Ms. Avar
Point Value:
/ 5 / / Video Notes 3: Terror to the End / KEY
Instructions: Answer the following questions as you watch the video. (If absent, make an appointment to get answers from the sample binder and/or find them on the class website).
Start around 1:09:30
1. A member of the National Convention notes the pointless waste of life as one after another of his colleagues are lost to the guillotine. (1:10:12) / 2. Four years into the Revolution, what is the rest of Europe doing to the borders of France? (1:10:30)Eating it away
3. D’Antone and Robespierre want to save the Revolution. They convince their colleagues to institute a menacing new form of Marshall law against traitors and conspirators. /
4. They said to “make terror the order of the day.” (1:11:10)
5. In remarkable reversal, the revolutionaries suspend the new Constitution and all the rights it was to guarantee. (1:11:56) / 6. If you were seen or suspected to be a traitor to the new ways of France, including even saying “madam” or “monsieur” (the old way of addressing people) instead of “citizen” (the new way of addressing people), what happened to you?
Guillotined
7. A twelve-man council was created and called the
Committee of Public Safety. In reality, this was really just a collective dictatorship.
(1:14:00) / 8. How does Robespierre respond when people throw it in his face that he becomes a proponent of terror and the guillotine? What does he say? (1:14:50)
“Times have changed”
9. People start to say that because it’s about “superstition and fanaticism” the root of all the problems is priests and religion.
They say that they only way they’re ever going to be safe against enemies of the revolution is to destroy the power of the Catholic Church / 10. As a “revolutionary weapon” against the Church, the radicals started a new revolutionary calendar. The years started with the date being when they overthrew the monarchy (Sept 1792),
11. What day of the week did the revolutionary calendar get rid of with their 10 day calendar? (1:15)
Sunday / 12. Who was in charge of the French army that sent British army into retreat? (1:18)
Napoleon
13. Robespierre wanted to use even more terror to make a “Republic of Virtue”, meaning that everybody must be ACTIVE citizens of the state, which also included killing enemies of the state. (1:19:35) / 14. By the spring of 1794, conditions were better in France (food and war situation improved). What did D’Antone said that France needed to get a new footing in government and move towards what? (1:20:50)
Normalization
15. How did Robespierre feel about D’Antone’s suggestion?
He saw it as a threat / that he was a traitor committing treason / 16. During the time of Robespierre’s “GREAT Terror”, how many executions were they having per month in Paris? (1:22:12)
800 +
17. June 6, 1794 – Robespierre declared a new religious holiday (1:22:46). Festival of the Supreme being. He wants to replace the old Catholic god with a new one: “The goddess of Reason”
(ie. “The cult of the Supreme Being”) / 18. What did people start to wonder about Robespierre during all of this? (1:24:06)
That he had departed from reality / gone nuts
19. Deputies declare Robespierre an “outlaw”. When they went to arrest him, what did they find?
Two of his friends dead, and he was shot in the face (apparent suicide attempt) / 20. What does Robespierre’s cellmate point to when he said, “At least we did that” (1:26:25)
The Declaration of the Rights of Man
21. After Robespierre was executed – something necessary for the people to “end the terror” - France entered a period of uncertainty. (1:29:20)
They feared:
- Another terror
- (Worse) a return to the oppressive monarchy / 22. Five years passed before power finally consolidated (came together with some strength). Who did it belong to?
Napoleon
23. Historians disagree on the end of the Revolution. Some believe it died with the rise of Napoleon. Others maintain that it lived on into the 19th Century and beyond. But most all agree that the Revolution is the first and enduring model of people taking destiny into their own hands. (1:28:08) / 24. The French Revolution forever changed the course of Western Civilization. The questions raised by the French Revolution is:
How much violence is justified in achieving a better society? (1:29:30)
Do people have the right to overthrow what they see as an unjust system to replace it with what they are convinced in their hearts is a more just system ?
25. More than 200 years since the Revolution, the ghost of Robespierre hangs over revolutions from Russia to Vietnam, from China to Latin America. / 26. The French experiments with democracy have inspired models all over the world.
“Wherever tyranny takes root, the cry of justice is eternal for liberty, equality, fraternity…. for revolution.” End 1:29:52
27. A famous quote about what was happening in France is, “The Revolution is like Saturn, devouring its own children.” Explain what you think that means: