1. The Revolution Devours its Own

2. The Guillotine
Invented by Doctor Joseph Ignace Guillotin as a form of painless and private capital punishment method equal for all the classes
Ideal killing machine for the revolution
15,000 people killed by Guillotine between
Prior to French Revolution – Execution from drawing/quartering etc – painful. Enlightenment called for more Opposition to these punishments was slowly growing, due mainly to the ideas and philosophies of the Enlightenment thinkers - people such as Voltaire and Locke - who argued for humanitarian methods of execution. Before French Revollution – beheading reserved for rich and powerful.
The guillotine was invented as a humane and painless method of execution, one that brought an instant death: could the inventors have been wrong? Plenty of anecdotes have been used by all sides, many of them dating from the French Revolution, one of the guillotine's most prolific periods. Scientists who asked their students to watch and record how many times they blinked (the scientists themselves being guillotined), murderers who tried to speak, and rivals who bit each other while their heads were in a bag; all have been cited at some point. One famous tale concerns Charlotte Corday, the killer of Marat, whose cheek supposedly reddened after the executioner slapped it even though, at that point, she was just a severed head being held up to the crowd.
The Medical Answer: The current medical consensus is that life does survive, for a period of roughly thirteen seconds, varying slightly depending on the victim's build, health and the immediate circumstances of the decapitation. The simple act of removing a head from a body is not what kills the brain, rather, it is the lack of oxygen and other important chemicals provided in the bloodstream. To quote Dr. Ron Wright "The 13 seconds is the amount of high energy phosphates that the cytochromes in the brain have to keep going without new oxygen and glucose" (Cited from urbanlegends.com, no longer extant). The precise post-execution lifespan will depend on how much oxygen, and other chemicals, were in the brain at the point of decapitation; however, eyes could certainly move and blink.

4. New Legislative Assembly convened 1791
Tried to establish workable government
Too many groups struggling for power
Radicals: wanted republic
Moderates: wanted constitutional monarchy
Monarchists: wanted to restore king’s powers

5. Key Players in the French Revolution
Two important political clubs led the revolution:
Girondins - Moderate
Jacobins – Radical; Most influential group in revolution.
Sans-Culottes were also key players.
Working people of Paris who overthrew the king.
Supported the Jacobins
Power struggle between the two clubs.
Girondins lost support for their cause when they called for the Revolution to slow down.
Most were executed.

6. Jacobins vs Girondins Jacobins (radical)
Wanted a parliament similar to England
People good or bad, honest or wicked
Lower classes good
Aristocrats bad
Atheist
Mostly Bourgeoisie
Girondins (moderate)
wanted a parliament similar to England
all people are equal
Freedom and equality of religion
Former Aristocrats

8. Sans-Culottes
Mostly poor and working class people from Paris and the larger cities.
Wanted national government to lower prices and supply bread to the poor.
Very violent – formed mobs that roamed Paris and attacked anything or anyone suspected of being against the revolution.
Supported radicals who wanted to execute the King and aristocrats.

9. Alors, pourquoi “sans-culottes?”
Avec culottes
Sans culottes

10. Marat, Danton, & Robespierre
Radical leaders of revolution -
Jean-Paul Marat –Leader of Sans-Culottes, Pamphlet Writer
Jacques Danton & Maximilien Robespierre - Jacobins
Opposed to deals with monarchy – wanted king’s head
Destroy anyone who had sympathy for old system

11. Revolutionary Wars France declared war on Austria spring 1792
Country about to be invaded by émigrés
Wanted to restore king to power
France declared war on Austria spring 1792
Seemed would fail with losses at first battles
Marat, Danton, and Robespierre raised morale with patriotic speeches
Valmy French armies won a victory

12. Valmy, September 1792

13. End of Monarchy 10th August 1792 – Tuileries Attacked
Louis arrested for conspiracy against his country
Sept New Assembly called – “National Convention”
France is declared a republic
Monarch is abolished & Louis XVI is stripped of his title (becomes “citizen” Louis Capet)
Jan 1793
Louis put on trial for treason
Found Guilty and beheaded
October, 1793 Marie Antoinette guillotined

18. Death of Jean-Paul Marat
Murdered in his bath by Charlotte Corday, a Girondist, in 1793
Corday had hoped that ridding France of the radical Marat would help to end the violence in France.
Corday was executed under the Guillotine in 1793 for the murder.

19. Take-Over
With the help of the Jacobins, Danton & Robespierre would take control of National Assembly and the revolution