There was a proto-Marxist element to the Revolution where you weren't supposed to be ostentatious or live large. Like, Robespierre lived in a shitty apartment. It was part of the optics. You had to be austere and Danton was like FUCK IT I'M NIGGA RICH. Danton truly believed he was untouchable because most people thought he was untouchable. But by that stage Robespierre and Saint-Just were just disappearing people left and right for almost no reason.

The most overlooked element of the Revolution is that the sans-culottes were calling a lot of the shots. Paris itself went into a pure state of paranoia. If at any point they had sensibly moved the Convention to some other area a lot of the insanity wouldn't have happened. But here they were trying to start a country and there were like armies of starving poor people who would periodically revolt and put people's heads on pikes. Like, at one point Francois Hanriot basically told Robespierre that if he didn't arrest Brissot and his buddies he was going to kill them all lol.

But no, Danton didn't do shit wrong. He was just sort of egotistical. No one *really* grasped the level of paranoia that Robespierre descended into. After Brissot's faction were executed and Marat was killed (who was like the most insane shitlib of all time) it was just Robespierre and his buddies left and they were like okay well who else is a threat to our Pure and Brilliant ideas. Danton had the biggest following. You see, as every head rolled somebody new became the de facto opposition leader and it was Danton's bad luck that day.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5657613&forum_id=2#48507133)

Why were some (Danton and then Robespierre) able to effectively empower themselves with the Sans Coulette? Did the Sans Coulette itself have any structure or leadership? Or just a mob? How does one effectively leverage the desires of the mob to keep oneself in power? Just feeling the vibes of the mob?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5657613&forum_id=2#48507182)

Marat was EXTREMELY influential and probably the key figure that brought Robespierre to power. While Brissot was telling people to tone it down, Marat was AMPLIFYING the paranoia and insanity. It would be like if AOC and Ted Cruz were living in a really paranoid city full of heavily armed poor people on a hair-trigger tweeting day and night that the other side ought to be arrested and executed.

Marat was the AOC of the Revolution. He was bananas. If you read his pamphlets they were just bonkers shitliberalism on steroids. Just imagine if Greta Thunberg was writing that everyone who disagreed with her views on climate change ought to be guillotined immediately. Yeah, it was pretty unhinged. Marat was very unhinged, and powerful, and the sans-culottes liked him. Later they gravitated towards Hebert too but Marat was moreso the main figure of power. The Montagnards were broadly the shitlibs that the sans-culottes liked. It was also your typical urban/rural demographic split. Brissot and the Girondins were MAGA, Marat and Robespierre were BLM. And BLM killed all the MAGA people with the help of the urban poor.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5657613&forum_id=2#48507203)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5657613&forum_id=2#48507332)

Looking back I think historians should defend him more. He created the Republic as we know it. His decisions still resonate. He was personally austere. He didn't seek power but ended up there.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5657613&forum_id=2#48507994)

A really big factor as to why the French Revolution turned out the way it did was that the Bourbon monarchy had been way too powerful for too long. You see, while England had the Magna Carta and then the English Civil War, France never went through a period where regular people successfully put limitations on the monarchy. It almost certainly would have collapsed sooner but not for one figure: the Sun King.

Louis XIV was an utterly transformative figure, by doubling down on the divine right of kings and absolute monarchy, while simultaneously strengthening the country. If this guy hadn't existed France probably would have had a revolution much sooner. They were really late to the game. Louis the XV accurately foresaw the collapse of the monarchy. And Louis XVI was a dud. He was just a dumb/bad ruler who didn't get it. The real move would have been to do what the English did and nab a better king from another country and cut a deal for a constitutional monarchy. This was definitely on the table. But it was one of those situations where time simply ran out on the clock and Louis XVI was not mentally prepared for such a change.

By contrast, a pretty funny story is in the Scandanavian countries they basically had a bloodless revolution. The peasants just marched to the palace one day and demanded a republic and the king was like, yeah, whatever, okay, here you go. Lol. This could have happened in France too but they were just all a little bonkers.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5657613&forum_id=2#48507158)

Also, the Clergy were really rich and powerful at a time when most people were dirt poor. So, easy target. A lot of clergy were killed in the Revolution. And then a bunch of High IQ shitlib LAWMOS took over the entire country. LOL

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5657613&forum_id=2#48507172)

Interestingly, there are 3 separatist movements I'm aware of that are left-wing. Wales, Scotland, and Quebec have left wing nationalist movements. Most nationalist movements are right wing, but in those places their nationalist identitarian movements are like, we want to split away from our oppressors and then turn the place into Vermont or Ireland. So you'd probably fit in with these folks!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5657613&forum_id=2#48507217)

There's actually a really cool job you can get with the French government. They pay people to simply sit around and invent things. You don't own the patent but you can get a government grant to try and invent new stuff. Just imagine the life of the mind they must live.

Similarly there are literary grants and prizes. There's one prize if you write a book that's good enough the government will take care of you for life. They're basically all poasters. It's 180 if you truly don't care about making money ever and the rat race isn't for you. But they all live in tiny homes and the water doesn't get very hot.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5657613&forum_id=2#48507878)

Also there was an unbelievable amount of stupid bureaucratic and political ideas that had carried on. Napoleon showed up and hit the undo button on a metric ton (pun intended) of stupidity. He went back to the Gregorian calender, cut a deal to bring back the church but limit their political power. Lots of easy wins. People were pretty happy. Then he defeated Russia, Austria, and Germany. Icing on the cake. He was like a Pharoah. A living God.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5657613&forum_id=2#48507515)

Just watch this incredibly long movie it's extremely accurate. If you sit through it end the end it all makes perfect sense. Starts at the beginning, ends at the end of the first major phase of the Terror.

If you want to get into the minds of the principal actors just read their pamphlets which are still around. Read L'ami du peuple. Read Marat's insane screeds.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5657613&forum_id=2#48507543)

One of the major issues was that there were a lot of conspiracy theories about and lots of shitposters stirring up drama. And then some of the conspiracies turned out to be true. It's just like today. Who can tell fact from fiction?

Like 50% of people believed that Marie Antoinette was a spy who was having an incestuous affair with her brother, the Austrian emperor, and that he was plotting to invade France and reinstall the monarchy.

This wasn't true. Leopold thought his sister was nuts and didn't want war. But Louis and M.A. got caught when their letters were intercepted and they were like yeah fuck the Revolution we're going to take our country back. They really were traitors, but not in the way a lot of people thought.

And Robespierre was a virgin fag who thought he was a Perfect Being with no flaws and then anyone who had ever tried to work with the king got guillotined. And every time an Enemy of the State got killed it just amplified the paranoia and they ran out of people to suspect so they just started suspecting their friends. It was insane. And the backdrop to all this were all these crazy peasants running around murdering aristocrats and putting heads on spikes.

It really was a case of too much paranoia, too many conspiracies, a roaming violent mob calling the shots. Nearly every important figure of the Revolution got beheaded. They ate their own.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5657613&forum_id=2#48516514)

The last stroke was he showed up at the Convention unannounced and started accusing shadowy elements of plotting against the Revolution. When pressed to name somebody in the Conspiracy he could not. His fate was sealed. And several members had been plotting against him waiting for him to fuck up, too.

There was this guy named Barère who brought down Robespierre but the irony is that he had been one of the main people supporting him before. One of the truly bonkers people who escalated all the insanity. But then he became part of the moderate reaction to get rid of Robespierre and his closest allies. It's funny everyone in this story is both a hero and a villain. Barère was one of the few villains who lived long enough to become a hero.

The only way to understand the Revolution is to start from the beginning in 1789 and go to the end of the first major phase in 1794. You have to walk through it minute by minute. What you realize is that 90% of it was about Louis and the Queen and their relationship with Austria and the exiled nobility living in Germany. That's in the beginning and the middle for most of it. And the inability to maintain order with the roaming band of violent peasants.

The final stage where the wheels come off is sometimes called the 'Grande Terreur' and that was mostly about the cult established by the Montagards. 93-94 is the really unhinged part with the mass killings. But to understand it you have to start in the very beginning and go day by day. If you just stopped reading in 1792 you'd probably think Robespierre was a political genius and that everything was going to turn out okay.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5657613&forum_id=2#48516564)

The farewell to the Fatherland by the Friend of the People if the Parisians reject his final advice.

Citizens, the flight of the royal family was prepared from afar by the traitors of the National Assembly and above all by the Committees of Investigation and of Reports. In order to pass intelligence between the counter-revolutionary commandants of Alsace and Lorraine and the fugitive Capets and the Austrians, it was necessary to crush the patriotic party. These infamous committees have perpetually imposed upon you the authors of the troubles in Haguenau, Colmar and Wissembourg, etc. In order to fool you there is no variety of trickery that Broglio, Reignier, Noailles, Voidel and other scoundrels haven’t committed. So it is the National Assembly that prepared the success of the invasion of its provinces, or rather who opened the frontiers of the Kingdom to its enemies. At the same time, in order to come to terms with the enemies of the revolution – the headquarters of the departments – the Parisian general, by his machinations, did all he could to paralyze the national forces and put them in the hands of the King.

Citizens, friends of the Fatherland, you are reaching the moment of your ruin. I won’t waste time raining down upon you vain reproaches for the misfortune you have brought down on your own heads by your blind confidence and your fatal sense of security. Let us only think about your salvation.

There is only one means left to pull you back from the precipice to which your unworthy chiefs have led you, and that’s to immediately name a military tribune, a supreme dictator, to put down the principal known traitors. You will find yourself lost without any resources if you lend an ear to your present chiefs, who will never cease cajoling you and lulling you to sleep, until the day the enemy arrives before your walls. Let the Tribune be named today. Let your choice fall upon the citizen who has, until this day, shown the most enlightenment, zeal and fidelity. Swear to him an inviolable devotion and obey him religiously in all he commands you in order to shed yourselves of your mortal enemies.

The moment has arrived to make fall the heads of the ministers and their subalterns, of Mottié, of all the scoundrels at headquarters and all the anti-patriotic battalion commanders, of Bailly, of all the counter-revolutionary municipal officers, of all traitors in the National Assembly. Begin by assuring yourselves of their persons, if there’s still time[1]. Seize the moment to destroy the organization of the National Guard that destroyed freedom. In these moments of crisis and alarm, you have been abandoned by all of your officers. What need have you of these cowards who hide themselves in the moment of danger, and who only show themselves in times of calm in order to insult and mistreat patriotic soldiers and to betray the Fatherland? You should immediately send messengers out to the departments asking for reinforcements, call the Bretons to your assistance, take over the arsenal, disarm the alguazils on horseback, the guards at the gates, the hunters at barriers. Be ready to avenge your rights, to defend your freedom, and to destroy your implacable enemies.

A tribune, a military tribune, or you are lost without resources! Up to the present I have done everything in human power to save you. If you neglect this salutary advice, the only one left to me to give you, then I have nothing more to say to you, and I take my leave of you forever. In a few days Louis XVI, taking again the despot’s throne, in an insolent manifesto will treat you as rebels if you don’t head off the yoke. He will advance on your walls at the head of all the fugitives, of all the discontented, and Austrian legions will block your way! One hundred cannon mouths will threaten to bring down your city with fiery cannon balls if you put up the least resistance, while Mottié, at the head of the German hussars, and perhaps the alguazils of the Parisian army, will disarm you. All among you who are fervent patriots will be arrested; the people’s writers will be dragged into the dungeons, and the Friend of the People, whose last breath will be for the Fatherland, and whose faithful voice still calls you to freedom, will have as a burning oven for a tomb. A few more days of indecision and there will be no more time to come out of your lethargy. Death will surprise you in the arms of sleep.

1. I wager you a thousand that Mottié, all the informers of headquarters, and all the anti-patriotic battalion commanders have fled with the king.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5657613&forum_id=2#48507584)

The broad strokes was things were shit, the king sucked. He fled and that began the paranoia. And then the elected leaders of the Convention got increasingly more radical and every former ally became the new enemy. Just read some of Marat who was the main ideologue. He was sort of like Consuela if Consuela was saying we ought to immediately kill everyone who disagreed with him even slightly.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5657613&forum_id=2#48507650)

But there were still so many monarchist bootlickers even after all of that. Varennes was a fatal blow. It was literally treason. Before that they weren't going to kill him. He should have just focused on a peaceful transition of power. He could easily have negotiated a constitutional monarchy pre Varennes. Louis was a small man and not very bright. In contrast Robespierre was a political genius who was playing 3D chess up until the point where he descended into so much paranoia that he lost his marbles. He is still the founder of the modern French Republic in every conceivable sense.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5657613&forum_id=2#48507764)