The French Revolution
 
Palace of Versailles

Till the 18th century, kings and queens ruled over France from the glittering palace of Versailles.

But the French government under King Louis XVI was a troubled one. The king continued to live in luxury, but claimed he had no money to provide food for his people.

When Queen Marie Antoinette heard the citizens had no bread, she joked, 'Let them eat cake'!

The gap between the royalty and ordinary people was so big that discontent was evident throughout the country.


The King sensing trouble, asked the church and nobles for help, but they in turn asked for control of the government.
It was this issue that forced the king to call a meeting of the Estates General, a national assembly that had not met for over 200 years. After weeks of angry debate, the Estates declared the formation of a new government. King Louis tried to dissolve the Assembly, but this led to riots.
A depiction of the Storming of Bastille

A crowd of women marched to Versailles and captured the royal family.
King Louis XVI was executed in public by the mob on a guillotine and a new republic was declared in France.

Fall of Bastille
On July 14, 1789, a huge mob marched up to the Bastille (prison), searching for gunpowder

and prisoners who had been jailed by King Louis XVI. Angered with starvation and bad government policies, a group of more than 300 people stormed the fort and captured De Launey, Bastille's governor and his soldiers. They were dragged through the filthy streets of Paris and many of their heads were chopped off in protest against the King's injustice.
Fundu Fact
 A depiction of the execution of Louis XVI
Before his execution, Louis XVI's addressed the people saying, "I die innocent. I pardon my enemies and I hope that my blood will be useful to the French, that it will appease God's anger...." His words were cut off by the roll of drums. Then Charles Sanson, the executioner, strapped him down and pulled the rope. Louis' head fell off into a basket. Sanson's son picked up the head to the shouts coming from the crowd of "Vive la Nation! Vive la République!" The execution was over, and afterwards people dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood of the king.
 
Did you know?
During the 18th century, France had no official means of capital punishment. Several popular methods of the time included hanging from street lampposts, burning at the stake, death by torture and by cutting off the head by an axe. But this form of execution was sloppy and on many occasions, the executioner's axe missed the neck, and it took several strokes to do the job. Once, the executioner even had to take out his dagger and stab the victim to death.
A Scottish doctor, Joseph Guillotine decided to make a machine that could supply a more efficient and merciful death. He made a drawing of a machine which used the horizontal movement of blades and took the plans to King Louis for help. Louis suggested that the blade come down on an angle. Queen Marie Antoinette dismissed the machine as a 'cumbersome scrap of flotsam that will never catch.'
Ironically, both the King and the Queen were executed on this 'cumbersome scrap of flotsam'.
The machine came to be known as guillotine after its inventor. Until his natural death, Dr. Guillotine tried to rid his name from the dreaded machine, quite unsuccessfully.