Off With Their Heads

   Welcome to Friday with Joe McDonnell.

   On this day in 1789, the journalist Camille Desmoulins gave a speech to a Parisian crowd that inspired them to take up arms and storm the Bastille two days later. The reason for Desmoulins's  inspiring speech was the firing of France's finance minister by King Louis XVI.
   France was on the verge of bankruptcy at the time after helping to finance the American Revolution. There had been a series of bad harvests leading to bread riots. Louis had called into session the long dormant Estates General composed of clergy, aristocrats, and commoners to help stabilize the country.
   France needed to change and if Louis had been sensible, France could have become a constitutional monarchy like Great Britain. But Louis was always one advisor away from doing the sensible thing. This finance minister, Jacques Necker, had been in charge of France's treasury off and on since 1777. He had advised Louis not to get involved in the American Revolution, because he foresaw the financial problems. Once the members of the Third Estate, the estate of the common people, had formed their own National Assembly, Necker advised Louis that the only path forward was to cooperate with the assembly. Louis fired Necker.
   Camille Desmoulins had studied the law, but his stammer and hot temper made it hard for him to find work as a lawyer so he turned to journalism. He was a radical who wanted to see the king deposed and a republic established. At the time of his speech, a large number of troops had been stationed in Paris and dissidents such as Desmoulins feared a massacre was imminent.
   On learning of Necker's dismissal, Desmoulins jumped onto a café table and, losing his stammer in the excitement, exhorted the crowd  to don their cockades and take to the streets. A cockade is a knot of ribbons worn on the hat. The next day, the crowd broke into the armory to get rifles and the following day, the 14th, they stormed the Bastille.
   The revolution that followed was a much rougher affair than its American predecessor. When the colonies got their freedom from Britain, the first thing the American leaders did was attempt to stop any changes in society and reestablish the status quo. Once the French Revolution got rolling, it truly was "the world turned upside down."
   Desmoulins continued his role as a leading pamphleteer for the revolution, advocating violence against the aristocrats. As the National Assembly split into factions (the conservatives sat on the right wing) Desmoulins's temper and slashing attacks began to earn him enemies. When he refused to tone down his rhetoric, he was tried on trumped up charges and led to the guillotine on April 5, 1794. He was 34 years old. Louis XVI had been executed on the same spot 15 months earlier. The king was 38.

Aux armes!