WEBVTT

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Prof: This is the
beginning of the French part of

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the course.

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Today I'm going to talk about
the Enlightenment and the

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cultural concomitants of the
French Revolution,

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and how people began to imagine
an alternate sense of

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sovereignty in the nation.

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You're in for a treat on
Monday, because I have one of

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the only bootlegged copies of
the live speech and then the

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execution of Louis XVI.

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I'm going to play that and also
the death of Citizen Marat in

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the bathtub at the hands of
Charlotte Corday.

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That will be on Monday.

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Then I'll talk
about--inevitably,

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though I don't particularly
like him--Napoleon on Wednesday.

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The next three times are about
la belle France,

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but because the Revolution is
terribly important and,

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indeed, in lots of ways in many
places--it's well worth doing.

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So, I'm going to do four things
today.

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I'm going to first talk about
your basic outline of what

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difference the Enlightenment
made,

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followed by--with reference to
my good friend Bob Darnton's

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work,
The Social History of

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Ideas--and look at
surprising ways that

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Enlightenment influence was
felt.

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I'm not talking about the
big-time people like Rousseau

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and Voltaire,
but the Grub Street hacks.

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Then I'm going to talk a little
bit about the public sphere,

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taking two examples.

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One from the work of David Bell
and one from the work of Sarah

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Maza,
in which you can see this

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emergence of this possibly
different way of viewing

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sovereignty residing in the
nation and not in a king.

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Then look again at what
difference, in a very strange

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way, the Enlightenment made in
all of this.

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First, the kind of classic
stuff, just to review for you.

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If you had to summarize six
ways that the Enlightenment

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mattered, you might list them
like this.

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First of all, without question,
Enlightenment thought--although

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the Enlightenment thinkers
disagreed on many things,

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and a few were atheists,
but not many,

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most were Deists and believed
that God was everywhere--the

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Enlightenment did weaken the
hold of traditional religion,

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particularly the role of the
Catholic Church as a public

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institution in France.

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Of course, if you read in
high-school French or wherever

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Candide,
which is blatantly

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antireligious,
of Voltaire,

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you'll see the most extreme
example of that.

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Secondly, and related to this,
Enlightenment thinkers taught a

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secular code of ethics,
one that was divorced from

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religious beliefs.

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That they were engaged with
humanity.

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They loved humanity.

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They thought people were
basically good,

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and this shouldn't be just a
valley of tears awaiting eternal

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life, and went out to make such
claims.

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Third is that they developed a
critical spirit of analysis not

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to accept routine tradition.

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Truths that were passed down
from generation to generation,

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particularly those passed down
by the religious establishment

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and--not to accept routine
tradition,

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such, for example,
routine hierarchies.

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This was part of their spirit
of analysis.

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Fourth, they were curious about
history and believed in

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progress.

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They were convinced that France
had a special role to play in

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this.

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To be sure, the Enlightenment
was to be found in many places

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in Europe, and in what became
the United States.

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Paris particularly played a
central role in that.

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Fifth, that they differentiated
absolutism from despotism.

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In order to understand what
happens in this remarkable

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series of events in 1789 and in
subsequent years,

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as I said before,
there weren't ten people in

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France who considered themselves
republicans,

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that is who wanted a republic
in 1789 and how it was that two

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or three years later,
in 1793 it became easy for the

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majority of the population to
imagine a life without any king

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at all.

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Sixth--and here's the role of
the Grub Street hacks,

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of the third division of
Enlightenment thinkers that I'll

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talk about in just a few
minutes--they heaped abuse

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against what they considered to
be unearned,

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unjustified privilege,
and--;how can one put

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this--disrespected the monarchy
and the nobles who hung around

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the king.

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One can say in hindsight,
because we know what happened

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next,
that the Enlightenment helped

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prepare the way for the French
Revolution and that the French

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Revolution transferred power,
transferred authority to people

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who were very influenced by the
Enlightenment.

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The classic example which I
will give,

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because I enjoy talking about
him so much and he is important,

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is Maximilian Robespierre,
who in many ways was a child of

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the philosophes.

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As you know,
the philosophes,

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which is such an important word
in French, became a word in

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English.

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The philosophes were the
thinkers of the Enlightenment.

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Robespierre,
born in Arras in the northern

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part of France and now what is
the Pas de Calais,

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was very much influenced by
Enlightenment thought.

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As the twelve of the Committee
of Public Safety sat around that

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big green table making decisions
that affected the lives of lots

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of people in France,
Enlightenment influence was

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certainly there.

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The Enlightenment stretched
across frontiers.

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I think there's a map in the
second edition of the book that

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you are kindly reading where you
can find copies of Diderot's

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famous encyclopedia.

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You could find it in South
Africa.

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You could find it in Moscow.

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You could find it in
Philadelphia.

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You could find it in New York.

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You could find it in papal Rome.

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You could find it all over the
place.

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One thing that's interesting is
that twenty or thirty years ago,

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when I was starting out,
when people did what they used

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to call intellectual history,
intellectual history was the

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big ideas.

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You call it the Via Regia of
history,

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where you've got one idea
moving along and it hooks up

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with another idea,
and then a third idea comes as

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a result of that idea.

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It's rather like traditional
art history where you try to

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discover where it is that
Pizarro got his red ochre as a

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color,
or where such and such a

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Baroque painter got the idea of
painting cherubs in a certain

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way.

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In the very early ‘70s,
my colleague,

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retired a long time,
a great historian Peter Gay,

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coined the phrase "the
social history of ideas."

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Ideas, too, have a history.

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Who understood Rousseau?

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Who read Voltaire?

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Who read the Encyclopedia of
Diderot?

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How do we know how these ideas
were used?

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He called for the social
history of ideas.

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A number of people,
including Bob Darnton who is

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now at Harvard,
but taught at Princeton for

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decades and who turned out the
finest historians of old regime

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France,
took this very seriously.

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So did another friend of mine,
Danielle Roche,

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which I'll discuss in a while.

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They began to look at how
Enlightenment ideas got around.

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How did copies of
Candide,

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which was illegal in France,
censored.

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How did these things turn up in
France?

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Let me just say a couple things
about this.

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Enlightenment ideas really came
into elite popular opinion,

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in what we call the public
sphere--that is,

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people who are interested in
ideas,

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and people who became
interested in politics--in

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really three major ways in
France.

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There are equivalents of these
in other place.

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The Scottish example because
the Scottish Enlightenment is

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very important.

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You can read about it in the
book.

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One of these will be quite
clear there.

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An academy was not a university.

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It has nothing to do with a
university.

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They still exist.

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I'm a member of one of these
academies, an obscure one in the

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An academy was a group of
erudites, sometimes including

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clergy, many nobles,
many bourgeois people of

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education.

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The population that was
literate increases in Western

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Europe decidedly in the
eighteenth century.

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They would get together and
discuss ideas.

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They had contests where people
who wanted to make a little

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money would answer a question
put out by the

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They would write responses to
questions about science,

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religion, and big ideas.

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Robespierre wins one of these
contests.

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but they discuss ideas.

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These ideas are putting in
sharp analysis,

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or re-evaluation,
the role of the church as an

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institution.

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They have to get around some
way.

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People have to know about them.

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The academy is one way this
happened.

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A second one,
moving to number three,

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are Masonic lodges.

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Masonic lodges still exist.

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There's one,
I don't know if it's still

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active, but there's a big
Masonic building out on Whitney

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on the right.

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I think it became an insurance
building.

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One of the horrors of my
seventh grade life was having to

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be dragged off to the dancing
school in Portland,

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Oregon,
which met in a large building

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which was a Masonic lodge.

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Masonic lodges begin in
Scotland.

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They are secularizing
institutions that the members

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mostly all agree,
agreed in the eighteenth

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century,
that the church's public

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institution role is too
important.

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Masonic lodges talk about these
ideas as well.

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They talk about Rousseau,
Diderot, Montesquieu,

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and all of these people.

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This is a second way in which
these ideas get out.

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The third is the salon.

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There's another French word
that's so important it became an

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English word.

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A salon was a gathering of
pretty elite people,

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but interested in the life of
the mind.

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They were hosted by hostesses,
again, the role of women in the

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Enlightenment.

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I give you in the book the
example of Madame Geoffrin,

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which was the classic one.

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People would come together to
eat, to drink,

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and to discuss ideas.

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When British guests came to
Paris, the salons,

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they said, "All they do is
eat and drink.

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They spend all their time
eating and drinking,

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and they don't discuss ideas
that much."

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In fact, they did.

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There's still a wonderful
place in Paris called the

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Palais Royal where you can go,
and on very hot days--in the

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eighteenth century,
in the 1770s,

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you can imagine people meeting
there talking about the ideas of

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young Enlightenment hotshots,
those people who have become

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part of the canon of western
civilization.

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This is another way where these
ideas get along.

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Young, would-be
philosophes on the make

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coming up from the provinces,
what they want to do is be

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introduced to one of these
hostesses so that they will be

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invited to trot out their
intellectual wares at one of

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these gatherings.

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These are concrete examples of
the way that these ideas got

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around.

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People didn't pay any attention
to this before about thirty,

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thirty-five years ago.

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two huge volumes not
translated, are really marvelous

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in all of that.

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That's something to keep in
mind.

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The high Enlightenment really
ends in 1778,

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traditionally.

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That's a textbook kind of date.

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But it does matter,
because that's when Voltaire

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and his great enemy,
Rousseau, both die.

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After that, there are no more
Montesquieus,

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or Voltaires,
or the big-time all stars of

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the philosophes.

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There aren't any more.

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But there is this next
generation of would-be

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philosophes,
people who could think and

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write and who want to hit the
big time.

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They see that Voltaire made big
bucks, big francs,

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big livre writing.

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They want to be like him.

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They want to be like Voltaire.

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They want to be like Rousseau,
his archenemy who paced around

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his little farm called Les
Charmettes in Savoy outside of

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They really couldn't stand each
other.

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But he also hit the big time.

13:59.210 --> 14:03.230
What the Grub Street hacks,
Grub Street refers to--I don't

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know if it's a real street or
imaginary street in London where

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lots of would-be writers and
writers who are peddling their

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wares hung around.

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These Grub Street hacks,
the third division of people

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who want to have the kind of
entry into the salon life to put

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forth their ideas.

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They live on the top floor,
where the poorest people live.

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They're dodging their landlords
all the time.

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They don't have enough money to
pay.

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but they live right around that
part in the Latin Quarter,

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but more in what now is the
Sixth Arrondissement,

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and they write.

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But what do they write about?

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They need to make money.

14:47.110 --> 14:50.190
The big news here,
as Darnton discovered,

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is they write pornography.

14:52.340 --> 14:55.210
They write scatological
pornography.

14:55.210 --> 14:59.150
They write what they call in
French libelles. They

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write broadsides,
really, denouncing the royal

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family, denouncing the queen
above all.

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Indelibly called "the
Austrian whore"

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by her many detractors,
who are omnipresent.

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They write against what they
think is unearned privilege,

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the kind of censorship that
they see is keeping them from

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hitting the big time.

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The point of Darnton's many
wonderful books is that in the

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long run,
although these people were the

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Grub Street hacks,
Voltaire denigrated them as

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the canaille,
the rabble, the scribblers,

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jealous, eager, anxious,
hungry--;is that their attacks

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on the regime and against the
unearned privilege,

15:46.429 --> 15:50.979
as they saw it,
helps erode belief in the

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monarchy,
and helps suggest that the

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monarchy itself and the people
hanging around the monarchy at

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Versailles is lapsing into
despotism.

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So, they do make a difference.

16:04.509 --> 16:06.229
Let me give you an example.

16:06.230 --> 16:07.850
This is sort of a classic one.

16:07.850 --> 16:10.770
Imagine you're a bookseller in
Poitiers.

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Poitiers is a very nice town
full of lovely old romance

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churches in central western
France.

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You are writing to Switzerland
to order books that you want to

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sell to people who have ordered
books, for example.

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He writes the following letter:
"Here is a short list of

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philosophical books (books
written by the

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philosophes) that I want
to order.

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Please send the invoice in
advance.

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They include:
Venus and the Cloister,

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or, The Nun in the
Nightgown;

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Christianity Unveiled (that
could be the subtitle,

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too);
Memories of Madame la

16:53.922 --> 16:57.822
Marquise de Pompadour;
Inquiry on the Origins of

16:57.821 --> 17:01.021
Oriental Despotism;
The System of Nature;

17:01.019 --> 17:04.759
Teresa the Philosopher;
Margot the Camp Follower.

17:04.759 --> 17:09.029
This is not exactly the stuff
of Diderot, Voltaire,

17:09.029 --> 17:12.019
Rousseau, and these other
people.

17:12.019 --> 17:16.609
But yet, those who penned such
things imagined that they were

17:16.605 --> 17:21.185
philosophes and wanted to
have the same kind of impact

17:21.191 --> 17:24.021
that Voltaire and the others
had.

17:24.019 --> 17:28.629
These were la canaille,
the kind of rabble of Grub

17:28.628 --> 17:29.368
Street.

17:29.368 --> 17:32.678
Why was he writing Switzerland
to begin with?

17:32.680 --> 17:36.830
Again, this is the question of
how do these ideas get around?

17:36.828 --> 17:40.118
One of the things that the Grub
Street hacks didn't like is that

17:40.115 --> 17:41.205
you've got censors.

17:41.210 --> 17:43.590
You've got paid censors who
work for the government who say,

17:43.585 --> 17:44.945
"This can't be
published"

17:44.953 --> 17:45.723
or "Un-uh.

17:45.720 --> 17:47.550
You shouldn't have published
that baby.

17:47.549 --> 17:49.819
That wasn't a good idea."

17:49.819 --> 17:55.049
The result is,
in a system in which privilege,

17:55.049 --> 17:58.479
of which monopolies,
of which guilds controlled the

17:58.478 --> 18:01.618
production and distribution of
almost everything,

18:01.618 --> 18:05.148
that book-selling and
book-printing are monopolies

18:05.146 --> 18:07.016
controlled by the state.

18:07.019 --> 18:10.119
So, if you're a Parisian
printer,

18:10.118 --> 18:12.958
unless you're risking being
thrown in the slammer,

18:12.960 --> 18:16.680
the slammer (that's not
a real word in French,

18:16.678 --> 18:22.108
obviously),
you can't print this stuff out

18:22.105 --> 18:23.575
in Paris.

18:23.578 --> 18:26.718
So much of the Enlightenment
literature is published

18:26.718 --> 18:30.408
in--you'll not be shocked to
know--you already know this,

18:30.410 --> 18:35.350
Amsterdam, or in Brussels,
in the southern Netherlands,

18:35.349 --> 18:37.569
or Switzerland.

18:37.568 --> 18:40.488
Bob Darnton,
when he was a young professor,

18:40.489 --> 18:44.589
before that a young graduate
student, he hit the jackpot.

18:44.588 --> 18:48.368
A lot of the stuff was printed
in Switzerland in Neufchatel,

18:48.368 --> 18:52.148
and he got hold of the archives
of this printing company.

18:52.150 --> 18:55.550
He was able to do the social
history of ideas.

18:55.549 --> 18:57.789
Who bought what?

18:57.788 --> 19:02.528
By the way, before the Ryan Air
or any of these places,

19:02.528 --> 19:06.948
how do you get all of this
stuff from Switzerland,

19:06.950 --> 19:09.820
where there are big mountains,
into France?

19:09.819 --> 19:11.619
How do you get it to Poitiers?

19:11.619 --> 19:14.049
How do you get it there?

19:14.048 --> 19:16.628
Again, you have to look at the
way that this stuff is

19:16.625 --> 19:17.315
distributed.

19:17.318 --> 19:19.218
The ideas, we've already seen
how they were distributed,

19:19.220 --> 19:21.570
but how literally do you get
these books,

19:21.568 --> 19:23.008
these bouquins,
these pamphlets,

19:23.009 --> 19:26.599
these brochures from
Switzerland or the equivalent,

19:26.598 --> 19:28.938
from Amsterdam or
Brussels--that's easier,

19:28.940 --> 19:31.940
a flat country is a little
different than mountains--into

19:31.938 --> 19:32.418
France?

19:32.420 --> 19:35.280
Well, in France,
as in the German states,

19:35.278 --> 19:37.778
as in Italy,
there were peddlers.

19:37.779 --> 19:38.829
There were peddlers.

19:38.828 --> 19:42.268
They would go on the road and
they had--like a medicine ball

19:42.269 --> 19:45.069
in a gym, they'd have these huge
leather bags.

19:45.068 --> 19:48.888
They'd be stuffed with all
sorts of things--pens and pins

19:48.893 --> 19:53.133
and--I think I mentioned this is
another context--and religious

19:53.126 --> 19:56.906
literature,
but also hidden at the bottom,

19:56.910 --> 19:59.270
beneath the religious
literature,

19:59.269 --> 20:04.589
they are smuggling into France
Enlightenment literature.

20:04.589 --> 20:08.639
They have drop-off points.

20:08.640 --> 20:11.840
They go over the Jura
Mountains, that's not so easy to

20:11.836 --> 20:15.326
do, and they take them to a city
like Chaumont in the east,

20:15.333 --> 20:16.603
or Metz or Nancy.

20:16.598 --> 20:19.298
Then somebody else carries the
stuff all the way.

20:19.298 --> 20:21.658
Avoiding the police around
Paris,

20:21.660 --> 20:22.750
the gendarmerie,
the

20:25.098 --> 20:31.048
this stuff, Margot the Camp
Follower ends up pleasing

20:31.050 --> 20:37.510
this drooling guy in Poitiers,
who can buy it from his

20:37.511 --> 20:39.011
bookstore.

20:39.009 --> 20:42.499
You can really follow not only
Diderot's encyclopedia--and how

20:42.501 --> 20:45.251
do we know where Diderot's
encyclopedia ended up,

20:45.250 --> 20:46.110
by the way?

20:46.108 --> 20:49.338
Well, for example,
people who leave wills,

20:49.338 --> 20:51.968
that's how we know about
literature in the nineteenth

20:51.972 --> 20:54.752
century,
because the libraries in

20:54.753 --> 20:58.993
estates would be detailed,
so we know what books people

20:58.987 --> 20:59.277
had.

20:59.279 --> 21:03.079
In the eighteenth century we
have a tremendous proliferation

21:03.084 --> 21:05.214
of ideas, of reading,
of literacy,

21:05.211 --> 21:07.921
and of ways of discussing these
ideas.

21:07.920 --> 21:10.930
I've already mentioned three of
them there, but if you look at

21:10.931 --> 21:13.451
the case of Britain,
you've got the coffeehouses.

21:13.450 --> 21:16.160
Coffeehouses follow the mania
of coffee.

21:16.160 --> 21:17.680
Coffee comes from where?

21:17.680 --> 21:18.790
The colonies.

21:18.788 --> 21:23.088
So, coffeehouses are part of
this sort of globalization of

21:23.090 --> 21:26.940
the economy, but also the
globalization of ideas.

21:26.940 --> 21:29.320
This stuff all kind of fits
together.

21:29.318 --> 21:34.888
Again, Voltaire,
Rousseau, Montesquieu,

21:34.890 --> 21:38.160
and Diderot and the others
would be just horrified to think

21:38.155 --> 21:41.695
that anybody intellectual would
be mentioning some of these Grub

21:41.704 --> 21:45.074
Street hacks along with them,
because they didn't accept them

21:45.073 --> 21:47.233
and nor were they of the same
quality at all.

21:47.230 --> 21:49.630
Some of these guys, by the way,
there's one who I mention in

21:49.630 --> 21:52.510
the book,
a guy called Brissot,

21:52.507 --> 21:55.667
B-R-I-S-S-O-T,
who becomes an important leader

21:55.673 --> 21:58.103
of a faction in the Revolution
called the Girondins,

21:58.099 --> 22:00.959
from around Bordeaux,
who are against the Jacobins.

22:00.958 --> 22:02.208
More about that later.

22:02.210 --> 22:03.850
Brissot is broke.

22:03.848 --> 22:05.118
How is he going to pay the
landlord?

22:05.119 --> 22:06.369
He has no idea.

22:06.368 --> 22:08.218
Where is he going to get his
next drink?

22:08.220 --> 22:09.240
What does he do?

22:09.240 --> 22:10.880
He works for the police.

22:10.880 --> 22:13.930
He works as a police informer
on the other would-be

22:13.925 --> 22:16.785
philosophes,
on the Grub Street hacks.

22:16.789 --> 22:17.739
How do we know this?

22:17.740 --> 22:21.650
Darnton found the dossier in
which Brissot is being paid off

22:21.646 --> 22:22.836
by these people.

22:22.838 --> 22:25.248
What are other ways that we
know how many of these

22:25.249 --> 22:26.429
characters there were?

22:26.430 --> 22:27.350
There were about 200 to 300.

22:27.349 --> 22:28.539
I don't remember exactly.

22:28.539 --> 22:29.279
Why?

22:29.279 --> 22:30.589
Because they want money.

22:30.588 --> 22:32.908
On one hand they say,
"I don't like this

22:32.911 --> 22:35.811
censorship, it's keeping people
from recognizing my true

22:35.813 --> 22:36.713
genius."

22:36.710 --> 22:39.360
On the other hand they write
little sniveling letters saying,

22:39.355 --> 22:41.555
"I am a writer and a very
good one, indeed.

22:41.558 --> 22:43.888
Therefore, I merit a state
pension."

22:43.890 --> 22:47.000
They write these letters to the
various equivalents of

22:46.998 --> 22:48.898
ministries,
saying, "Please give me

22:48.904 --> 22:51.474
some money,
because I am a really wonderful

22:51.465 --> 22:54.315
writer and instead of repressing
my work,

22:54.318 --> 22:56.108
you should be saluting my
genius."

22:56.108 --> 23:00.918
They write clammy letters like
that, that you find in the

23:00.923 --> 23:01.873
archives.

23:01.868 --> 23:05.218
We piece this stuff together
gradually.

23:05.220 --> 23:11.780
Let me just race over here and
give you just an example

23:11.775 --> 23:16.505
of--where is this stuff?--here
we go.

23:16.509 --> 23:18.159
What would Voltaire think of
this?

23:18.160 --> 23:23.070
Here is one of these pamphlets
that's denouncing the

23:23.068 --> 23:26.148
high-livers out at Versailles.

23:26.150 --> 23:29.480
"The public is warned that
an epidemic disease is raging

23:29.476 --> 23:32.686
among the girls of the opera,
that has begun to reach the

23:32.686 --> 23:35.766
ladies of the court and that has
been communicated to their

23:35.773 --> 23:36.363
lackeys.

23:36.358 --> 23:39.978
This disease elongates the
face, destroys the complexion,

23:39.982 --> 23:42.962
reduces the weight,
and causes horrible ravages

23:42.959 --> 23:44.899
where it becomes situated.

23:44.900 --> 23:48.080
There are ladies without teeth,
others without eyebrows,

23:48.079 --> 23:50.739
and some are now completely
paralyzed."

23:50.740 --> 23:52.310
People want to know what it is.

23:52.308 --> 23:53.978
It's obviously a venereal
disease.

23:53.980 --> 23:57.150
He's obviously exaggerating
the--who knows?

23:57.150 --> 24:01.410
I don't know--but the results
of such a malady.

24:01.410 --> 24:04.070
What he's doing is he's
suggesting that what's really

24:04.074 --> 24:07.054
going on at Versailles is lots
of people--how do I put this

24:07.046 --> 24:09.966
politely?--hooking up all over
the place at the petites

24:12.663 --> 24:15.833
peasants, or whatever,
and that the result is very

24:15.827 --> 24:20.357
demeaning for the French state
and for the French monarchy.

24:20.359 --> 24:21.299
So, does this have an effect?

24:21.299 --> 24:22.269
It does.

24:22.269 --> 24:23.119
It really does.

24:23.118 --> 24:28.368
It contributes to what has been
called the desacralization of

24:28.365 --> 24:30.285
the French monarchy.

24:30.288 --> 24:35.298
It is very hard to argue that
God has put absolute monarchs on

24:35.301 --> 24:39.661
earth to bring people better
lives if you've got these

24:39.656 --> 24:44.666
people--and ordinary people did
not get into Versailles,

24:44.670 --> 24:48.570
unless they were among the
15,000 lackeys working there.

24:48.568 --> 24:52.188
Lackeys would be the term given
by the people who employed them.

24:52.190 --> 24:54.180
You didn't know.

24:54.180 --> 24:55.440
You had to surmise.

24:55.440 --> 24:57.580
You had to guess what was going
on.

24:57.578 --> 24:59.878
I'll give you a couple of
examples in a while,

24:59.875 --> 25:02.935
and I'd better hurry up and do
this, in which you can kind of

25:02.935 --> 25:04.105
see how this works.

25:04.108 --> 25:06.468
I'll give you kind of a
spectacularly interesting

25:06.472 --> 25:08.592
example, at least I think so,
at the end.

25:08.588 --> 25:13.468
By the way, just as an aside,
during the French Revolution

25:13.472 --> 25:16.902
Louis XVI decides to get the
hell out.

25:16.900 --> 25:21.180
He and Marie Antoinette,
improbably, dress themselves up

25:21.175 --> 25:22.805
as ordinary people.

25:22.808 --> 25:26.028
They're not people who have to
set the alarm clock usually.

25:26.028 --> 25:28.958
They get up at 3:00 in the
morning and they get into this

25:28.961 --> 25:31.791
large carriage that's been
stuffed with silver and foie

25:31.788 --> 25:33.828
gras and all sorts of other
things.

25:33.828 --> 25:36.808
They hightail it toward what is
now the Belgian frontier,

25:36.807 --> 25:39.037
but they get further and
further behind.

25:39.038 --> 25:40.868
You can read about this when
you get to that chapter.

25:40.869 --> 25:42.809
It's an interesting story.

25:42.809 --> 25:46.959
Finally, they get recognized.

25:46.960 --> 25:51.240
She is not a governess,
she is the queen.

25:51.240 --> 25:54.820
One of the people that first
realizes this is the king has

25:54.820 --> 25:58.780
actually caught a glimpse of the
king himself by looking through

25:58.779 --> 26:02.109
the fence at Versailles at the
time of a wedding.

26:02.109 --> 26:03.179
He sees the king.

26:03.180 --> 26:04.150
There aren't photographs.

26:04.150 --> 26:06.480
He recognizes the king's nose.

26:06.480 --> 26:08.400
He gets down on his knees and
says, "Sire,

26:08.396 --> 26:09.436
you are the king."

26:09.440 --> 26:13.730
This guy can no longer pretend
that he's a mere hanger-on

26:13.732 --> 26:16.112
assisting a Russian baroness.

26:16.108 --> 26:21.538
It's all over but the shoutin'
at that point.

26:21.538 --> 26:26.708
What these people do is they
helped break down this sense of

26:26.710 --> 26:31.530
automatic respect for the
monarchy as an institution.

26:31.528 --> 26:34.948
Of course, the fact that they
can't stand Marie Antoinette

26:34.953 --> 26:37.963
who, rightly or wrongly,
is accused of all sorts of

26:37.959 --> 26:38.619
things.

26:38.618 --> 26:43.458
This is racing ahead of the
story, but Louis XVI was a

26:43.463 --> 26:45.753
big-time cuckolded guy.

26:45.750 --> 26:49.430
His wife was seriously sleeping
around while he was taking apart

26:49.428 --> 26:51.528
and putting back together
clocks,

26:51.529 --> 26:56.139
which he liked to do in the big
house when his wife is out in

26:56.143 --> 27:00.323
the bushes,
to put it crudely.

27:00.318 --> 27:02.338
I forgot this is being
televised.

27:02.335 --> 27:03.905
Anyway, take that back.

27:03.910 --> 27:05.190
Can you erase that, please?

27:05.190 --> 27:10.790
Anyway, what these people do is
over the long run this helps

27:10.785 --> 27:16.335
erode respect for the monarchy,
and helps us explain why it was

27:16.344 --> 27:20.794
in 1789 you could imagine a
world without a king and a world

27:20.788 --> 27:22.218
without a queen.

27:22.220 --> 27:26.090
When they bring them back,
they bring the old boy and his

27:26.088 --> 27:29.398
wife back from Varennes,
which is in the northeast of

27:29.400 --> 27:31.530
France,
the National Guard turns their

27:31.526 --> 27:34.046
backs in serious disrespect to
the carriage,

27:34.048 --> 27:36.208
and they hold their guns upside
down.

27:36.210 --> 27:38.530
At that point,
that's la fin des

27:38.534 --> 27:41.274
haricots,
the end of the green beans,

27:41.268 --> 27:43.728
as the French say,
for the king.

27:43.730 --> 27:46.250
But this process started
earlier.

27:46.250 --> 27:49.480
The third-string hacks of the
Enlightenment had something to

27:49.478 --> 27:50.188
do with it.

27:50.190 --> 27:53.750
Let me give you a couple of
examples also from other

27:53.749 --> 27:58.079
friends, but really good serious
work has been done in the last

27:58.076 --> 28:00.306
twenty or twenty-five years.

28:00.309 --> 28:08.949
Rocketing right along here,
let me give you another example

28:08.950 --> 28:15.970
of this relationship of the
public sphere to imagining a new

28:15.973 --> 28:20.923
source of sovereignty,
that is the nation,

28:20.920 --> 28:23.540
and give you an example of how
that works.

28:23.538 --> 28:27.758
This comes from the work of
David Bell, who is my colleague

28:27.755 --> 28:31.965
and still very dear friend who
teaches at Johns Hopkins.

28:31.970 --> 28:36.850
This is from his work on
lawyers in the eighteenth

28:36.853 --> 28:37.853
century.

28:37.848 --> 28:45.268
We'll give you an example of
how this fits together.

28:45.269 --> 28:47.819
It fits into the Enlightenment
stuff,

28:47.818 --> 28:52.458
because if Enlightenment
literature was censored and

28:52.458 --> 28:56.928
sometimes hard to get hold of,
though an encyclopedia was

28:56.925 --> 29:00.305
tolerated and then not tolerated
and then tolerated again,

29:00.308 --> 29:06.368
what Bell's work on lawyers
demonstrates is the way in which

29:06.374 --> 29:12.854
lawyers and legal briefs help
get these ideas around as well.

29:12.848 --> 29:16.508
Because you could not censor
legal briefs.

29:16.509 --> 29:20.369
To give you just an aside,
don't worry about this now.

29:20.368 --> 29:24.508
In the case of imperial Russia
in the late nineteenth century

29:24.506 --> 29:27.536
you had big-time censorship by
the police.

29:27.538 --> 29:31.388
In fact, when there were these
political trials,

29:31.390 --> 29:35.760
lots of what was said in the
courtroom got around as well and

29:35.759 --> 29:39.469
couldn't really be censored in
the way that ordinary

29:39.473 --> 29:41.153
publications could.

29:41.150 --> 29:42.850
You had this same sort of
effect there.

29:42.848 --> 29:45.258
Let me give you a couple
examples.

29:45.259 --> 29:49.239
They're complicated examples,
but don't worry about them.

29:49.240 --> 29:53.700
The first would be from this
very strange not really heresy,

29:53.698 --> 29:58.228
but I guess the Catholic Church
considered it a heresy called

29:58.231 --> 29:59.291
Jansenism.

29:59.288 --> 30:01.868
I remember once coming in to do
the equivalent of this lecture

30:01.873 --> 30:04.293
and having to look at my own
book for a good definition of

30:04.288 --> 30:06.108
Jansenism that I must have found
once,

30:06.109 --> 30:07.459
because it's so obscure.

30:07.460 --> 30:09.850
There was a bishop who didn't
think he was obscure,

30:09.848 --> 30:14.848
but a Belgian bishop called a
Jansen who thought that the

30:14.846 --> 30:19.126
Catholic Church was becoming too
over-mighty,

30:19.130 --> 30:23.210
and full of Baroque masses and
huge expenses for archbishops

30:23.214 --> 30:25.504
who weren't doing a damn thing.

30:25.500 --> 30:29.230
He imagined another kind of
religion and became very

30:29.228 --> 30:29.958
ascetic.

30:29.960 --> 30:35.720
Somebody once called them
Calvinists who went to mass.

30:35.720 --> 30:39.020
They were still Catholic,
but they didn't believe in this

30:39.021 --> 30:40.321
high Baroque church.

30:40.319 --> 30:44.059
Jansenism was in 1715 or so.

30:44.058 --> 30:48.428
Then it comes back in the 1760s
or 1770s.

30:48.430 --> 30:50.160
It's extremely boring stuff.

30:50.160 --> 30:52.320
Louis XIV didn't think it was
boring.

30:52.318 --> 30:55.488
He sent out the troops to burn
down Jansenist abbeys,

30:55.493 --> 30:58.733
the big one was called
Port-Royal outside of Paris.

30:58.730 --> 31:03.180
He thought that this was a
threat to the Galician Church,

31:03.184 --> 31:08.044
which was sort of the alliance
of the Catholic Church with the

31:08.038 --> 31:09.868
monarchy in France.

31:09.868 --> 31:12.178
Rather like Carthage,
they were supposed to plow salt

31:12.181 --> 31:13.871
into the land and all this
business.

31:13.868 --> 31:17.678
So, they wage war on these
Jansenist people,

31:17.682 --> 31:21.852
who were rather like Calvinists
in many ways.

31:21.848 --> 31:27.178
But the only point of that is
that there are lawyers who begin

31:27.178 --> 31:32.328
to defend the Jansenists and
begin to see the actions of the

31:36.087 --> 31:39.317
religious minority as despotic.

31:39.318 --> 31:42.598
When lawyers are publishing
legal briefs--and there's enough

31:42.603 --> 31:45.423
references in the book,
so you can put this together,

31:45.420 --> 31:46.760
but I just want you to see the
point.

31:46.759 --> 31:50.749
When they begin to publish
legal briefs defending the

31:50.746 --> 31:55.416
Jansenists against these kinds
of attacks, these are published

31:55.423 --> 31:57.343
by thousands of them.

31:57.339 --> 31:59.399
They can't be censored.

31:59.400 --> 32:03.360
They begin to suggest at a time
in the eighteenth century,

32:03.358 --> 32:06.868
particularly after mid-century
when we can already begin to

32:06.865 --> 32:11.025
speak of French nationalism,
at least among the elite at the

32:11.028 --> 32:14.128
time of the Seven Years' War,
1756-1763,

32:14.130 --> 32:16.410
thus the Seven Years' War.

32:16.410 --> 32:19.350
It begins to suggest two things.

32:19.348 --> 32:22.388
That monarchies can behave
despotically,

32:22.390 --> 32:28.620
going beyond the accepted
limits of absolute rule,

32:28.619 --> 32:34.669
and that the nation,
this idea of the nation is

32:34.672 --> 32:38.152
being betrayed by bad
governments.

32:38.150 --> 32:40.850
If this doesn't sound like the
French Revolution,

32:40.852 --> 32:42.262
then nothing else will.

32:42.259 --> 32:44.909
Those are very important
defining moments.

32:44.910 --> 32:49.850
The same things happen also in
the 1760s and 1770s,

32:49.854 --> 32:55.104
with various attempts to
liberalize the French economy

32:55.095 --> 32:58.255
that I describe in the book.

32:58.259 --> 33:01.479
The king's attempt to dispense
with the parlements,

33:01.481 --> 33:05.221
which were really noble law
courts that were provincial.

33:05.220 --> 33:06.320
You can read about this.

33:06.319 --> 33:08.409
But the same thing happens.

33:08.410 --> 33:10.620
This is the point.

33:10.618 --> 33:17.078
These lawyers begin turning out
these legal briefs that imply

33:17.077 --> 33:21.917
the same two things:
that absolute monarchy is

33:21.922 --> 33:28.492
risking stepping over the lines
of the acceptable and behaving

33:28.488 --> 33:32.928
in a despotic way,
and that there is something

33:32.928 --> 33:36.618
called the nation in which
nobody would have imagined that

33:36.617 --> 33:40.047
classes were all equal--the
discourse of liberty,

33:40.048 --> 33:45.828
fraternity and equality is a
hell of a long way away--;but

33:45.826 --> 33:52.106
that the traditional rights of
the nation are being betrayed by

33:52.107 --> 33:58.287
the monarchy and that things
isn't so good at Versailles.

33:58.288 --> 34:02.698
Again, trying to look ahead and
see what happens in 1788 and

34:02.698 --> 34:05.068
above all,
1789, which is one--I'm not a

34:05.071 --> 34:07.921
big guy on dates in history and
having to remember all these

34:07.923 --> 34:08.363
dates.

34:08.360 --> 34:13.710
But 1789, like 1917,
that's a big one.

34:13.710 --> 34:15.770
That's a big one.

34:15.768 --> 34:19.918
But in order to also understand
the emergence of a radical

34:19.920 --> 34:22.980
republic and the execution of
the king,

34:22.980 --> 34:30.680
one has to see that the nation
becomes invested with a sense of

34:30.675 --> 34:38.125
moral quality that makes it not
impossible to imagine a world

34:38.125 --> 34:40.355
without kings.

34:40.360 --> 34:45.260
And, so, lawyers,
who are called barristers,

34:45.255 --> 34:49.235
play a major role in all of
this.

34:49.239 --> 34:53.469
Again, this has to be seen in
the context of a century in

34:53.469 --> 34:56.339
which more and more people can
read.

34:56.340 --> 34:59.770
The literacy rate in a country
like France is still well below

34:59.769 --> 35:01.959
fifty percent,
maybe forty or forty-five

35:01.963 --> 35:03.823
percent, something like that.

35:03.820 --> 35:06.070
More men could read than women.

35:06.070 --> 35:13.010
Not only literacy increases
among the elite,

35:13.010 --> 35:17.910
but the amount of things that
are published and the amount of

35:17.909 --> 35:22.239
newspapers that are published
expands dramatically.

35:22.239 --> 35:27.239
A point of reference would be
in Britain, you can read about

35:27.242 --> 35:31.572
this, the campaign of John
Wilkes, who was sort of a

35:31.568 --> 35:33.518
rascally character.

35:33.518 --> 35:37.878
But Wilkes--and the number
forty-five becomes virtually

35:37.880 --> 35:41.050
illegal,
because forty-five was the

35:41.050 --> 35:45.880
number of a newspaper in which
Wilkes and his supporters

35:45.878 --> 35:50.528
essentially call out the British
political system.

35:50.530 --> 35:52.450
Again, we're talking mostly
about Western Europe,

35:52.449 --> 35:57.079
and literacy is much higher in
the Netherlands and in Northern

35:57.077 --> 36:02.157
France and in Northern Italy and
in England than in other places.

36:02.159 --> 36:05.309
This is part of this cultural
revolution.

36:05.309 --> 36:07.549
It's important to see the role
of this,

36:07.550 --> 36:10.450
because in orthodox Marxist
interpretation you had to have

36:10.445 --> 36:13.175
the ever-rising bourgeoisie,
the rising in the fourteenth

36:13.177 --> 36:13.547
century.

36:13.550 --> 36:15.320
There they are again in the
sixteenth century.

36:15.320 --> 36:18.490
They're like some sort of
runaway bread or something like

36:18.492 --> 36:18.892
that.

36:18.889 --> 36:21.259
In the nineteenth century there
they are, the bourgeois century.

36:21.260 --> 36:24.090
I'll give a lecture on the
bourgeoisie, because they do

36:24.086 --> 36:24.816
indeed rise.

36:24.820 --> 36:27.590
Nonetheless,
a kind of class analysis can't

36:27.594 --> 36:29.384
be completely thrown out.

36:29.380 --> 36:32.370
Classes did exist and people
had a sense of themselves as

36:32.365 --> 36:34.175
being members of a social class.

36:34.179 --> 36:38.219
It was not immutable--these
boundaries were more fluid in

36:38.215 --> 36:42.245
Britain than in other places,
but still are important.

36:42.250 --> 36:43.810
But now for the last thirty
years,

36:43.809 --> 36:48.249
people have paid more attention
to the cultural concomitance of

36:48.251 --> 36:52.481
revolution and what difference
Enlightenment ideas made,

36:52.480 --> 36:56.300
and what difference the
emergence of a sense of the

36:56.295 --> 37:00.565
nation and the infusion of
politics with a sense of right

37:00.568 --> 37:02.628
and wrong and morality.

37:02.630 --> 37:06.190
It's an important part of all
this.

37:06.190 --> 37:12.160
In the last twelve minutes and
thirty seconds that I have

37:12.163 --> 37:17.393
today, let me give you another
example of this.

37:17.389 --> 37:22.329
I think this is a
fascinating--it's so fascinating

37:22.333 --> 37:24.153
I can't find it.

37:24.150 --> 37:26.450
Let me give you an example.

37:26.449 --> 37:29.099
This is drawing upon an
excellent book by Sarah Maza.

37:29.099 --> 37:33.539
It's a very well-known episode,
but it shows you and ties

37:33.536 --> 37:38.606
together the sense of the nation
along with the impact of this

37:38.605 --> 37:43.835
sort of third generation of
Enlightenment hacks after 1778,

37:43.840 --> 37:49.260
to understand their role in the
erosion of a sense that the

37:49.259 --> 37:54.399
monarchy was immutable in
representing the rights of the

37:54.398 --> 37:58.598
nation,
even if that construct was just

37:58.601 --> 38:00.491
coming into being.

38:00.489 --> 38:06.149
In this book called--;what's it
called?--;Private Lives and

38:06.150 --> 38:08.100
Public Affairs.

38:13.945 --> 38:16.525
things that you find in the
tabloids in Britain or the U.S.

38:16.530 --> 38:21.450
I don't read that stuff,
so I really can't give any good

38:21.445 --> 38:22.425
examples.

38:22.429 --> 38:25.549
But one of these actors and
actresses you always see running

38:25.552 --> 38:28.202
around, or whoever this person
is, Brittany Spears,

38:28.199 --> 38:29.629
or something like that.

38:29.630 --> 38:30.980
A singer or actress,
I don't know what she does.

38:30.980 --> 38:35.980
But anyway, something like
that, that people focus their

38:35.976 --> 38:38.516
attention on these people.

38:38.518 --> 38:42.098
They sort of dominate,
if you will--this is almost an

38:42.097 --> 38:45.327
insane comparison,
but the public sphere in that

38:45.333 --> 38:47.883
they're in the news all the
time.

38:47.880 --> 38:51.500
And, so,
what Maza did about the same

38:51.500 --> 38:55.490
time that David Bell was working
on the role of lawyers in the

38:55.489 --> 38:59.869
eighteenth century is that she
took a couple of these examples,

38:59.869 --> 39:05.739
and shows the way in which
private affairs that were kind

39:05.744 --> 39:12.144
of sleazy and not too cool--but
were sensational--helped bring

39:12.143 --> 39:18.233
these threads together and
contributed to kind of erode the

39:18.228 --> 39:21.478
prestige of the monarchy.

39:21.480 --> 39:28.010
This fits into the sense that
I've already given you that was

39:28.007 --> 39:31.887
extremely pervasive,
particularly around Paris is

39:31.893 --> 39:34.713
that a lot of things that went
on at Versailles weren't so

39:34.713 --> 39:35.113
good.

39:35.110 --> 39:40.210
The 10,000 nobles who were
clustered around Louis XVI and

39:40.210 --> 39:45.220
particularly his wife were
undermining the authority and

39:45.222 --> 39:51.922
the prestige of the monarchy,
and that wasn't a good thing.

39:51.920 --> 39:55.420
An incident called "The
Diamond Necklace Affair"

39:55.420 --> 39:58.920
is illustrative and mildly
amusing, not more than that.

39:58.920 --> 40:06.540
It also involves this Palais
Royal place in Paris before.

40:11.135 --> 40:14.915
doesn't matter at all--was a
poor noble.

40:14.920 --> 40:17.870
She claimed descent from the
royal family.

40:17.869 --> 40:19.719
She had a pretty good education.

40:19.719 --> 40:21.929
She had important protectors.

40:21.929 --> 40:26.429
She marries an officer of
rather dubious noble title,

40:26.429 --> 40:29.289
who was called,
quite forgettably,

40:29.286 --> 40:31.706
the Marquis de la Motte.

40:31.710 --> 40:36.050
He met the fifty-year-old
cardinal called Louis de Rohan,

40:36.052 --> 40:40.012
whose name I should have put on
there, R-O-H-A-N.

40:40.010 --> 40:44.480
He was from a very famous old
family called Rohan Soubise.

40:44.480 --> 40:47.970
The national archives used to
be and now they're adjacent to

40:47.967 --> 40:51.507
it in this fabulous old--why
don't they ever have things that

40:51.514 --> 40:52.524
work in here?

40:52.519 --> 40:54.759
It's just unbelievable.

40:54.760 --> 40:56.950
I can't find anything to write
with.

40:56.949 --> 41:02.399
The family called Rohan
Soubise--there's this wonderful,

41:02.400 --> 41:07.950
wonderful palace or chateau in
the Marais, which is still

41:07.949 --> 41:08.939
there.

41:08.940 --> 41:12.220
This cardinal is on the make.

41:12.219 --> 41:13.179
He's very, very wealthy.

41:13.179 --> 41:13.819
He's a cardinal.

41:13.820 --> 41:14.770
That's why he's wealthy.

41:14.768 --> 41:17.658
Or he's wealthy because he's a
cardinal.

41:17.659 --> 41:21.079
He thinks he's snubbed the
queen.

41:21.079 --> 41:25.549
He wants to be one of the
people who helped make important

41:25.550 --> 41:28.840
decisions,
but he thinks he's alienated

41:28.838 --> 41:31.928
the queen,
that this is standing between

41:31.931 --> 41:35.521
him and the power that he thinks
he should have.

41:35.518 --> 41:44.378
He writes missives to the queen
begging her to forgive him.

41:44.380 --> 41:46.970
He's met this guy, de la Motte.

41:46.969 --> 41:50.879
They begin sending forged
replies from the queen that

41:50.878 --> 41:55.088
suggest that the queen now is
listening, and maybe all is

41:55.088 --> 41:58.018
forgiven and it's going to be
okay.

41:58.019 --> 42:00.609
They have this idea.

42:00.610 --> 42:05.630
There's a famous jewel that had
647 flawless gems,

42:05.632 --> 42:11.172
worth 1.5 million pounds,
which is a whole lot of money

42:11.168 --> 42:14.448
in those days and still now.

42:14.449 --> 42:18.679
Louis XV had commissioned it
for one of his mistresses and

42:18.684 --> 42:22.254
then backed down because it was
too expensive.

42:22.250 --> 42:26.280
In 1788 the necklace was
offered to Louis XVI for Marie

42:26.284 --> 42:28.824
Antoinette,
but he turned it down,

42:28.820 --> 42:33.890
saying the realm needs more
ships than it does more jewels,

42:33.889 --> 42:38.009
which was reasonable enough.

42:38.010 --> 42:43.580
They con this old,
fairly horny cardinal into

42:43.576 --> 42:50.186
showing up at dusk at the Palais
Royal and introducing him to the

42:50.190 --> 42:53.880
queen herself,
whom I guess he'd met once.

42:53.880 --> 42:56.470
But it's dusk and his eyesight
isn't that good.

42:56.469 --> 43:00.639
What they do is they find this
prostitute, of which there were

43:00.641 --> 43:04.741
about 25,000 in Paris at any one
time, who looks vaguely like

43:04.744 --> 43:06.184
Marie Antoinette.

43:06.179 --> 43:11.159
This cardinal,
de Rohan, thinks that his ship

43:11.163 --> 43:16.943
has come in, that everything is
going to be okay.

43:16.940 --> 43:21.310
This purchase order has been
forged, supposedly signed by the

43:21.307 --> 43:24.437
queen, and the real jewels are
delivered.

43:24.440 --> 43:28.200
Then, of course,
it's broken up into pieces and

43:28.199 --> 43:33.019
sold on the street for zillions
of francs, sold on the black

43:33.021 --> 43:35.801
market in London and in Paris.

43:35.800 --> 43:38.240
But there's a problem here,
because the word gets out what

43:38.237 --> 43:38.877
has happened.

43:38.880 --> 43:41.010
And de Rohan,
who has really been made a

43:41.005 --> 43:42.855
fool, there's no doubt about it.

43:42.860 --> 43:44.810
But it's more serious than
that,

43:44.809 --> 43:48.649
because that he has done is he
could be accused of

43:51.550 --> 43:54.260
which is the ultimate kind of
insult,

43:54.260 --> 44:00.400
plotting against the queen by
identifying her prostitute as

44:00.402 --> 44:02.522
the queen herself.

44:02.518 --> 44:07.068
To make a very long story
short, the monarchy,

44:07.070 --> 44:11.530
humiliated by all of this--the
cardinal is saying mass in his

44:11.534 --> 44:15.184
fancy robes in some cathedral,
probably Saint-Eustache,

44:15.177 --> 44:16.067
but I'm not sure.

44:16.070 --> 44:17.620
It might have been Notre-Dame.

44:17.623 --> 44:18.353
I don't know.

44:18.349 --> 44:19.719
Well, Saint-Eustache isn't a
cathedral.

44:19.719 --> 44:22.649
But anyway, he's in his robes.

44:22.650 --> 44:25.660
The police come in and arrest
him.

44:25.659 --> 44:30.049
What happens then is they put
him on trial.

44:30.050 --> 44:37.220
He is not a terribly loveable
guy or--not someone to be very

44:37.224 --> 44:39.054
much admired.

44:39.050 --> 44:42.950
By an incredible series--or not
an incredible series,

44:42.949 --> 44:47.799
but an almost logical playing
out of what I've been saying,

44:47.800 --> 44:52.670
the lawyers who defend him and
the crowds who salute him

44:52.666 --> 44:57.966
portray him as a victim of a
regime that is crossing the line

44:57.974 --> 45:01.254
between absolutism and
despotism.

45:01.250 --> 45:04.850
He is a cardinal and he becomes
the darling of the people.

45:04.849 --> 45:08.389
Poor old Jeanne,
this noble, she and her

45:08.385 --> 45:12.825
boyfriend get branded and sent
off to the galleys,

45:12.829 --> 45:16.909
et cetera, et cetera,
predictably enough.

45:16.909 --> 45:22.369
But the parlement of
Paris acquits the good cardinal,

45:22.369 --> 45:26.479
and he emerges from the palace
of justice or the parement

45:29.710 --> 45:34.280
the largest of the then three
but now two islands in the Seine

45:34.280 --> 45:39.050
in Paris--to popular acclaim,
saying that justice and the

45:39.047 --> 45:44.217
interests of the nation have
been served by his acquittal.

45:44.219 --> 45:49.759
What this sleazy,
unsavory incident does is it

45:49.760 --> 45:55.550
helps continue the
desacralization of the French

45:55.548 --> 45:57.148
monarchy.

45:57.150 --> 46:00.810
Again, lawyers and the people
who see themselves as

46:00.806 --> 46:04.826
representing the interests of
the French nation are,

46:04.829 --> 46:08.039
in their own imaginary,
and in their own mental

46:08.039 --> 46:11.369
construction,
and in the eyes of people who

46:11.369 --> 46:16.439
follow these events in legal
briefs and in newspapers--the

46:16.440 --> 46:21.950
guy who's acquitted is seen as
somebody who had been done wrong

46:21.954 --> 46:25.874
to by a monarchy that has gone
too far.

46:25.869 --> 46:29.009
That exactly,
not much more than a year

46:29.012 --> 46:33.892
later, is what is going to play
out in the French Revolution

46:33.889 --> 46:34.799
itself.

46:34.800 --> 46:37.090
To conclude,
Voltaire, de Rohan,

46:37.090 --> 46:39.970
Montesquieu,
who you've been reading and

46:39.972 --> 46:44.632
these folks have big-time impact
on the way we look at the world

46:44.626 --> 46:45.806
around us.

46:45.809 --> 46:50.249
They had an impact on those
people who would become the

46:50.251 --> 46:53.791
organizers of the revolution and
indeed,

46:53.789 --> 46:57.279
the leaders of France and their
children,

46:57.280 --> 47:00.290
their successors in the
nineteenth century.

47:00.289 --> 47:04.169
But lawyers,
part of this culture of

47:04.170 --> 47:09.800
increased public sphere that was
Western Europe in particular but

47:09.797 --> 47:13.487
also parts of the rest of
Europe, too,

47:13.489 --> 47:18.869
in the eighteenth century,
had a role in all of this,

47:18.869 --> 47:22.669
and that by 1789,
not in any kind of inevitable

47:22.666 --> 47:24.186
process,
a revolution was not

47:24.186 --> 47:26.776
inevitable,
but the sense that the monarchy

47:26.777 --> 47:30.567
had gone too far and that there
was something called the nation

47:30.572 --> 47:34.612
out there,
was in the public sphere and

47:34.606 --> 47:41.186
the results of all of this would
be there to see in 1789.

47:41.190 --> 47:45.470
Now, have a good weekend and on
Monday you're going to hear the

47:45.472 --> 47:48.992
execution of the king,
the death of Citizen Marat in

47:48.994 --> 47:50.104
his bathtub.

47:50.099 --> 47:53.319
I hope to make clear why some
people supported the revolution

47:53.322 --> 47:55.692
and others didn't,
and what difference it all

47:55.686 --> 47:56.166
made.

47:56.170 --> 47:57.180
Have a great weekend.

47:57.179 --> 47:57.449
See ya!

47:57.449 --> 48:02.999