The Scandalous Road To French Revolution | Rise & Fall Of Versailles | Real Royalty

I'm Alice Loxton and I present documentaries on History Hit TV. If you're passionate about all things true history, sign up for History Hit TV. It's like Netflix, but just for the story you have hours of ad-free documentaries about everything. from the past, you can get a big discount for television history. Be sure to check out the details in the video description and use the code royal

royalty

all in one word when you sign up now for the program for over a century, the palace of Versailles. It was the home of the most powerful family in Europe, a place of artistic races, lavish entertainment, passionate love affairs and

scandalous

scandals, but while a lucky few danced, partied and flirted their way through their days, the state was on the brink of collapse in the face of these golden doors, millions of ordinary people.

They were taxed to the extreme while rich nobles paid virtually nothing. A new King Louis XVI and his young and beautiful Queen Marie Antoinette faced the greatest challenge in the history of their illustrious family: bring justice to the system and hope to their subjects or face the loss of his palace. crowns and their heads in 1775

versailles

celebrated the coronation of a new king and queen louis xvi had lived here for most of his 20 years surrounded by courtiers and powerful people but like his young austrian wife marie antoinette, he did not feel prepared to rule Despite his private feelings of the king, the public had high hopes, he is young, he has a beautiful wife, so there is everything to expect from this new and hopefully glorious reign of Louis XVI, Louis XVI wants to rule of the grand way, he wants to be an absolute monarch and he wants to live. up to the style of Louis the great Louis illustration he is going to be a slightly more modern king he has ambitions to be a just and philanthropic monarch he calls himself louis the bianfa louis the philanthropic in fact one of his first decisions was so modern that it quite terrified his courtiers he made his entire family was vaccinated against smallpox using a procedure that was experimental and very dangerous, that was something that, you know, raised eyebrows at the time and people thought: oh, what will happen if he dies?

And I think that way the king took The leader showed that he could lead the times and move with the times and that was a promising start to the reign. Louis and Marie Antoinette seemed happy and relaxed in public, but behind the smiles there was a problem with the royal marriage. great, the marriage was somewhat of a disaster if one says that the goal of the marriage was to produce heirs who would combine the blood of the Austrian royal family and the French royal family. Well, that wasn't going to happen because poor Luis on the 16th. um, he just couldn't, wouldn't or wouldn't try to consummate the marriage.

The sex life of a king and queen or lack of one was a major state issue, so it didn't take long for news of Louie's failures in the bedroom to arrive. scattering at your side is such a shameful situation where all the tears in the court were hanging in the bridal chamber, I mean it's inconceivable to us that they were allowed to do that and more or less said how it went sir and didn't nothing happened and he was not consummated for a long time precisely what was happening behind the bedroom door baffled the courts and divided historians to this day during the first seven years of the marriage there is clearly a sexual problem and certainly the couple does not have sex or they do not have enough sex um or they are not educated in sexual matters to produce pregnancies and children given the legendary sexual exploits of Louis XIV and 15 it is difficult to believe that the number 16 was as innocent as it seems extraordinary that he would not have known how to do it Um, but apparently he didn't know, what he would do is put his penis inside the queen's vagina, he would leave it there without moving for two minutes and then he would leave, the queen would get out of her bed and he would then have a happy ending on his own, but Some believe that it was not ignorance that prevented Louis from fulfilling his royal duty, it was an illness, a rare medical condition called phimosis, which meant that making love was more painful than pleasurable.

It is possible that Louis XVI had a malformation that needed to be corrected by minor surgery before he could have full sexual relations and on several occasions a circumcision operation to correct this was discussed, but in fact this was found not to be the case. . Fortunately, we have his hunting journal and I went. to the best experts on the subject of phimosis, which is what I would have had if I needed an operation and they assured me when I showed them the hunting diary he wrote, no one who had been operated on for reasons without anesthesia could have gone hunting day after day without entering in details is unthinkable while louis struggled to father a son with marrying antoinette he also had to address the problem that had blighted the final years of louis xv's reign the poor state of national finances he hired one of europe's sharpest minds and Robert to advise him on the economy France was a society that still lived on the fringes of subsistence many people still had memories of the terrible famines that had killed millions at the end of the reign of Louis XIV Turgot is an enlightened minister who has a particular sense of The importance of land wealth and the need to tax it tried to teach the king and his ministers some lessons about life outside Versailles, such as the price of bread.

Louie was interested, the others not so much, it

real

ly starts. He reigned with modernizing and adventurous policies, so this is a forward-thinking modern king who would hope to reform France and help France regain her status in the world as well as the leading European power. Louis' enthusiasm for reform was not shared by the majority of his courtiers. The palace was full of powerful land-owning aristocrats, many of them relatives of Louie himself. If Torgo's reforms were carried out, they would have to pay taxes like everyone else for the first time. once in their lives and they did not at all like the idea of ​​Versailles becoming a place that was becoming more and more isolated.

Little nobles of the world who live uselessly spending money depending on court pensions, completely oblivious to the political problems in France, certain taxes that were not paid by the nobility, particularly the poll tax, were simply not paid by anyone. Now Louie the 16th thought this was wrong and intended to put an end to it, but Turgot's reforms had to be accepted by France's highest court. Its members, like the majority of Louise's own governing council, were outraged by his actions. Ideas The opposition to Turko's reforms came from within the council, very conservative men who felt that the kind of things Tergo proposed threatened the traditional structure of society in which nobles and clergy had a privileged position in relation to the rest of society and, so to speak, had awakened the hornet's nest of vested interests.

Queen Marie Antoinette loved to dance and gamble in the most elegant Parisian salons where she heard all the gossip against Turkoff. One of the most powerful opponents of the reform was the king's own brother, the Conte Provence, known at court simply as Monsieur Se. clinging to the traditional order of

french

society three estates under the king the clergy, the nobility and the rest, and only the rest paying taxes, the gossip in paris combined with the strong vocal opposition within

versailles

began to undermine louise's faith in torgo and the reform, Louis Initially it seemed like he was going to stand his ground, however, his confidence was undermined.

Louis XVI did not have the will to support him until the end. Despite his promises of support, Louis finally fired the man he had recruited to save the French economy. It is said that he said that Monsieur Turgo wants to be me, I don't want him to be me and for that reason the minister fell into disgrace. Torgo's treatment made Louis seem weak and indecisive, labels that would stick, but Louis had something to celebrate after eight years of marriage, he and Marie Antoinette finally managed to start a family, first a daughter and then an heir to the throne, the birth of his second. child the dopher was enormously important she produced a sun she had done her duty and that was tremendously important and he boasted about her and the king was extremely pleased great celebrations it was seen as a miracle this little baby

real

ly was seen as a savior he was the boy who was going to save france the bells rang in paris the fountains flowed wine the tedeon was sung i mean nothing was neglected we louis enjoyed being a father and for a while we began to enjoy being king but the responsibilities of government weighed on him each day, especially the urgent need to fill the national treasury, Louie's next attempt to do so came to Versailles in the form of Jacques Necker, one of the richest men in Europe, Nekker is a hugely wealthy Geneva banker, states like Francis , who you know has financial problems find it tremendously advantageous because it means that you place your personal credit for the benefit of the state which you have initially seen as some kind of miracle man because by establishing financial confidence the state can prosper France's old enemy England was fighting with an armed rebellion in its American colonies a rebellion that Louis wanted to support France France since the defeats of the Seven Years' War had been desperate to take revenge on England Louis XVI would like nothing more than to attack the old enemy but on the other hand There's a problem if they do that they don't support the insurgents and, in fact, the insurgents, many of whom were Republicans and declared themselves Republicans, so it's difficult and they take a kind of middle path to begin with.

Louis approved the help, but insisted that everything was done in secret. Using a certain amount of covert ruses, weapons and weapons are sent to help the Americans fight the British attempt to reconquer the rebel colonies. All this aid to the United States cost the French government a fortune. Money that just didn't make Louis turn to his newfound finances. The minister and Nekker got emergency loans from their banking friends. The world's first democratic

revolution

was being financed by one of the least democratic nations in Europe, a fact that worried Louis himself. Oh, after two years of war, Louise's investment in the American Revolution seemed to pay off.

When the rebels won their first major victory at the Battle of Saratoga, he decided that the time had come to publicly support the United States and go to war with Britain to welcome one of the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence. united states, benjamin franklin louis and the nobles of versailles They did not care that Franklin was a democrat who did not believe in the government of kings and princes. What appealed to them was the chance to defeat a country they hated so much they carried its image on their butts in the yard, which is why he loved Franklin. um because he was in demand like they were they dressed up as shepherdesses he dressed like a fur trapper when benjamin franklin came to france he was an absolute celebrity there was a kind of frenzy really a franklin mania almost like everyone wants to be seen with the great man, the war may have been a success, but each year it cost more and dragged on.

Finance Minister Nekker had already gone deep into debt and was now struggling to control real spending. The war is becoming more and more expensive and the French. The political system is not designed to impose taxes on people who can pay them, so the fundamental problem of the French State is how to tax the wealthy public after several years in government and having practically exhausted the possibility of going into debt. He was aware that raising taxes was necessary to gratify published plans to get rid of the unnecessary but lucrative jobs enjoyed by courtiers at Versailles, but even the suggestion of reining in noble privileges sparked a family argument.

Luis promised to turn everyone back. the way she had done it with tyrgo marie antoinette encouraged her husband to be strong this time but once again she began to differ from louis xvi he was not a determined man by nature he was a decent man um he was more controlled by his ministers than before kings had been but then he faced a different situation despite the advice of his wife louis decided that nekker had to go the second attempt to confront the

french

nobility had ended just like the first in a complete failure when the british finally stopped fight in America and recognized the independence of the new country, it seemed that Louis had achieved a famous victory, but even while Versaillescelebrated, his courtiers whispered that France was not getting what it expected from a war it had financed with borrowed money, Louis had expected an economic boost from the war. but the americans had other ideas the americans preferred to continue trading with england so france ended up spending an enormous amount of money on a war from which they obtained very few tangible benefits the former finance minister says uh, the first shot will lead the state to bankrupt well, you are wrong, but you are only hurt for a few years because the impact of that war on French finances is absolutely terrible.

Necker's successor was Charles Alexandre de Colon, who proposed a new idea. He told Louis that to boost the French economy he should do it. spend even more financial policies aggravate these serious problems the state's financial problems to the breaking point marie antoinette had given the french people an heir to the throne but as an austrian outsider she had never been very popular now as the financial crisis deepened the common people He came to see her not as his queen but as a symbol of the selfishness of the aristocratic elite. It is a truism of history when there is economic stress people look for someone to blame and it was too easy to blame the Austrian Latriciane and who had an extravagant court and who the country people were starving and she gave parties and gave dances, so that was really what caused the biggest drop in her reputation.

There is a stream of salacious pamphlets coming out about Mario Antoinette in the 1770s 1780s the sort of thing that would say she has a very wild sex life frustrated in her relationships with the king she has sex with her brothers she is the new Messalina she is the new type of sexually wild person I have called and this is dragging the monarchy into my pretty desert dessert. One of the insinuations was that Mario Antoinette had an affair with Carlo de Rohl, who was the soul of the court and then transmitted venereal diseases to all the women at court and that that's the kind of thing that was circulating, it was very disgusting when more disgusting the better they make anything people can endure today seem absolutely mild they are so disgusting that they are actually lewd with details and illustrations one of the points that the satirists made in their pamphlets was that mariantronet quarreled with her brother-in-law the comp datwa, you know, you take a story like she is fighting with her brother-in-law and then how do you prove that she is not?

That was the problem, that's what everyone liked to believe. I think the king, who was a very nice man, was very upset with Louis. He was also a victim of pamphleteers because of everything he read. Louis assumed that the whole country now despised him, but a visit to Normandy to inspect a new port brought a pleasant surp

rise

for the rest of his career, he practically never leaves the area around Paris, it is almost the only time he sees the rest of his country and what it shows is that he is incredibly popular, there is a type of popularity that he does not completely suspect. of and even ends up cheering and applauding with emotion he was greatly applauded in Normandy and it is said that when he returned to Versailles he said I know I am receiving a narrative Versailles because the chairs are much weaker as soon as he returned to his court Louis faced another crisis.

Minister of Finance Kalon decided that his spend spend spend formula had been wrong after all he now called for cuts and new taxes for the nobility the same advice his unfortunate predecessors had given and sure enough the nobles organized to resist the taxes once again 1787 and 1788 will be characterized by a state that is desperate for financial reform to get out of the bankruptcy situation that faces it face to face. Louis believed that colon medicine could save France but doubted whether the patient would ever be willing to swallow it. and it will be absolutely vital that Louis XVI for once in his life delivers and supports his minister to ensure that these plans are accepted because there is no plan b in the assembly of notables included.

All the most powerful figures in Louie's kingdom had the authority to make the colon reforms the law of the land would be presented to them, they would give them their backing thus showing a degree of almost national support and the king would happily continue. Of course , it doesn't happen like that, the assembly of notables becomes an absolute bear garden, an absolute dogfight, what Kalon was doing was asking an assembly of privileged people to vote to eliminate their own privileges, in other words, asking them to the turkeys to vote early for Christmas. and then, inevitably, they rejected it.

The king realizes that Kallon failed to persuade the political elite to go his way. They fire him. The ideas he proposes are backed out, so it's a pretty unmitigated disaster. He was the third finance minister to

fall

from grace. After trying to get the rich to pay more taxes and the third party Louis had supported only to say goodbye caught between the economic disaster and the relentless opponents of change around him, the king couldn't take it anymore, suffering a mental breakdown stumbling around his palace rambling. . the visions that tormented him just when his grandfather Louis and handle the political situation the way he has to as a king because he is at the top of a system that is in crisis in some aspects from this moment he lost control, this was a key moment in which his ability to really be a king and dominate the political agenda was questioned lesbian after the notables Louis very unfortunate for the people who have to be with him.

Louis' mental state barely improved when someone sneaked into his private chamber and left him an unwanted gift: a portrait of the execution of King Charles I of England. Louis XVI was dominated by life. Charles I, who was his direct ancestor, knew little by little, line by line, what happened to Charles, so people were able to scare him by moving a portrait of the king into his private apartments, but Louis, you had a kind of mechanical type. He mentally said that if I avoid the mistakes that Charles made I won't be executed he said that Charles was executed because he imposed war on his own subjects I'm not going to do that Louis regained his composure and tried one last time to change the way his people were taxed and governed. kingdom called an unprecedented meeting of the three estates the nobility the clergy and the third estate representing the mass of the common people in August 1788 the treasury was empty the government was forced to summon a general of the estates really It was a last throw of the dice, its enormous numerical superiority, the votes of the third estate only counted the same as those of the nobility and the clergy, there will always be a situation in which the two votes of the so-called privileged orders, that is, the nobility and the clergy, which represent perhaps less than half a million people, they will always have more weight than the wishes of the 27 and a half million people of the third estate, so a political stalemate is immediately reached as soon as the states general meet and leave that stalemate will be what happens during the summer of 1789 that triggers the

revolution

a difficult time made even worse for Louis and Marie Antoinette with the death of their eldest son the death of the dofa the young heir to the throne is quite a psychological shock In reality, the king receives an enormous amount of support from the nobility psychologically, this brings the king and his nobility closer together in a way that was a turning point.

Louie's sudden change of sympathy towards the nobles meant that his enemies, the representatives of the Third State, decided he would never help them. The king finds it increasingly difficult to distance himself from his nobles and his interests. That is the world in which he moves. This is Versailles. It's all about being surrounded by nobles. He has almost never met his own subjects outside. from uh, out of that context, um, so he's leaning towards supporting the nobles and Marie Antoinette is certainly leaning towards them, with negotiations in the Estates General still hopelessly stalled, the Third Estate sent a group to Versailles to ask for Louie's help, he refused to meet.

For them it was the last straw, the third estate takes matters into its own hands and declares itself a national assembly and this is absolutely critical because it is the first time in modern European history that a representative body has claimed power in the state based on a democratic principle. which represents 80 percent of the French people was a genuinely radical revolutionary moment because they said that they were not going to disperse until France received a national constitution in the face of the collapse of the structure of the old states uh, general louis xvi finally decided, that would resort to force, as a result he began to call in troops and gather troops around Paris.

The whole thing was a botch. Parisians, panicked by rapidly rising food prices, decided to defend themselves and, as a result, attacked the Bastille to obtain gunpowder. Luis woke up in the middle of the night to the news that his people had finally taken up arms against the authorities. Louis 16 had a choice: he could have tried to confront the people of Paris and the National Assembly by force of arms elsewhere. In other words, he could have risked a civil war. If there is one thing that is clear about Louis XVI, it is that he refused to take that path.

He would not fight or raise his standard against his own people. He knew his English history. He knew what had happened to Charles. first i had no intention of repeating it louis may not have wanted to go to war with his own people but many of them now wanted to go to war with him three months after the

fall

of the bastille a group of angry parisians marched towards versailles here the rioters swore to kill the one person they blamed for all their problems the symbol of the hated rich marie antoinette there is no doubt that some elements of this crown had very bloodthirsty thoughts in their mind uh mary antoinette has become a figure of absolute hatred for the population of Paris at this time Marie Antoinette was the main target because she has been the main target for many years.

It was considered that the person was really giving bad advice to Louis on the 16th. We have been at the origin of the fiscal crisis because Of our generous expenses, one of the reasons why the crowd hated Marie Antoinette was because of a phrase that was said which he uttered when they told him that the poor had no bread. Kilmos of the brioche, let them eat cake. Marie Antoinette never said: Let them eat cake and she never could. I have said that she grew up in the philanthropic court of Austria, where her mother María Teresa told them to go around giving soup and bread to the old women in the farmers' huts and it was inconceivable that she would have given the brioche to her. like the late princess diana you know she would have made a gesture like that so she could never have said it, whoever said what or when the revolutionaries were out for the queen's blood and were soon breaking down the palace doors they stormed in early in the morning and They tried to go up to Marie Antoinette's room, one of her bodyguards was killed, actually defending the entrance to her chamber in the palace, massacred there and then Marie Antoinette only escapes by a quick exit to the king's chamber, It's very, very dangerous. moment for the royal family there was no doubt that they must have been terrified and the king and queen and their children come out onto the balcony to show themselves in a way to show that they are prisoners and not on the run, it must have been an absolutely terrifying moment for the king The queen and her children, because the crowd is fearsome, are not used to coming into contact with people like that.

The entire royal family surrendered to the revolutionary crowd and agreed to be taken prisoners to Paris. None of them would see Versailles again, they were taken back as the baker, the baker's wife and the baker's son in reference to the grain and bread crisis that had triggered this, but it is fair to say that after October 6, the king and the royal family were prisoners of the revolution Luis had tried unsuccessfully to change his kingdom he would now pay the price both he and marie antoinette would die under the sword of the guillotine for over a hundred years versailles represented the power and prestige of the bourbon dynasty but it also represented a society that was fundamentally unjust and corrupt, romantic but divorced royal, brilliant but grotesquely unequal, magnificent but deeply immoral, a society whose time had run out.