The Champ de Mars Massacre: When the Revolution Turned on Its Own

The King's New Guard: How Lafayette Abandoned His King

In this episode of The French Revolution: The Collapse of Royal Power, Lucas and Luna explore the pivotal moment when the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of two worlds and commander of the National Guard, turned his back on Louis XVI. After the Women's March on Versailles in October 1789, Lafayette insisted the royal family move to Paris, effectively making the king a prisoner in his own capital. We dive into Lafayette's conflicted loyalties—his genuine belief in constitutional monarchy, his horror at mob violence, and his desperate attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable. Then we follow his flight to Austria after the Champs de Mars massacre in July 1791, where he ended up in an Austrian prison. This is the story of a man who wanted to be George Washington but ended up a ghost at the feast of revolution. Along the way, we touch on the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the Tennis Court Oath, and the Festival of the Federation—all seen through Lafayette's increasingly tragic lens. #FrenchRevolution #MarquisDeLafayette #NationalGuard #WomenMarchOnVersailles #ChampsDeMarsMassacre #DeclarationOfTheRightsOfMan #TennisCourtOath #FestivalOfTheFederation #LouisXVI #ConstitutionalMonarchy #FlightToVarennes #History #FexingoHistory #Europe #18thCentury #GardeNationale #HeroOfTwoWorlds #OlmutzPrison Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo [https://buymeacoffee.com/fexingo]

The Women of the Revolution: From Salons to the Scaffold

In 1789, women had no political rights in France. Yet by 1793, they were leading marches, running political clubs, writing constitutions, and being sent to the guillotine for their ideas. This episode follows the extraordinary arc of women's participation in the French Revolution — from the October Days when market women marched on Versailles to demand bread from the king, through the founding of the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women by Pauline Léon and Claire Lacombe, to the tragic fate of Olympe de Gouges, author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, who was executed in 1793 for her political writings. Along the way, Lucas and Luna explore the contradictions of a revolution that proclaimed universal rights while excluding half the population, the role of women in the sans-culottes movement, and the eventual crackdown in 1793 that banned women's political clubs. How did the French Revolution both liberate and suppress women? And what does that tell us about its legacy? #FrenchRevolution #WomenInHistory #OlympeDeGouges #PaulineLéon #ClaireLacombe #OctoberDays #SocietyOfRevolutionaryRepublicanWomen #SansCulottes #DeclarationOfTheRightsOfWoman #CharlotteCorday #MarieAntoinette #Guillotine #RightsOfWomen #18thCentury #Paris #History #FexingoHistory #WomenAndRevolution Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo [https://buymeacoffee.com/fexingo]

The Revolutionary Calendar: Time as a Weapon

In October 1793, the French Republic didn't just behead a king — it beheaded time itself. This episode walks through the creation of the French Republican Calendar, a radical attempt to erase Christian and royalist chronology and replace it with a decimal, nature-based system. We cover the calendar's architect Charles-Gilbert Romme, the poet Fabre d'Églantine who named the months, and the strange new rhythms of décades and sans-culottides. We talk about how the calendar worked — ten-day weeks, five extra holidays at year's end, months renamed for weather and harvest — and why it ultimately failed after a dozen years. We also discuss the calendar's political purpose: to remake daily life, break the Church's hold on time, and create a new secular citizen. Along the way we touch on the Thermidorian Reaction, the Concordat of 1801, and Napoleon's decision to scrap the calendar on 1 January 1806. It's a story of idealism, control, and the limits of social engineering. #FrenchRevolution #RevolutionaryCalendar #CharlesGilbertRomme #FabreDEglantine #Décade #SansCulottides #ThermidorianReaction #Concordat1801 #Napoleon #DecimalTime #SecularCalendar #FexingoHistory #History #Europe #18thCentury #CalendarReform #Timekeeping #RevolutionaryFrance Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo [https://buymeacoffee.com/fexingo]

The White Terror: France's Bloody Revenge After Robespierre

After the fall of Robespierre in July 1794, France did not find peace. Instead, a brutal wave of vigilante violence known as the White Terror swept the country. In the south, particularly in Lyon, Avignon, and the Rhône Valley, royalist gangs and Catholic counter-revolutionaries hunted down Jacobins, former terrorists, and Protestants. They broke into prisons, massacred inmates, and murdered suspected revolutionaries in the streets. The Convention in Paris, now led by Thermidorian moderates, looked the other way or even encouraged the reprisals. This episode of Fexingo History explores the Compagnies de Jéhu, the murder of Joseph Fouché's ally Joseph-François Goupilleau, the role of the jeunesse dorée (gilded youth) in Paris, and how the violence spiraled until Napoleon's coup in 1799. The White Terror was not a single event but a series of localized atrocities that shaped the post-Terror political landscape and sowed lasting bitterness between factions. #WhiteTerror #ThermidorianReaction #CompagniesdeJéhu #JeunesseDorée #Lyon #Avignon #RhôneValley #JosephFouché #CounterRevolution #FrenchRevolution #FexingoHistory #Europe #18thCentury #PoliticalViolence #Jacobins #CatholicRevival #Napoleon #History Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo [https://buymeacoffee.com/fexingo]

The September Massacres: When Paris Turned on Its Prisoners

In September 1792, as revolutionary France teetered between hope and terror, a wave of violence swept through Parisian prisons—hundreds of inmates were dragged from their cells and killed by mobs in just four days. The September Massacres remain one of the most debated episodes of the Revolution. Were they an outburst of popular fury born from fear of invasion and betrayal? Or were they tacitly sanctioned by revolutionary leaders like Georges Danton? In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the complex context: Verdun under siege, the Brunswick Manifesto fresh in memory, the feckless Legislative Assembly, and the rise of the sans-culottes. They examine key figures like Jean-Paul Marat, the journalist who called for ‘patriotic’ violence; Stanislas Maillard, the militia commander controversially involved; and the Princesse de Lamballe, Marie Antoinette’s confidante, who met a brutal end at the Prison de la Force. The episode also considers the role of the newly formed Commune of Paris and the execution of 2–3 September orders that blurred justice and mob rule. This is a story of fear, class anger, and the grim birth of revolutionary justice—or its absence. #SeptemberMassacres #FrenchRevolution #PrisonDeLaForce #PrincesseDeLamballe #JeanPaulMarat #GeorgesDanton #StanislasMaillard #BrunswickManifesto #Verdun #SansCulottes #ParisCommune #LegislativeAssembly #Marat #Lamballe #RevolutionaryViolence #History #FexingoHistory #18thCentury Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo [https://buymeacoffee.com/fexingo]