Introduction and Old Regime Monarchy

Living the French Revolution and Age of Napoleon

Dr Suzanne M Desan

Film Review

In her introduction to this excellent series on the French revolution, Desan starts with a brief overview of what the revolution accomplished (prior to its overthrow by Napoleon’s dictatorship). The largest and most populous European country in 1789, France was also the first country in Europe to demand full equality for all its citizens – leading to rights for Jews and women and freeing of all slaves in French colonies.

The revolution would ultimately lead to 23 years of war. It would enlarge France’s borders and create eight sister republics in Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands

The Last King of France

Louis XVI was the last king of the Capetian Dynasty founded in 987 AD. He loved fishing and locksmithing and believed he was chosen by god to rule France. Immediately following his coronation he dispensed  the “royal touch” to 2400 of his subjects who sought to be cured of scrofula.*

His father Louis XV had discontinued the royal touch in response to Europe’s 18th century Enlightenment, which raised thorny questions about royal power. Louis XV had wanted the monarchy to be a social contract, rather than a divine right, as had Frederick II of Prussia and Joseph II of Austria. The three monarchs, along with Catherine the Great of Russia, were known as “benevolent depots” and practiced “enlightened absolutism.”

Desan describes Louis XVI as “pathologically indecisive.” Revolutionary leaders initially sought to share power with the king, but his youth (he was 21 when he was coronated, only two years before the revolution) and his inexperience would make power sharing impossible.

At age 15, he entered into an arranged marriage with the 14-year-old daughter of the despotic Hapsburg empress Marie-Terese. The French hated the Hapsburgs and despised Marie Antoinette for her frivolity and extravagance.

* Scrofula, a swelling of the neck lymph nodes, was the most common form of tuberculosis found outside lungs. Throughout Europe, the ability to cure it was viewed as proof a king was the legitimate heir to the throne. See https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0738081X22001250

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/149323/149325