The More I learn about the French Revolution…

The more I can’t help but think that France got a little carried away. I mean the amount of death within the four years after Louis the XVI was killed is staggering. It reminded me of the holocaust. The country was completely insane! I don’t know if anyone realizes but there were so many factions that sprung from the revolution that it’s any wonder they were able to keep any order - let alone fight against Austria, Prussia, England, and Spain. I mean France is literally stabbing itself in the chest while swinging it’s sword wildly towards it’s every neighbor. The only order they were able to keep it seems was through killing people.


One good thing they did: They freed slaves and gave them equal rights - but mainly because it was too much of a pain in the ass to keep them slaves. They only really held Haiti at the time and the waters were controlled by Britain and Spain.

One bad thing is they still thought women were brain-dead and a lot of women were pissed off by this and subsequently killed because they went up against the revolution they wanted to support if they only let them vote.  One way they tried to explain away their reasons for not giving women suffrage was biological reasons - with one rather laughable quote from my textbook: “Women are ill-suited for elevated thoughts and meditations.”

…Wow great reasoning for the Enlightenment. That’s basically saying “Women are dumb… because they have tits and give birth?” 


That’s just the tip of the Ice-berg of all the shit that went on in such a short amount of time - and not even mentioning Napolean. I just find it amazing France was still able to sustain itself among so much chaos. It seems to me they were pretty much winging it and killing anyone who pointed out anything contrary to the Revolution.

That being said - reading for this Civ class is like dragging my brain through broken glass…