER_02: That'd be funny.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: Think about it.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: But like, okay, future us, right?
1:47
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: Where are we?
1:48
SPEAKER_01: What do we look like?
1:49
SPEAKER_01: Well, the thing is, Megan's gonna be living half the the year in England.
1:54
SPEAKER_02: Probably.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be in the Coswaltz in your cute little cottage.
1:58
SPEAKER_01: They don't have service there, so Oh, you're just like, I can't contact you at all.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: No, like Skype interviews or anything.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: No, terrible.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: Do they still have Skype?
2:07
SPEAKER_01: Is that a thing?
2:07
SPEAKER_01: No.
2:08
SPEAKER_02: Starlink?
2:09
SPEAKER_02: We're talking about the future, not the past.
2:11
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you're right.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: Damn.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
2:12
SPEAKER_01: I I that aged me.
2:14
SPEAKER_01: Um your Starlink little connection, you don't have that?
2:17
SPEAKER_02: No.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: Where are you in in 10 years?
2:20
SPEAKER_01: Well, you see, in 10 years I live in many places.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like I summer in either northern Arizona or New Jersey Coast or Colorado, but in the football season in the fall, you know, it's like I probably go back to Southern California to co follow my college team.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: But you know, but we're kind of all over the place.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: You know, winter we'll do a little Arizona.
2:41
SPEAKER_02: We'll do special edition episodes like when we can.
2:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: You know?
2:45
SPEAKER_01: In the spring, I'm a very international lady in the spring, you know.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: I go all over mostly Europe, but all over, you know.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: I I approve.
2:52
SPEAKER_01: Japan for the cherry blossoms.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, just the seasonal stuff.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: You know, I gotta visit all the Disney parks in the world, so it's gonna be very demanding on my time.
3:01
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I could actually meet with you at all, Megan.
3:03
SPEAKER_02: All right, well, I'm gonna be busy just sitting in my cottage with my fireplace.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: With your potato garden.
3:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I'll be busy.
3:10
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: But we will commit to a certain amount of episodes for you all.
3:15
SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm like feeling nostalgic because this is we've dragged out this season for so long and it's finally coming to an end.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: Finally, thank God.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: No.
3:26
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna miss me when I'm gone.
3:28
SPEAKER_02: I mean, sometimes I don't even see you in the off seasons.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: Let's be real.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: Don't say that.
3:32
SPEAKER_02: Barely.
3:33
SPEAKER_02: I don't make you French dinners.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we can, Negan.
3:37
SPEAKER_02: We should.
3:38
SPEAKER_02: There's not, you know, we could still have themed nights.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: We have plenty of themed nights.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: Last year we did our whole mummy party.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: That's true.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: So don't act like we don't do things outside of the podcast.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, get out of here.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: I we host plenty of things.
3:49
SPEAKER_02: We actually do do a lot of weird events with just the two of us.
3:53
SPEAKER_02: I think the issue is more than what's normal.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: The issue is that we need to have more casual hangouts.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: I think when we do hang out, we both make it a big production.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:03
SPEAKER_02: Like, what do you mean we don't do anything lightly?
4:05
SPEAKER_02: We do a lot on YouTube.
4:07
SPEAKER_02: We're in a French-themed room right now with French flags everywhere.
4:10
SPEAKER_02: Beautiful.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: Um, so maybe we just need to plan more casualties.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: Or we went to the zoo a lot last year.
4:17
SPEAKER_02: You know what we talked about in the last episode?
4:20
SPEAKER_02: We kind of like hinted at ghost stories, but uh I kind of left on a cliffhanger.
4:26
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Did you go?
4:28
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
4:28
SPEAKER_02: I was like, I've had ghost experiences and then just didn't say anything.
4:32
SPEAKER_02: No, that's very mysterious of me.
4:34
SPEAKER_01: That's not what happened.
4:35
SPEAKER_02: You said it was just an hour ago.
4:36
SPEAKER_02: I think I remember.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: You said it may or may not involve Abe Lincoln.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Okay, Megan, we'll save your little ghost story for next time.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: And I guess it's the next time.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: So before we dive into our Robespierre part two episode, Megan has a ghost story to tell us.
4:56
SPEAKER_02: I should, I should preface, there's absolutely no transition, like there's no smooth way to talk about Abraham Lincoln's ghost to the reign of terror.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: I beg to differ.
5:07
SPEAKER_02: We'll find a way, maybe.
5:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:09
SPEAKER_02: This has nothing to do with anything to do with executions or beheadings.
5:13
SPEAKER_02: That's not true.
5:14
SPEAKER_02: Abraham Lincoln was shot in a theater.
5:16
SPEAKER_01: Assassinated.
5:17
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: Assassinated, and uh, you know, he he quelled a civil war in America.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: And at this point, and there were rebels there.
5:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and there's rebels here.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: At this point, France is in a somewhat civil war of sorts.
5:32
SPEAKER_01: Not really, but we'll get into that.
5:33
unknown: Okay.
5:34
SPEAKER_02: Well, I've had several ghost experiences.
5:36
SPEAKER_02: I was in Washington, D.C.
5:37
SPEAKER_02: at Ford's Theater, and we went across the street to the Peterson house, which is where they carried Abraham Lincoln after he was shot, and they put him on.
5:47
SPEAKER_02: The citizen was like, Oh, come in this house and come on, you know, put him here and have him on my bed.
5:52
SPEAKER_02: And that was the room that he died in.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: I see.
5:55
SPEAKER_02: And total coincidence.
5:56
SPEAKER_02: I was there for my and it's still the same structure.
5:58
SPEAKER_02: Yes, it's the same exact house.
6:00
SPEAKER_02: It's now a museum.
6:01
SPEAKER_02: They've left everything pretty much like as is, because it's like where Abraham Lincoln died.
6:06
SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
6:07
SPEAKER_02: And they do tours.
6:08
SPEAKER_02: And coincidentally, I was there with my eighth grade Washington, D.C.
6:12
SPEAKER_02: field trip, as so many Americans have gone through.
6:15
SPEAKER_02: And coincidentally, we were there on the anniversary of his death.
6:20
SPEAKER_02: But we didn't, but we didn't mean to do that.
6:21
SPEAKER_02: It was just coincidence.
6:23
SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
6:23
SPEAKER_02: And we were in the room, we were looking at the bed, and I got so dizzy, like vertigo type room started spinning dizzy.
6:34
SPEAKER_02: And I looked over at my teacher, I remember her, Miss Sodden, and she had a weird look.
6:39
SPEAKER_02: And she was like, There's too many people in here, which there weren't.
6:42
SPEAKER_02: It was just like our small little group.
6:43
SPEAKER_02: She's like, it's really claustrophobic.
6:45
SPEAKER_02: Let's leave.
6:46
SPEAKER_02: I took a quick picture with my disposable Kodak camera of the bed, and then we left.
6:51
SPEAKER_02: And she was like kind of fanning.
6:53
SPEAKER_02: She's like, gosh, I felt so nauseous in there.
6:55
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, me too.
6:57
SPEAKER_02: So we were sharing that we had the same exact physical symptoms of feeling really dizzy and nauseous.
7:03
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
7:03
SPEAKER_02: And so then weeks later, and I developed my film, there is a big flash and an orb right over the bed.
7:12
SPEAKER_02: Hmm, mysterious orb.
7:14
SPEAKER_02: There were there were no mirrors or glass around.
7:16
SPEAKER_02: Like there was no plexiglass for like between us.
7:20
SPEAKER_02: There was nothing to flash the camera on.
7:21
SPEAKER_02: It was just wallpaper.
7:23
SPEAKER_02: Um, I was so curious of what happened.
7:27
SPEAKER_02: I even looked at other versions of the room to see if there was like a mirror behind me, like through other people's pictures and stuff.
7:35
SPEAKER_02: And there wasn't.
7:36
SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: Do you know if anyone else had photos developed and saw similar things in there?
7:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I'd be very curious of that if like what else came.
7:44
SPEAKER_02: But it was a perfect orb over the bed with a like a big bright light.
7:50
SPEAKER_02: So maybe it was like some type of portal.
7:52
SPEAKER_02: Maybe he was like, you know?
7:54
SPEAKER_01: You opened the portal.
7:55
SPEAKER_02: Maybe something weird was going on.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: Anyways, it's I have never had a ghost encounter.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: I think I've had premonitions of sorts.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: I think weird things can happen.
8:03
SPEAKER_01: I do think weird things can happen, and I'd like to believe in them, but I've yet to hear something that's like Whoa, confirmed ghost.
8:10
SPEAKER_01: All right, I'll think about that.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: I mean yours are yours are close.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: They're pretty close.
8:13
SPEAKER_02: And I still have the picture.
8:15
SPEAKER_02: I still have the picture of the Abraham Lincoln.
8:17
SPEAKER_02: I think you showed it to me a long time ago.
8:18
SPEAKER_02: I'll show it to you after here, too.
8:20
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
8:20
SPEAKER_02: Like when we're done.
8:21
SPEAKER_02: So 90s cameras reveal ghosts.
8:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean early 2000s.
8:25
SPEAKER_02: They were early 2000s cameras.
8:26
SPEAKER_02: But it was all I used a lot of the um disposable cameras.
8:30
SPEAKER_02: So did I.
8:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:31
SPEAKER_02: That's really all I had access to.
8:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:33
SPEAKER_02: Remember my first digital camera.
8:34
SPEAKER_02: I thought it was like so wealthy.
8:35
SPEAKER_02: Like you can take as many as you want.
8:37
SPEAKER_02: What do you mean?
8:38
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, so confusing.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: The fireworks look nice in this one.
8:42
SPEAKER_02: Anyways, Abe Lincoln was coming to me to tell us do not start a revolution.
8:48
SPEAKER_02: Do not start a rebellion.
8:50
SPEAKER_02: Hold this report.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: You're right.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: And that leads us into the French reign of terror, which we're gonna wrap up with our season tonight.
8:59
SPEAKER_02: Was that the transition you were looking for?
9:02
SPEAKER_01: That was very close to what I was going to say.
9:05
SPEAKER_01: Um, so before we get into part two of Maximilian Robespierre, I just want to recap our episode one.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: Because you know what happens every time.
9:15
SPEAKER_01: Every time.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: I know.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: And we we always are like, oh, you guys, we always listen to the second part.
9:20
SPEAKER_01: It's because in the offseason we get an influx of new listeners, right?
9:24
SPEAKER_01: Welcome.
9:25
SPEAKER_01: What do they do?
9:26
SPEAKER_01: They listen to the most recent episodes.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: But we always tell you guys this is part two, right?
9:33
SPEAKER_01: There's a part one, which you should listen to to understand what's going on in a part two.
9:37
SPEAKER_02: There's still death in that one.
9:39
SPEAKER_01: Yes, there's still lots of things happening in that one.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: You'll be very intrigued by part one, but it makes more sense when you listen to them together.
9:45
SPEAKER_02: Yes, you gotta get the full package.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: Those of you that are just coming to the show, please, we implore you see the part one first because it makes more sense.
9:53
SPEAKER_02: And this is us reprimanding.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: Stern.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: But just to quickly recap part one in case you do want to miss it.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: I also forgot it was like an hour ago.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: So please remind Megan.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: Tell me what we talked about.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: I don't remember.
10:07
SPEAKER_01: So Maximilian Robespierre, born into the mid-1700s in France, very idealistic, bright, young man, right?
10:15
SPEAKER_01: He gets a scholarship to go to school.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: He's the poorest kid in school.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: A lot of things are against this poor boy.
10:23
SPEAKER_01: But he's very disciplined.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: He gets high, high marks in class.
10:27
SPEAKER_01: He gets all the awards in school.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: He eventually goes on to become a lawyer and gets a seat as a judge.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: However, because he's so idealistic, he has to reject the seat as a judge because he does not believe in the death penalty.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: So he was so pure of heart and virtuous, they called him incorruptible.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: What happened?
10:47
SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, like no vices as a man.
10:49
SPEAKER_01: And so when he's in his 20s and then early 30s, he gets invited into higher ranks of politics.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: He goes to something called the Estates General, where he it represents the Third Assembly of France.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: The Third Assembly is essentially the peasant class.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: So he's advocating on behalf of them.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: He is very against the monarchy.
11:09
SPEAKER_01: He believes in Rousseau ideas of all men are equal, that we don't need a monarchy, that we can all live in harmony if we all just uh kind of have this ideal way of living where each man governs himself and everyone is innately good.
11:24
SPEAKER_01: So he believes these things to their core.
11:27
SPEAKER_01: Finally, he he amasses enough power to create this essentially new uh club.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: It's a Jacobian political club.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: He is now the president of it, and they are fighting for a new constitution of France.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: King Louis, who's on the throne at this time, King Louis XVI, does not like this.
11:49
SPEAKER_01: He tries to flee, he tries to raise a foreign army to help stop this rebellion.
11:54
SPEAKER_01: Instead, he's caught, he's put on trial, and he is executed at the guillotine.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: And this is the turning point of Robespierre because he says, in his own words, Louis must die so that the nation may live.
12:09
SPEAKER_02: And this is coming from the guy who was quoted to say he believed in liberty, equality, and fraternity.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
12:20
SPEAKER_02: So and hated the death penalty.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: So against the death penalty in this last episode ends with him enforcing the death penalty, not just to anyone, but to the king of France.
12:32
SPEAKER_01: And this part two focuses on what the hell happens next.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: Once you give up your ideal beliefs, once you are, you know, taking a step back from this pure utopia that you uh deemed so crucial to the existence of your nation, what do you do now?
12:51
SPEAKER_02: I just see Robespierre.
12:53
SPEAKER_02: This is the turning point for him.
12:55
SPEAKER_02: He really his life feels so divided as such a two-faced person from being such this open-minded, empathetic, all for the people, all for the citizens.
13:07
SPEAKER_02: He takes it to the extreme.
13:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:09
SPEAKER_02: So that's what we're gonna get into next.
13:12
SPEAKER_02: How did the reign of terror start?
13:14
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
13:15
SPEAKER_02: What was Robespierre's role in the reign of terror?
13:19
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, what the hell was he thinking?
13:21
SPEAKER_02: So what happened to him?
13:23
SPEAKER_01: And what happened to him?
13:24
SPEAKER_01: So, Elizabeth, take it away.
13:27
SPEAKER_01: All right.
13:27
SPEAKER_01: So at this time, again, we had King Louis' execution happen in 1793.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: So at this time, Austria and Prussia get involved because they essentially made a promise to the French people.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: They had warned the people of France: if you harm Louis XVI, our nations are going to intervene militarily.
13:50
SPEAKER_01: Like we're not just gonna stand by while you execute a monarch.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: They they had a feeling that Robespierre and his cronies would go so far as to do something like that.
13:58
SPEAKER_01: They're getting out of hand here.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
14:00
SPEAKER_01: And we mentioned this in our last episode, but Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI's wife, she is from Austria.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: She's Austrian.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: Of course, they're gonna protect her, they're gonna protect the French monarchy.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: They're very invested in the future of this monarchy.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: And obviously they have monarchies as well.
14:16
SPEAKER_01: They don't really want to see that go away.
14:18
SPEAKER_01: So the same year, 1793, in April, the Committee of Public Safety is created.
14:26
SPEAKER_01: Sounds so pleasant and wholesome.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: And what this is, because they're at war with Austria and Prussia, or at least the threat of big war, um, they they this committee is a wartime dictatorship.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: So it's specifically in response to the wars that are waged abroad, and it's in response to the potential civil war that's now brewing in France.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: Tie into Abraham Lincoln.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: That's why we started with that story.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: And and what this uh public safety committee is, is it's it's an executive committee of 12 men.
15:02
SPEAKER_01: And Max joins in July 1793, and then he quickly becomes essentially like the ideological spine of this committee.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: He's like the spokesperson of the safety committee of the public safety committee over here.
15:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: They're like the hall monitors.
15:19
SPEAKER_02: Why do I picture them with little needs?
15:21
SPEAKER_02: Like vests, yeah, whistles.
15:22
SPEAKER_02: They they had vests, right?
15:23
SPEAKER_02: They all had little vests, whistles, little notepads, and they walked around and they're like, you, what are you doing?
15:28
SPEAKER_02: Crossing, are you crossing like a rebel, a revolutionary?
15:32
SPEAKER_00: Are you a royalist or are you a revolutionist?
15:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: So so they're trying to just weed out, you know, who the enemies to the revolution are because they're officially creating the revolution.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: And the reign of terror begins.
15:46
SPEAKER_01: And if you know anything about the French Revolution, you know the reign of terror is a scary, scary time.
15:52
SPEAKER_01: Truly terrifying.
15:55
SPEAKER_02: I last year we talked about this, how we went to this cool um Halloween-themed called the Chateau d'Amore, which was like a French theme at this like old mansion here in Arizona.
16:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:07
SPEAKER_02: But they did it all French Revolution themed because it truly can be tied together with Halloween.
16:12
SPEAKER_02: And it was creepy, and they had these French revolutionist like actress dressed up, right?
16:17
SPEAKER_02: And they were kind of calling people out in the crowd of like, Are you a loyalist?
16:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:22
SPEAKER_02: Are you a loyalist?
16:22
SPEAKER_02: And there was like a guillotine behind them.
16:24
SPEAKER_02: It was this whole acting scene.
16:26
SPEAKER_02: It was like a ghostly walkthrough that we did.
16:28
SPEAKER_02: Right.
16:28
SPEAKER_02: But that just goes to show like it was it was a bloody scene.
16:32
SPEAKER_02: It was, it was really, really scary to any of the citizens.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: That's that that's truly how it was was like people at this time started to get nervous about their ideas.
16:43
SPEAKER_01: Um, and you couldn't just be a revolutionary.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: Like you couldn't just be a person who's kind of a moderate, like, yeah, I believe in a revolution.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: You know, we saw the Americans get their um their freedom from from England.
16:56
SPEAKER_01: We could do something similar.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: Like, people like Robespierre didn't like you being somewhat moderate, like somewhat in this game.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, sure, that sounds like a great idea.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: No, they wanted you to be hardcore.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: Like, if you committed to the revolution, you were committing to, okay, you will stop at nothing to see us free of tyranny and monarchy.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: So you will shed blood, like you will protest, you will take to the streets, you will ransack places, you will do whatever it takes to secure a victory for the people so that the aristocracy is left with nothing and the monarchy is left with nothing.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:31
SPEAKER_01: And again, so funny from a guy that just didn't believe in any kind of capital punishment.
17:37
SPEAKER_01: He didn't believe in the death penalty, and now he's bloodthirsty.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: Now he's calling for more and more blood to be shed.
17:45
SPEAKER_01: He even goes so far as to say, hey, hey, hey, everybody, tear isn't a bad thing.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: You guys are you guys are talking about tear.
17:54
SPEAKER_02: The way this man can turn his words around.
17:56
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's crazy.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: He convinces people.
17:58
SPEAKER_01: He writes this essay, and he's essentially claiming that virtue without tear is powerless.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: And he's saying tear without virtue is just fatal.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: So he's arguing to the French public: hey, tear, and he's this is a direct quote, is a prompt, severe, and inflexible justice.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: So he's like, you guys are looking at tear all wrong.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: You're scared of tear.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: You shouldn't be scared of tear.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: Tear is just justice.
18:25
SPEAKER_01: It just happens to be quick, severe, and inflexible.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: Are you okay with bloody and deadly?
18:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: So basically, everyone who is considered an enemy to the revolution is ruthlessly eliminated.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: Robespierre means that if you are against this revolution, they're gonna use their very new fun weapon or fun tool, the guillotine.
18:48
SPEAKER_01: Same thing that they use for Louis the the 16th to die.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: You will be dealt with quiggly if you oppose us.
18:56
SPEAKER_02: So you make a good point here that Max Robes Robespierre is really starting to define what the enemy looks like.
19:04
SPEAKER_02: And this is where I think he gets so caught up in his head and so extreme.
19:08
SPEAKER_02: Because he defines an enemy as, I mean, to add on to everything Elizabeth said, he anybody who is, like you said, supportive of the monarchy, helps foreign enemies in any ways, criticizes the revolution, insufficiently revolutionizes, is worried, worried for what they're doing.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: If you're if you're worried of like the future state of France, you're like seen as weak.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: Or like you're afraid of what's happening, then you have a reason to be afraid because you're hiding something.
19:40
SPEAKER_02: It even goes as far as some people were even tried and executed by the guillotine because they questioned the constitution while the constitution was paused for revisions because they all kind of agreed our constitution is not how we want it to be.
20:00
SPEAKER_02: We want it, we want to add these different clauses and it has to be more, you know, about the people and less about the monarchy.
20:06
SPEAKER_02: But if someone was questioning the constitution, even though it was on pause for these reasons, and they were like, Why would you question our country's constitution?
20:14
SPEAKER_02: The republic, yeah, that guy got guillotined for it.
20:17
SPEAKER_02: Like they're really everybody was walking on eggshells here.
20:21
SPEAKER_02: It was really terrifying.
20:23
SPEAKER_02: In one year during the French Revolution, there was 17,000 executions by guillotine in all of France.
20:29
SPEAKER_02: Just think of that.
20:30
SPEAKER_02: 17,000 people, so many souls, lives ended so quickly and abruptly just because they said the wrong thing to the wrong person.
20:40
SPEAKER_02: Like we thought the witch hunts were bad.
20:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: It says nothing on the French Revolution.
20:45
SPEAKER_02: Everyone was afraid of somebody misunderstanding something that they said if they didn't have rebellion and revolution running through their veins.
20:57
SPEAKER_02: So really, really scary time.
20:59
SPEAKER_02: Well, they also passed a law that stripped them of all of their rights, too.
21:03
SPEAKER_01: So not only was the constitution suspended, right?
21:06
SPEAKER_01: They passed the law of 22 um prairial.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: Am I saying that right?
21:11
SPEAKER_01: Prairie law.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: This is fun.
21:15
SPEAKER_02: This is really fun.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: So we're very used to a structure of you're arrested, you know what your crimes are.
21:23
SPEAKER_02: There are pretty tangible crimes that you can, you know, have evidence to in some sort, have a trial, have a jury.
21:33
SPEAKER_02: And then even if you are condemned, accused, found guilty, there's typically like a waiting period, right?
21:40
SPEAKER_02: For any action to actually to actually happen.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: Well, and you can have legal counsel, you can have witnesses, you could have material evidence.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
21:47
SPEAKER_01: There's like you can build your case, so much that goes into a trial.
21:50
SPEAKER_02: You can have a lawyer with this new law, all of that was stripped away.
21:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
21:54
SPEAKER_02: So they actually built a new courthouse where they have because they were running out of space of all the people that they were arresting and trying.
22:02
SPEAKER_02: So with this new method, it was all a math equation.
22:05
SPEAKER_02: It was like corporate corporations, like how much can we push through?
22:09
SPEAKER_01: It's like a corporate rift where they're like, oh, it's a reduction in force.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: We're going to just have a spreadsheet of all of the employees and how much money they make and who can we afford to get rid of and what salaries are going to be.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: Whatever.
22:21
SPEAKER_02: It's crazy.
22:23
SPEAKER_02: They could try up to 60 people at a time with this new space and this new system that they created.
22:29
SPEAKER_02: Your trial once a neighbor said hey they said something weird They're worried.
22:34
SPEAKER_02: They were worried that we were executing too many people so I think they need to be executed.
22:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: You were allowed a 15 minute trial.
22:42
SPEAKER_02: If that at most And you can't even call it a trial.
22:45
SPEAKER_02: It's not a trial.
22:46
SPEAKER_02: It's more like a statement that you were able to make.
22:48
SPEAKER_01: Kind of begging for your life.
22:50
SPEAKER_02: You were able to make a brief statement to defend yourself.
22:54
SPEAKER_02: And of course everyone is kind of saying the same thing like I love France.
22:58
SPEAKER_02: I love the Republic.
22:59
SPEAKER_02: I love Robespierre.
23:01
SPEAKER_02: I hated Louis I hated Marie Antoinette I hate the monarchy like they're all going to say the same thing right there.
23:06
SPEAKER_02: They're on the grounds no lawyer very simple brief they got a statement.
23:12
SPEAKER_02: At that point this committee of public safety that Robespierre was was very much a a a powerhouse of they got to say yay or nay did like the Roman Coliseum essentially.
23:28
SPEAKER_02: If you were found innocent you get off completely scotch free.
23:32
SPEAKER_02: Like no no repercussions I truly I don't know do we have okay follow up for for season eight write this down I have to do this next we're already talking about your I want to know was anybody actually even acquitted?
23:47
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
23:48
SPEAKER_02: Was anyone acquitted?
23:49
SPEAKER_02: We may not have that answer.
23:51
SPEAKER_02: We're going to find out acquitted this month, but we'll figure it out.
23:56
SPEAKER_02: I just can't imagine what could somebody actually say at that point the words are useless.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: It's more about who you know your luck maybe you had some influence on someone.
24:06
SPEAKER_01: If the person judging you is in a good mood that day.
24:08
SPEAKER_02: But I think there's so many I don't know if anyone actually successfully got to work their way out of this.
24:14
SPEAKER_02: Right.
24:15
SPEAKER_02: But the most common result was they said no guilty immediately going to the guillotine right like within hours.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: And again it didn't even matter if you don't did all the right things they could simply judge you for not being extreme enough because Maximilian Robespierre's paranoia was just increasing at this time.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: So he ultimately was like if you are not again uh being extreme enough if you're not willing to take up crazy measures like you're guilty and you're just as bad as a as a as a monarch.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: And he went so far as to execute even his most loyal friends.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: That shows his tipping point I think yeah people that had proven themselves to the revolutionary cause that have been with him drafting the new constitution and the new grievances against the king helping him devise the new taxation systems like they agree with him in everything.
25:10
SPEAKER_01: They agree with his universal suffrage for males again for males not for females ending slavery.
25:17
SPEAKER_01: Like you know they they all agree with him on these points but because they're not willing to make the ultimate sacrifice and shed blood of many like because they're not extreme in his view he's like eh you're not really supporting our cause yeah I think a really good example of this was his friend George George.
25:36
SPEAKER_02: What's the how do you say George in French?
25:38
SPEAKER_01: Uh I actually don't know George there's an S at the end.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah well you don't pronounce the S but it's just like Georges Danton oh let's just call him Danton.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:48
SPEAKER_02: George Danton he's a pretty um noticed notable figure during the French Revolution exactly like buddies with Robespierre kind of helped create this whole model was with him through it thick and thin but he was known to be a really nice guy.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
26:04
SPEAKER_02: Which again Robespierre up until this point up until Louis getting beheaded Robespierre was known as being pretty timid kind of full of anxiety and this guy Danton likewise he was seen as kind of just like a nice dolly guy.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: He was very forgiving very understanding again he cared for the people he just wanted the right thing for the citizen.
26:27
SPEAKER_02: So they they had the same similar foundation.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: Right.
26:30
SPEAKER_02: But the difference is Robespierre I think got so caught up in the heat of everything and being angry at his quote enemies.
26:38
SPEAKER_02: He took it so far and Danton didn't take it that far that they thought either one of two things.
26:43
SPEAKER_02: They thought either he's getting too soft or not you know he's not hard enough on all of this revolutionary stuff.
26:49
SPEAKER_02: So his heart's not in it like it should be.
26:52
SPEAKER_02: Or as far as perhaps he's faking it and he's actually a traitor and he's a loyalist because he wasn't being as passionate as they they he wasn't getting as angry as they wanted him to get over it.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: So they executed him.
27:05
SPEAKER_02: His friend he built some of this way.
27:08
SPEAKER_01: And and one thing that didn't really help anyone's case in the these situations is that when they did execute Louis the 16th, one thing that they found were essentially letters to and from Louis the 16th to like monarchy supporters that were embedded within the I think Jacobian Party or within the National Assembly.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: So there's like there's this again this increased paranoia of like well we don't really know everyone Louis was communicating with like do you actually support him?
27:41
SPEAKER_01: You know, because there was so much evidence pointing to this huge network of I don't know if you should call them spies, but kind of underground agents on behalf of the crown.
27:50
SPEAKER_01: So once Louis was executed and Robespierre found all this out he's now looking at everyone like prove yourself.
27:58
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
27:59
SPEAKER_02: And I will be honest this is such a complicated time in history.
28:06
SPEAKER_02: And we this is a very high level version that Elizabeth and I are giving there's so much more deeper that goes into the different political parties and this there's so many names dates places circumstances.
28:20
SPEAKER_02: This isn't like something that just happened overnight.
28:23
SPEAKER_02: This was years worth of accumulation of terror building and it just I think it really shows what can happen when things do snowball and it just gets worse and worse and more and out of control and it just gets more severe and the things that they are used to just keep getting escalated up and desensitized to what they're doing.
28:42
SPEAKER_01: There were so many executions every day that the the ground the cobblestones where the where the scaffold was set up was just stained with blood to the point where it smelled right oh yeah like like there was a stale blood smell kind of at all times in these big squares where people were being executed like the Place de Revolution, the Place de Grave.
29:07
SPEAKER_01: Your pronunciations are fantastic no, no no no not yet well 57 score on Duolingo French.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: Pardon my French like peasants who not peasants but people who live in these areas these crowded areas are are closing their windows or shutting themselves in because the stench of death is so strong like the stench how symbolic is that exactly so heavy in the air it's literally windows on it.
29:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:36
SPEAKER_02: And I I just want to take a moment to okay for a quick pause to kind of really evaluate Robespierre's personality on this.
29:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:44
SPEAKER_02: Also I I do think it's funny that in the first episode we liked to call him Max but now we're just kind of always Robespierre when we liked him we're like yo Max our friend Max and he's not our friend anymore.
29:55
SPEAKER_02: Robespierre this guy this guy is getting insane and crazy.
29:59
SPEAKER_02: But he got so extreme I mean he's called an extremist for a reason.
30:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah he was so passionate right about equality and hating anybody who was putting down the minority and the marginalized groups that he himself became you know he supported equal citizenship for all.
30:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah and liberty equality fraternity I have my notes here.
30:25
SPEAKER_02: I like that I see you looking at it.
30:27
SPEAKER_02: Big big liberty equality fraternity.
30:30
SPEAKER_02: And it's almost like he went so far for advocating for that cause of liberty fraternity that he went right the extreme opposite direction of now ostracizing murdering killing the people that he doesn't feel like obeys to that and belong to that which in itself is just so hypocritical right the hypocrisy behind it of now himself performing an equality.
30:58
SPEAKER_02: Sorry I'm like I'm like I'm so my arms are flailing like I'm getting worked up over this.
31:03
SPEAKER_02: He was so passionate about equality that he create created inequality through all of this by now ostracizing the monarchy.
31:12
SPEAKER_01: Well and he's becoming the tyrant that he was criticizing.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
31:16
SPEAKER_01: Hypocrisy that's what that's what pisses me off.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: He became as bad as the people that he hated.
31:21
SPEAKER_01: And that typically comes with a lot of power that people are given.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: But it is true I mean it is it is something that happens with a lot of leaders that are like this where they start off very idealistic and very in this mindset of I want the best for all people.
31:35
SPEAKER_01: And then once they get a bit of power you know all of a sudden everyone who opposes them is the reason we can't have these things.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah he got power hungry.
31:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah like this is why we can't have nice things is because of you and people like you and then you become the tyrant and it was so funny because like when I was researching this episode um the one thing that came to my brain when I started like reading about uh Robespierre, I was like man it reminds me of like the Batman quote of you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
32:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: And when I was researching one of the like first things I read was like he's a classic example of die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.
32:13
SPEAKER_02: I was like amen.
32:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah transformation over time that everyone started to see in him.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: This nice loving guy just became evil and he was bloodthirsty.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:25
SPEAKER_01: And he went so far as to people who were close to him started calling him a cult leader.
32:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
32:31
SPEAKER_01: Because they they again recognize how extreme he was getting well because he he was anti-dictatorship and here he himself is now becoming the leader.
32:40
SPEAKER_02: Right.
32:40
SPEAKER_01: And again we're not saying Robespierre is the sole reason for the right I was going to say one thing to to make note of is he's not doing this quite alone right he's an oligarch.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: He has he has other people who are making these decisions with him.
32:53
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
32:53
SPEAKER_01: He's just the one that's kind of known for this since this was essentially his brainchild and he's always been in a leadership position.
33:00
SPEAKER_01: He's an easy one to point to to say oh it's all Robespierre's fault.
33:03
SPEAKER_01: Right.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: There was plenty of other people involved in this but he's the one that we all think of when we think of the Reign of Terror, when we think of the French Revolution because again since he came up in his 20s 30s he's been in these leadership roles advocating for this and now he's he's seeing the bloody side of it.
33:22
SPEAKER_01: Right.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: But one thing I want to mention and we talked about this in the Carmelite nun episode.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: So a few episodes back we talked about the Carmelite nuns who were executed during the reign of terror because they were Catholic and they were seen as monarchy sympathizers.
33:38
SPEAKER_01: So during this time a lot of the revolutionaries are trying to erase the Catholic church entirely.
33:43
SPEAKER_01: They're trying to say hey we're we're even gonna like we're going to melt down church bells and desecrate the monasteries we're going to eliminate Sundays from the calendar and so modify the months.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: I mean like take out Monday maybe I'm like yeah I'm fine with no Monday.
34:01
SPEAKER_01: But they're doing all these things to kind of reverse like what they think the Catholic Church has embedded in society.
34:07
SPEAKER_01: But uh Robespierre does think that's a bit extreme.
34:11
SPEAKER_01: Like he he's all for shocking I know right and he's like oh well that's a little too far.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: Let's not get crazy here.
34:17
SPEAKER_01: The reason he says this is because he thinks atheism is too cynical.
34:21
SPEAKER_01: So he wants to still create something people can believe in in terms of a religious sense which again is why they go to to so far as to calling him a cult leader because he makes up an entirely new religion essentially he says okay religion isn't that bad the Catholic Church is bad the way they support the monarchy is bad but I'm going to create something called the cult of the supreme being and we touched upon this in our Carmelite Nun episode but he announces this with like a big festival that he throws for the town to say oh no I'm not a bad guy.
34:58
SPEAKER_01: I believe in the supreme being watch and he does this entire it's kind of silly when you think about what I'm about to say.
35:06
SPEAKER_01: But in June 1794 he has this festival he's literally wearing this like sky blue coat and he's coming down this fake mountain that he built it's like a parade.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: Like your sky blue I was going to wear sky blue coat myself.
35:23
SPEAKER_02: That was a little nod to to Max.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah there you go Max old old Max Max old Max so he creates this big like mountain it's like a parade float mountain that he's coming down on and he when he gets to the base of the mountain he lights this statue on fire.
35:40
SPEAKER_01: The statue is like a wooden statue and it says atheism on it.
35:44
SPEAKER_01: So he lights up the atheism statue and it burns down to reveal this like concrete statue called wisdom.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: So he's trying to say the cult of the supreme being is not about being an atheist it's about being wise and using logic and thinking about things beyond just what the Catholic Church has taught you.
36:04
SPEAKER_01: Like just be logical and you're in your rationale about a supreme being and that's the official point where people who were in his corner start looking around and they say That's what it was I think this guy's lost his mind.
36:21
SPEAKER_02: Not the 1700 people executed that was the tipping point.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: It's like okay Robespierre we're gonna let you execute 17000 people all right you get your you know get your bloodthirst out but once they see this this happen this like extreme display of cultish behavior and new religion he's trying to form people are starting to take notice.
36:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah um and then the fateful day comes of July 26th 1794.
36:50
SPEAKER_02: Oh this day he has a really big speech he's he's ready to give it's a two-hour speech yeah and he's saying some very unnerving things and this is in front of his his fellow comrades his co-conspirators his co-revolutionists so to speak and this is in the National Convention which is essentially again it used to be called the National Assembly then it was called like the legislative assembly now it's called the National Convention.
37:19
SPEAKER_02: But just remember it's that third estate new uh constitutional thing parliament they're trying to create he's got this long two-hour speech as we said in our last episode if he listened and paid attention and you did the guy liked to talk and one year alone he gave 328 speeches.
37:38
SPEAKER_02: So he would do these long lengthy rants of speeches.
37:42
SPEAKER_02: And but this one in particular he was really being foreboding and warning and telling people I think there's a lot of people amongst us right now who are loyalists or have a little inclination of of feeling a little bit loyalist who aren't aren't quite proving themselves.
38:00
SPEAKER_02: And I'm worried for some of these people we need to watch out for some of these people because they're I'm paraphrasing here but like they are the ones that we're we're gonna have to go for next.
38:10
SPEAKER_02: And they're traitors.
38:11
SPEAKER_02: They are traitors and they deserve to face the guillotine like all the people before them.
38:17
SPEAKER_02: And he really set himself up for disaster here because he did something interesting that was unlike him but it made people worried he didn't give any names yeah it's like he was trying to be mysterious and keep people on their toes and be like maybe I'm talking about any of you know he's making I'm sure like through the speech direct eye contact with with someone which is just good public speaking.
38:41
SPEAKER_02: Giving them the death stare but then maybe moving on to the next person doing the same thing.
38:46
SPEAKER_02: So it's like is he talking about that guy?
38:48
SPEAKER_02: Is he talking about me?
38:48
SPEAKER_02: Is this for me?
38:49
SPEAKER_02: Is it do people are they talking about me?
38:52
SPEAKER_02: Do they know things I don't know?
38:53
SPEAKER_01: It's like the scene in Hook when when Hook points at his pirates and he's like you not you and every single pirate points to themselves like me not you not you not you you that's kind of what's going on here.
39:11
SPEAKER_02: Everyone here is afraid like oh my God is he subtly because we all make it about ourselves right everyone does.
39:18
SPEAKER_02: Everyone has an ego everyone thinks everything's exactly I mean we think about that too in like a company meeting like imagine you're sitting in a company meeting and your manager's like you know some of you just really aren't cutting it out and then they make like a long stare at you but then then and you're like oh my God are they talking about me?
39:33
SPEAKER_02: What do I need?
39:33
SPEAKER_02: And then you start overthinking it.
39:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
39:35
SPEAKER_02: And I cannot take credit for this line.
39:38
SPEAKER_02: I I I hate to say the words I'm about to say but this is through uh an AI documentary added some really wise words.
39:45
SPEAKER_02: It's a good one though.
39:46
SPEAKER_02: It's a good one.
39:47
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna steal it I should just say it's mine but I can't do that.
39:50
SPEAKER_02: But this doc I can't call it documentary this YouTube clip that we were watching YouTube video AI based but very good.
39:59
SPEAKER_02: Very informative still um it said by threatening everyone by naming no one unified everyone say that I'm gonna say it one more time by threatening everyone by naming no one unified everyone.
40:16
SPEAKER_02: Right.
40:16
SPEAKER_02: So now that everyone's like okay speech ends they're all talking behind the scenes it's like dude was he talking about you I thought he was talking about you was he talking about me or is it and they're like wait a second here they're finding this common denominator.
40:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah but are we all freaked out that he thinks we're the ones who need to be executed and we're not something's wrong here.
40:37
SPEAKER_01: People don't like the the lack of of communication like the lack of clarity right yes so people like he goes to bed soundly then he's like that was a great speech I was mysterious left them all thinking let them all like simmer in it a little bit I hope they're a little fearful they were in the oil actually they're very fearful because he goes to bed and everyone else in the assembly essentially stays up all night, has secret meetings with each other it's almost like uh if you watch the show Survivor, you know like right before tribal council it's like the last minute like wait, what should we do?
41:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
41:16
SPEAKER_01: You make alliances, you make promises, you make pledges, you're staying up all night just trying to save your own life.
41:21
SPEAKER_01: So in the morning the next day which is now July 27th 1794 he goes back to the National Assembly thinking oh it's a new day you know I'm gonna have another speech so I'm gonna make and this one's gonna go as well as the day before maybe I'll make it four hours long.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: Right.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: And as soon as he starts speaking people start shouting at him things like down with the tyrant who?
41:46
SPEAKER_01: Me?
41:47
SPEAKER_01: And he's now like wait wait wait me?
41:51
SPEAKER_02: Wait am I the it's like that scene where he like looks behind and he's like wait wait what am I the problem?
41:56
SPEAKER_02: I'm the tyrant?
41:57
SPEAKER_02: I'm the problem.
41:58
SPEAKER_02: He's the problem.
41:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah it's him um so this officially is the entire national convention uh like descending on him they immediately like stop his speech call him a tyrant and they arrest him on the spot yeah I just want to slow clap for that like you know it took him too long it took him more longer than it should have 17 lives later 7,000 lives later but like slow clap for them finally being like enough's enough dude shut up shut up it's so funny that he admired the Roman Republic so because this is just like Caesar I never connected those dots.
42:41
SPEAKER_01: It's like he loved the people that were opposed symmetry behind he loved the people of the Roman Republic that were opposed to the Caesar dictatorship yet now he is Caesar in the Senate being stabbed by two brute it's too it's two ropes pier nice yeah it's two so um so essentially yeah everyone is coming you know uh against him they arrest him he does quickly flee I don't know how he gets out of it so fast he's a quick little slippery little guy he's he's like he's like a little mirror yeah he's just like a little scroungy guy kind of weasels his way out so somehow between legs yeah somehow he flees quickly and he goes to Hotel de Vie which means city hall why why would you go there first I don't approve no I don't approve of calling a city hall a hotel but continuum.
43:32
SPEAKER_01: Hotel de vie I really envisioned a hotel this whole time oh well it's not it's a city hall you're here yeah thank you um and so he's he's hunkered down in City Hall he's with two of his best supporters uh a man named Libos Libos I believe Lebas and um and his brother who we haven't seen since the early episode obviously so they're hunkering down in city hall but the troops immediately break break in And this point is a bit of a controversial like what happened, what went down here.
44:06
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people saying different things about the the sequence of events.
44:11
SPEAKER_01: But we know he's shot in the jaw.
44:14
SPEAKER_01: We know that Robespierre is shot in the jaw.
44:16
SPEAKER_01: What we don't know is who shot him in the jaw.
44:19
SPEAKER_01: It could have been one of the troops breaking in, one of the soldiers claimed, Oh yeah, I shot him, I saw him, I shot him, I shattered his jaw.
44:26
SPEAKER_01: He didn't die.
44:28
SPEAKER_01: But others claim that he took the gun and he tried to end his life.
44:33
SPEAKER_02: I think that's plausible, and there's a lot of historians who do think that he was suicidal.
44:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, most historians think that this was a self-inflicted gunshot wound, that he was uh attempting suicide, and it didn't help that his two buddies that were in there with him, his brother and this other guy, uh, Lebos, Leboshot himself.
44:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so Labos already had a pistol.
44:53
SPEAKER_02: Right.
44:54
SPEAKER_02: He could have Lebas could have shot himself, and then Max, Robespierre.
44:59
SPEAKER_02: Also, we don't call him Maximilian.
45:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
45:01
SPEAKER_02: Maximilian could have grabbed it and then tried to do the same, but maybe someone bumped him.
45:05
SPEAKER_02: He there's it's chaos, right?
45:07
SPEAKER_02: He lost his aim.
45:09
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was right there in front of you.
45:12
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
45:14
SPEAKER_01: That's from American Horror Story.
45:16
SPEAKER_01: Uh Mulan.
45:18
SPEAKER_00: We are on two different levels right now.
45:20
SPEAKER_02: You're quoting American Horror Story, and I'm quoting Mulan.
45:23
SPEAKER_00: Both is like, How did you miss?
45:26
SPEAKER_00: You missed.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: It was right there in front of you.
45:30
SPEAKER_01: Um but his brother, uh Max's brother, Augustine, he instead of shooting himself, decides to jump out a window.
45:38
SPEAKER_01: Jump out the nearest window, and apparently he landed on the bayonets of all these soldiers that were waiting outside the window.
45:45
SPEAKER_01: So he died.
45:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:46
SPEAKER_01: So you have two of his best men die and then potentially self-inflicted gunshot wound to his own jaw.
45:54
SPEAKER_02: And Augustine did die from that because I read that he had concussions and like a pelvic fracture.
46:01
SPEAKER_02: But he had to have died from those injuries.
46:03
SPEAKER_02: I'm pretty sure he died.
46:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
46:04
SPEAKER_02: I mean, like, I think he got pretty beat up from that.
46:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
46:07
SPEAKER_02: Because he wasn't executed at all.
46:09
SPEAKER_01: No, these two died.
46:11
SPEAKER_01: These two got out of their execution.
46:13
SPEAKER_01: Um, so his last night on Earth, Maximilian Robespierre, he spends his final night bleeding on a table.
46:23
SPEAKER_01: He's unable to speak because his jaw is shattered.
46:26
SPEAKER_01: Ugh, oh, that's gotta be so painful.
46:28
SPEAKER_01: And he's wearing this like dirty bandage around his neck and jaw, like holding his jaw.
46:34
SPEAKER_01: I don't feel bad for him, but that is that's a brutal way to die.
46:37
SPEAKER_01: Well, he didn't die yet.
46:39
SPEAKER_01: Um, and while he's still don't worry, it gets worse.
46:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, don't worry.
46:43
SPEAKER_01: There's more.
46:44
SPEAKER_01: Um while he's on this table, he's being poked and prodded and mocked, and people are essentially coming to see him, like laughing at him, like not pitying him, you know, not there to say, oh sorry, it and had to end this way.
46:59
SPEAKER_01: People are like there to tell him this is what you deserve, buddy.
47:04
SPEAKER_01: People who are not sympathetic towards him.
47:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:07
SPEAKER_01: Pretty, pretty brutal.
47:08
SPEAKER_02: I mean, why they they their allegiance flipped very quickly.
47:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:15
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, any of them could have been next.
47:17
SPEAKER_01: I mean, had they not done this, he could have massacred, murdered, executed a bunch of other people from the assembly the very next few days.
47:26
SPEAKER_01: So in their mind, they're like, we're ending this now.
47:29
SPEAKER_01: Like all of us are going to be safe as as long as you die.
47:32
SPEAKER_01: So the next day is July 28th, 1794.
47:37
SPEAKER_01: And it's later in the day.
47:39
SPEAKER_01: Usually we see executions early, early in the morning.
47:42
SPEAKER_01: This is an afternoon execution that is called They they changed their schedule for convenience.
47:48
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps.
47:49
SPEAKER_01: Maybe they just wanted him to think about it for longer.
47:51
SPEAKER_01: But it's 5 p.m.
47:53
SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh Rob's Pierre and 21 of his allies.
47:57
SPEAKER_01: So somehow there's still 21 allies in his corner.
48:00
SPEAKER_01: I don't know where they were trying to save him.
48:02
SPEAKER_01: They just wiped out the rest of them, like the yeah, the last scracklers.
48:06
SPEAKER_01: But they're all loaded onto carts and they're taken to the Place de la Revolution.
48:11
SPEAKER_01: So this is the square, one of the bloodiest squares where they had a lot of executions, and they're all lined up for a 6 p.m.
48:18
SPEAKER_01: execution.
48:19
SPEAKER_02: Timely.
48:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:21
SPEAKER_01: And I believe, again, I don't know the order of the executions, but usually the most important person goes last.
48:27
SPEAKER_01: Last.
48:28
SPEAKER_02: And that was definitely the case here.
48:30
SPEAKER_02: Rope's peer was last of the 21.
48:33
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
48:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:34
SPEAKER_01: So at the scaffold, the executioner, who is Charles Henry Sanson, we've talked about before.
48:40
SPEAKER_02: He's a very famous executioner.
48:41
SPEAKER_02: I mean, he was doing he was a busy man doing all these guillotine executions during the reign of terror.
48:47
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
48:48
SPEAKER_02: I actually think he he was, I don't want to go as far as assuming he was a loyalist, but he had to have had so much animosity, like, towards how much murder he had to commit.
49:01
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I don't think he was a fan of Max, let's just say it that way.
49:05
SPEAKER_02: Do you think he got rich though, because he was executing so many people for pay?
49:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he probably I know I all of this is speculation.
49:12
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
49:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he got rich, but he saw the ugliest side of things.
49:17
SPEAKER_02: He must have been so tired of it.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
49:19
SPEAKER_01: That's not something you want to be in charge of.
49:22
SPEAKER_02: He saw so many executions having to end their lives.
49:25
SPEAKER_02: Like, and again, going back to the Carmelite nuns, thinking about their sad going of like it was somber, you know, they weren't all just it got weird.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: It got weird.
49:35
SPEAKER_01: It got sad.
49:36
SPEAKER_01: I am surprised that the Carmelite Nuns didn't come up in our research of Rob's Pierre because when we did that episode, we were like, this is one of the final straws that broke camel's back in the reign of terror.
49:46
SPEAKER_01: And I definitely think it was part of it, but I think that's like because of how much death there was.
49:53
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the Carmelite nuns just kind of I think faded into all of those deaths.
49:57
SPEAKER_01: There was so much death that you couldn't even separate all the individual stories of death.
50:02
SPEAKER_02: And if you don't know what we're talking about, that's a great episode.
50:05
SPEAKER_02: I I will say that was one of our better ones.
50:08
SPEAKER_02: It was a group of very innocent nuns who got swept up in all of this and were seen as being loyalists to the monarchy because they were Catholic.
50:17
SPEAKER_01: And they were executed a week before Robespierre.
50:20
SPEAKER_02: They almost made it out.
50:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so very, very close to here.
50:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, but so so the executioner, Sanson, what he does is he has to take this bloody jaw bandage off of Robespierre.
50:34
SPEAKER_01: Has to?
50:34
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
50:36
SPEAKER_01: So we read a few things.
50:38
SPEAKER_01: Um, some accounts say that he had to take the bandage off so that Robespierre's neck could fit in like the neck rest.
50:46
SPEAKER_01: Like there's a little essentially circle, but they call that the lunet.
50:49
SPEAKER_01: And uh they said they had to take the bandage off so we could fit through there because thick this bandage was, but it doesn't seem like it'd be in the way of the slicer that's about to take the floor.
50:58
SPEAKER_01: He was holding up his jaw, though.
51:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
51:00
SPEAKER_01: His jaw was shattered.
51:02
SPEAKER_01: So because they took off this bandage, uh, Robespierre let out this agonizing scream because he has a shattered jaw.
51:12
SPEAKER_01: His jaw is non-existent.
51:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is the only thing holding his jaw together.
51:15
SPEAKER_01: So as soon as they take the bandage off, he is screaming.
51:20
SPEAKER_02: Dude, you're screaming over that?
51:22
SPEAKER_02: Your head's about to be cut off.
51:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, just give it a just give it a moment, it'll go away.
51:26
SPEAKER_01: He's not gonna be around for the rest of it.
51:28
SPEAKER_01: Um, so his last few moments on earth is just this terrifying, horrifying scream.
51:35
SPEAKER_01: And then an abrupt end by the blade of the guillotine, and then cheers, and then roar of applause.
51:46
SPEAKER_02: Roars for like 15 minutes.
51:48
SPEAKER_02: The crowd was cheering.
51:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
51:50
SPEAKER_01: They were so relieved.
51:53
SPEAKER_01: Because this officially marked the end of the reign of terror.
51:56
SPEAKER_01: The guy instigating it, like it came down to him.
52:01
SPEAKER_02: Like I know we say he wasn't the sole one, uh the sole reason behind it or the sole driver, but he was a primary person leading this thing and in charge.
52:10
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely and with him gone, and now with everybody changing their their tune and flipping sides, they were able to I mean, I sure it wasn't getting back to normalcy right away, but they could normalcy.
52:23
SPEAKER_02: Is that a word?
52:24
SPEAKER_02: Normalcy.
52:25
SPEAKER_02: Whatever.
52:25
SPEAKER_02: I like that.
52:26
SPEAKER_02: They can not be so afraid of their lives.
52:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
52:30
SPEAKER_01: I agree.
52:31
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, yeah, obviously, again, history is written by the victors.
52:36
SPEAKER_01: There probably was other people behind a lot of this, and Rub Speer was definitely the main guy, the scapegoat.
52:43
SPEAKER_01: Like, it's not like he was the only bad guy.
52:45
SPEAKER_01: There's other people making these decisions, but that doesn't excuse any of the things he definitely oversaw.
52:52
SPEAKER_02: Well, and then all of these people who were a part of this and they survived, they quickly changed their tune.
52:59
SPEAKER_02: Now they have a scapegoat because they can put all the blame on the guy that they just beheaded.
53:03
SPEAKER_01: They're like, oh, obviously, this was all Robespierre.
53:05
SPEAKER_01: Everything was a tyrant.
53:07
SPEAKER_02: He forced us.
53:08
SPEAKER_02: We didn't want this, we didn't agree with this, we knew it got out of control, and that's why we took over and we, you know, did what we needed to do.
53:16
SPEAKER_02: But like, yeah, too too little too too late.
53:20
SPEAKER_01: Too little too late.
53:21
SPEAKER_01: And uh, in terms of the body, what happened after the execution, uh, Robespierre's body was buried in a mass grave.
53:28
SPEAKER_01: But later he was dug up.
53:32
SPEAKER_01: And guess where he is?
53:33
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
53:34
SPEAKER_01: A a fan.
53:36
SPEAKER_01: I think uh the state.
53:38
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I think they're gonna be like, oh, like it was a formal state.
53:41
SPEAKER_01: Not like what person dug him up specifically.
53:43
SPEAKER_02: I knew where they went because I saw them.
53:45
SPEAKER_01: Where did they go, Megan?
53:46
SPEAKER_01: The catacombs of Paris.
53:48
SPEAKER_01: Did you do they say who's who in the catacombs, or is just like one big mass of skulls and stuff?
53:54
SPEAKER_02: They're very creatively and intentionally designed, but you don't know what's what.
54:01
SPEAKER_02: Like there's no like there's no plastic.
54:05
SPEAKER_02: This is so-and-so's skull.
54:06
SPEAKER_02: No.
54:07
SPEAKER_02: But they are, have you have you seen pictures of the case?
54:09
SPEAKER_02: I've seen pictures.
54:10
SPEAKER_02: I know they're very elaborate and they're they're very elaborate designs that they make out of like the femurs and the skulls, like they make heart shapes and weird designs.
54:18
SPEAKER_02: It's art, like it's bone art, and you're just walking through miles of tunnels of bones all around you.
54:26
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, there's an there and the reason they did the catacombs is because um with all the flooding.
54:31
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you mean all the death?
54:33
SPEAKER_02: And the death.
54:34
SPEAKER_02: The 17th century.
54:35
SPEAKER_02: They couldn't.
54:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they couldn't.
54:37
SPEAKER_02: I mean, obviously, for catacombs is so that they exhumed from the ground and in a more secure place.
54:43
SPEAKER_01: So you're saying the flooding though was a big deal.
54:45
SPEAKER_02: Actually, maybe I'm confusing that with New Orleans.
54:47
SPEAKER_02: Don't quote me on that.
54:48
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yes.
54:49
SPEAKER_02: I'm confusing that with New Orleans.
54:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a thing in New Orleans.
54:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the the above-ground waves.
54:54
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, my brain.
54:55
SPEAKER_02: It's also like after midnight.
54:56
SPEAKER_02: What time is it?
54:57
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't matter, maybe we're talking about death and excitement.
55:00
SPEAKER_02: You're right.
55:00
SPEAKER_02: This is really fun.
55:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
55:02
SPEAKER_02: I can do this all night.
55:03
SPEAKER_02: I would love to see the catacombs with you.
55:06
SPEAKER_01: We'll have to do it.
55:07
SPEAKER_01: You know, I know we got a big Europe trip planned in the spring.
55:10
SPEAKER_01: Paris is we can't go to Paris.
55:12
SPEAKER_01: We're already going to too many other places, but who knows?
55:16
SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
55:16
SPEAKER_01: Who knows where we'll be in a year?
55:18
SPEAKER_02: Maybe we could oh, we'll talk about it after.
55:20
SPEAKER_02: I don't need to do that right now.
55:22
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to just plan real quick at the end of this episode?
55:24
SPEAKER_02: I mean, like quick side trip, uh, yeah.
55:26
SPEAKER_02: Um wow.
55:28
SPEAKER_02: I mean.
55:30
SPEAKER_02: What a season.
55:31
SPEAKER_02: Ending with a big one.
55:33
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
55:34
SPEAKER_01: So we've danced around Robespierre for a lot because we've done episodes on um Marie Antoinette, two episodes on Marie Antoine.
55:41
SPEAKER_01: Two on Marie.
55:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we had to redo her.
55:44
SPEAKER_01: Um, we've done Louis the 16th, we've done Louis the 16th's sister, Elizabeth Defrance.
55:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh we did Madame Dubert about her.
55:52
SPEAKER_01: So we've we've talked about Robespierre in a roundabout way for a long time.
55:56
SPEAKER_01: And it was exciting to get to tackle his story because I had a feeling, I was like, I think from what I know about him, I think he came up very idealistic and wanting this nice, equal, pure, virtuous society.
56:09
SPEAKER_01: And then by the end, he's arguing terror is virtue and virtue is terror and bloodshed's necessary.
56:15
SPEAKER_02: He turned.
56:16
SPEAKER_02: He almost reminds me of um who?
56:21
SPEAKER_02: I don't even want to say.
56:22
SPEAKER_02: Um, can I stop what I'm saying?
56:23
SPEAKER_02: No, uh he reminds me of what's the guy from what I was saying.
56:28
SPEAKER_02: No, you're in this.
56:29
SPEAKER_02: Tell me.
56:30
SPEAKER_02: What's the guy's name from Wrecket Ralph?
56:33
SPEAKER_02: King, the king.
56:35
SPEAKER_02: King Candy or King.
56:36
SPEAKER_02: King Candy.
56:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and he like turns.
56:40
SPEAKER_02: Turbo?
56:41
unknown: Turbo.
56:42
SPEAKER_02: He goes turbo.
56:43
SPEAKER_02: That's a horrible example.
56:45
SPEAKER_02: That's why I wanted to stop what I was saying while I was saying it.
56:48
SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
56:48
SPEAKER_02: But because he was like the nice guy, and then he goes crazy.
56:52
SPEAKER_02: There's I'm sure there's lots of better examples about turning too.
56:55
SPEAKER_02: Um again, it's Harvey.
56:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, um, that wasn't my best analogy.
57:02
SPEAKER_02: You know, Wreck it Ralph counts too, but I like Wreck It Ralph.
57:06
SPEAKER_02: Um, Elizabeth, won't say this for a while.
57:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
57:11
SPEAKER_02: Do you want to eat more snacks after this?
57:16
SPEAKER_02: Like, sure.
57:16
SPEAKER_02: Elizabeth, any final words?
57:20
SPEAKER_02: Down with the tyrant.