I'm certain that you must hear this all the time but I was recently bedridden by a kidney stone that left me unable to do much more than tap weakly on my ipad as a diversion from the pain. Then the gods led me to your remarkable podcast. After bingeing heavily for a few days I was able to make a full recovery, hastened I am sure, by the even handed and insightful perspectives of two very knowledgeable and engaging hosts. And so, with gratitude I have "liked" and "subscribed." Thank you for helping me through a difficult time.
I Love your show and I'm so happy the French Revoluation is back! I'm especially up on Charlotte Corday, the lady who "did in" Jean-Paul Marat because my teenaged son had to select a figure from the French Revolution for a school report. He wanted to be edgy and cool so he selected Charlotte Corday. After turning in the report, the second half of the assignment was revealed: the students had to dress up as their selected person to present the report to the class. Being a former costumer, we did the research and I dragged my son around to thrift shops for a dress I could alter with a neckerchief and some frills. I made him a mob cap and then had to shop around for a long wig with auburn ringlets. I set down some real money for a Brazilian 1/2 synthetic 1/2 human hair wig that would do justice to both my son and Charlotte Corday. Nothing but the best for those two. I still have the wig years later. Lots of love from Virginia. ❤
Wonderful! I can imagine your son's initial consternation when he learned of the second part of the assignment, but the enthusiasm with which you both pursued it is admirable. AA+
@@FireflyOnTheMoon I don't know but the wig was pristine when it went to school and a real rat's nest when it came back. I had to use 1/2 warm water and 1/2 liquid fabric softener mix to spray on it and gently detangle and coax the long curls back into place. I feel like that poor thing got passed around and tried on by many after the presentation. ❤🩹
@@Chief-Solarize I don't think they are consciously making fun of bloodshed/violence etc. They may not have experience of it but we are not supposed to be used to it. Luckily they haven't experienced it. You are lucky if you live through your lifespan without the horror of war/civil war etc.
Thanks. This is the topic that I first listened to when I first discovered your channel. Happy to hear you come back to wrap up the revolution, s2 ep1!
Loving season 2! It would be so amazing if you did a multi-part series on the history of Haiti and how the revolts and subsequent independence lead to terrible state of the country today.
I really hope you cover the Haitian revolution at some point. The rapid fire policy and regime changes in revolutionary France make the Haitian revolution one of the most fascinating things I've ever read about. They're always months behind events in Paris and it feels like the moment everything is starting to settle down in Haiti, a new political faction has already sent replacement commissioners that have no idea what they're jumping into. It's constant whiplash the whole way through and every piece of news from Paris seems to send the whole colony spiraling deeper into chaos. It's a brutal one though, it makes the reign of terror look downright civilized
Funny you’re coming up with Depardieu as Danton. He did play the historical character in Andrzej Wajda’s film, one I would make mandatory in high school as a complement to Orwell’s Animal Farm. This movie depicts perfectly the descent into bloody anarchy, warrying factions, politicization of the courts, the sociopaths in charge.
I don't think anyone understands how quickly I click to listen to your podcasts! I love all the subjects, but I studied the French Revolution in college eons ago and LIVE for your podcasts on that. Love, love, love you guys.
Y'all the best story tellers! You and Monty Python have taught me all I know about history. To me you encompass all the beauty that Great Britain possesses...just got Dominion audiobook...Toms voice is dreamy!
Tom well done with the defense of Lafayette. Dominic well done with the recap from season 1 lol. Love this podcast. Love you both. So much fun. Thanks again lads
There is NO "official dictionary of the French Revolution". It's "A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution" edited by Furey and Ouzef, and had one of your students mis-cited it as such, he'd gotten a rocket. And it's another collection of essays by various authors, all of whom belong to the international collegium of university savants who enjoy delivering judgements like "empty-headed political dwarf" upon men who actually acted in the political and military arena--unlike men like themselves, who can barely keep a seminar room in order and who can't make their mistresses behave. Present company excepted, of course.
Thoroughly fascinating history telling. Great research, details as the earlier episodes of the French Revolution. Paints a compelling and gripping narrative of the characters, socio-political climate of the dramatic, horrifying and tragic story of this period. ❤ this!
Great work I love the pace you are telling the story of french Revolution, avoiding the shortcuts and cliches. A strong and true historian work. Would you still be interested in french history, i could recommand the period of the early years of restauration, with Louis XVIII, after Napoleon 1er. This is not a well known part of history, but full of political drama. How the royalists returned to power but faced a society who has learnt from the Revolution...
Gorgeous chat, lads. Perfectly poised. One question I've always had about the French revolution - is it significant that so many of the revolutionaries are lawyers and jouernalists? Is the astonishing violence that gets unleashed at least partly the result of a leadership used to brandishing words as their weapons, with liitle awareness of where all the rhetoric takes them until it's too late?
58:10 Gentlemen, I don't know you, but you are great men, you're the representatives of humanity in the Republic. (There ya go. From the audience of "The Rest Is History".)
The Girondins as Boris Yeltsin. I love that analogy. For all that Yeltsin is considered by many as little more than an alcoholic puppet of the oligarchs and Americas, the fellow might have been the last thing standing against something very ugly that might have taken over in 1993: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Russian_constitutional_crisis
At 48:00 in this episode, you describe denouncing as a tendency of the radical left, and not as a story as old as time related to power structures in general. The only reason you are associating this with "the left" is because this is one of the first times they have gained some semblance of power. Europe is filled with denunciation mania associated with both the left and right throughout history.
If you are interested in the Revolutionary/Napoleonic period, there are several podcasts: Napoleonic Quarterly (chronologically going through the period), Generals & Napoleon (personalities and some battles), Napoleonic Wars Podcast (mostly British with some French), Age of Napoleon (also chronologically, but focused on Napoleon's career). That will give you something for the cold winter evenings. Epic History is also looking at Napoleonic battles at the moment. Good to see another podcast bringing attention to this period.
Excellent stuff. Having a degree n European history, l always find the French Revolution fascinating. It gives birth to so many tropes that have dominated modern politics down to the present day. As Chou En Lai once said, when asked what he thought was the significance of the revolution: "it's too early to say!"
The French Revolution was a bloody, disgusting bisness. Absolutely horrific and no-one can błame the king and his family that they wanted to escape. The Paris plebs was decapitating pałace guards and biking them over the fire! And the genocide in Vandee?! There is nothing light about that time in France. That country has not recovered from that time to this day.
Wonderful earphones! Retro, I love it those monstrous 1980's versions you both proudly ware. Tom, however, has strayed by using Bluetooth while Dominic prefers wonderful dangling wires and a raised cage over his head.
I've watched a few of your videos, but never realised one of you was Tom Holland - one of my favourite historians. Only found out today when an article in the Telegraph mentioned it.
They gave us Edmund Burke and that's the best this Colonial Briton can say about 1789 and All That. Less facetiously, it's a great yarn of fascinating people and ideas. Never gets old, must admit.
“Competence and the regular payment of taxes”, but are they fair taxes? Taxes levied without representation? Taxes on the people but not on the oligarchy?
I've been listening to this podcast for years at this point. And as you might expect I have built an image of Dominic and Tom in my head. And I have to say I got it exactly right. Except that the faces are opposite what I expected
49:38 gestapo and stasi come to mind. I was taught as a child the French Revolution was for the better good so to speak. But the more I learn about it, the less I like it.
Lafayette's men didn't have machine guns. I'm guessing 50 dead and hundreds wounded is much closer to the truth. People are going to scatter pretty energetically in that situation.
My family (Wiegand) were driven out of Germany by the Catholic Sun King and wound up in Newburgh, NY thanks to the Queen of England. We were charged with setting up a barrier between the English settlers and the French/Indians.
" There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror-that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves. " -Mark Twain
I'm laughing out loud because when I finished watching all the previous videos I went back a couple of times searching for this part of the French Revolution that I thought I had somehow missed. I'm laughing out loud because this is the part of the French Revolution that I am most interested in and it makes me feel like a cretan but I'm just not that kind of a guy. It's just so satisfying when the bad guy gets his just due.
If I could make one request. The French language is difficult to decipher. It would be helpful if you could splash across the screen for a few seconds when you pronounce a French town, person or thing. So that people can do their own inquiry.
Great ! You only forgot two points : 1 That Robespierre asked the National Assembly to abolish the death penalty. 2 That he obtained that the members of the National Assembly could not be candidates for election to the Legislative Assembly
I'm addicted to this podcast
Agreed. They’ve got great chemistry and senses of humour.
Yup…likewise…
Genuinely, I've learnt more bout history from this than I have in years, never used to be a history buff.
I hope you're not addicted to the Jacobins, though. Radicals..
They’re amazing
I'm certain that you must hear this all the time but I was recently bedridden by a kidney stone that left me unable to do much more than tap weakly on my ipad as a diversion from the pain. Then the gods led me to your remarkable podcast. After bingeing heavily for a few days I was able to make a full recovery, hastened I am sure, by the even handed and insightful perspectives of two very knowledgeable and engaging hosts. And so, with gratitude I have "liked" and "subscribed." Thank you for helping me through a difficult time.
best of luck with your recovery.
Excellent prose my friend👍
You're right they do hear stories of bed ridden listeners with kidney stones all the time.
Very well said!!!
Be well.
I Love your show and I'm so happy the French Revoluation is back! I'm especially up on Charlotte Corday, the lady who "did in" Jean-Paul Marat because my teenaged son had to select a figure from the French Revolution for a school report. He wanted to be edgy and cool so he selected Charlotte Corday. After turning in the report, the second half of the assignment was revealed: the students had to dress up as their selected person to present the report to the class. Being a former costumer, we did the research and I dragged my son around to thrift shops for a dress I could alter with a neckerchief and some frills. I made him a mob cap and then had to shop around for a long wig with auburn ringlets. I set down some real money for a Brazilian 1/2 synthetic 1/2 human hair wig that would do justice to both my son and Charlotte Corday. Nothing but the best for those two. I still have the wig years later. Lots of love from Virginia. ❤
Wonderful! I can imagine your son's initial consternation when he learned of the second part of the assignment, but the enthusiasm with which you both pursued it is admirable. AA+
A wonderful story. How did it go down at school?
@@FireflyOnTheMoon I don't know but the wig was pristine when it went to school and a real rat's nest when it came back. I had to use 1/2 warm water and 1/2 liquid fabric softener mix to spray on it and gently detangle and coax the long curls back into place. I feel like that poor thing got passed around and tried on by many after the presentation. ❤🩹
im not happy with that teacher
Please do a podcast on Burke's critique of the French Revolution, which is highly relevant to this period.
I studied this at University. I've learned far more listening to you guys. Far, far more.
Geek
Yikes, was it a full course on just this subject? If so, that must be a shite university.
I love how you lads get so giddy when bloodshed is on the menu.
This is a trait of people who've never been around violence.
@@Chief-Solarize I don't think they are consciously making fun of bloodshed/violence etc. They may not have experience of it but we are not supposed to be used to it. Luckily they haven't experienced it. You are lucky if you live through your lifespan without the horror of war/civil war etc.
Projecting?
Not as giddy as me
Yessss! I've been waiting for this for months!
This show is superb - riveting. I've been fascinated by the French Revolution for decades, but you have brought it to life.
Tom and Dominic …glad you didn’t abandon France!! 😊
this has made my Monday or should I say Lundi
I'm listening to this on the 27th of Vendémiaire 233.
Thanks. This is the topic that I first listened to when I first discovered your channel. Happy to hear you come back to wrap up the revolution, s2 ep1!
I've been looking forward the resumption of this story. A tangled tale entertainingly told.
Loving season 2! It would be so amazing if you did a multi-part series on the history of Haiti and how the revolts and subsequent independence lead to terrible state of the country today.
too painful to listen to. Painful then and now
I really hope you cover the Haitian revolution at some point. The rapid fire policy and regime changes in revolutionary France make the Haitian revolution one of the most fascinating things I've ever read about. They're always months behind events in Paris and it feels like the moment everything is starting to settle down in Haiti, a new political faction has already sent replacement commissioners that have no idea what they're jumping into. It's constant whiplash the whole way through and every piece of news from Paris seems to send the whole colony spiraling deeper into chaos. It's a brutal one though, it makes the reign of terror look downright civilized
And tragically it's still current
Funny you’re coming up with Depardieu as Danton. He did play the historical character in Andrzej Wajda’s film, one I would make mandatory in high school as a complement to Orwell’s Animal Farm. This movie depicts perfectly the descent into bloody anarchy, warrying factions, politicization of the courts, the sociopaths in charge.
My fave are the small group of Haitians dressed to the nines in French attire for the times representing Haiti.
I don't think anyone understands how quickly I click to listen to your podcasts! I love all the subjects, but I studied the French Revolution in college eons ago and LIVE for your podcasts on that. Love, love, love you guys.
Y'all the best story tellers! You and Monty Python have taught me all I know about history. To me you encompass all the beauty that Great Britain possesses...just got Dominion audiobook...Toms voice is dreamy!
Personne n'attend la Révolution Française!
"Everyone is half tired and constantly drunk" argh you make it sound so easy
Has anyone seen Wajda’s ‘Danton’? Pretty great. Quite the atmosphere.
Great work as always lads, much love ❤️
Yay! When your French Revolution series ended before this, I was sort of perplexed.
they probably needed a lie down after the first season. I know I did.
Tom well done with the defense of Lafayette. Dominic well done with the recap from season 1 lol. Love this podcast. Love you both. So much fun. Thanks again lads
We love us some Marquis de Lafayette in the US. His life would be an incredible series on its own!
There is NO "official dictionary of the French Revolution". It's "A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution" edited by Furey and Ouzef, and had one of your students mis-cited it as such, he'd gotten a rocket.
And it's another collection of essays by various authors, all of whom belong to the international collegium of university savants who enjoy delivering judgements like "empty-headed political dwarf" upon men who actually acted in the political and military arena--unlike men like themselves, who can barely keep a seminar room in order and who can't make their mistresses behave.
Present company excepted, of course.
Thanks Guys! It was great!😊
Thoroughly fascinating history telling. Great research, details as the earlier episodes of the French Revolution. Paints a compelling and gripping narrative of the characters, socio-political climate of the dramatic, horrifying and tragic story of this period. ❤ this!
Great work
I love the pace you are telling the story of french Revolution, avoiding the shortcuts and cliches. A strong and true historian work.
Would you still be interested in french history, i could recommand the period of the early years of restauration, with Louis XVIII, after Napoleon 1er. This is not a well known part of history, but full of political drama. How the royalists returned to power but faced a society who has learnt from the Revolution...
You guys are so interesting. Thanks for your continued efforts!❤
I love this channel! Would love for you guys to do a series about the fall of the Romanovs.
TRIH hasn't done it but their sister podcast Empire has, episodes 90-93 from Oct 2023.
So glad to be back with the French revolution. Recently restarted watching the Columbus series with the recent news of his sephardic origins. 🌊🏯🏰
Gorgeous chat, lads. Perfectly poised. One question I've always had about the French revolution - is it significant that so many of the revolutionaries are lawyers and jouernalists? Is the astonishing violence that gets unleashed at least partly the result of a leadership used to brandishing words as their weapons, with liitle awareness of where all the rhetoric takes them until it's too late?
Winds, storm clouds, magnificent. Thank you guys.
I literally just finished the last episode of the first set of shows a few hours ago. What a treat!
Love you guys. The information, the fantastic storytelling, the humour... all outstanding. Thank you for igniting my interest in history.
That was sunlight?
I thought the duality of Toms nature was made physically manifest. Im a bit disappointed.
58:10 Gentlemen, I don't know you, but you are great men, you're the representatives of humanity in the Republic. (There ya go. From the audience of "The Rest Is History".)
Wonderful retelling The excitement just keeps building
Season two!👏👏👏
Very nice discussion and very informative. Sharp broadcast on the floor. I mean that.
I would like to remind that first Constitution as we understand it today in Europe was approved in Polish-Lithuania in May 1791.
Saved a few up so I could binge whilst I worked but I couldn't resist any longer!
I've been waiting for this and you guys didn't disappoint! Bravo!
My new favourite youtube channel
Greatest podcast of all time❤❤❤❤
The Girondins as Boris Yeltsin. I love that analogy. For all that Yeltsin is considered by many as little more than an alcoholic puppet of the oligarchs and Americas, the fellow might have been the last thing standing against something very ugly that might have taken over in 1993: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Russian_constitutional_crisis
That “something ugly” is here now in U K.
At 48:00 in this episode, you describe denouncing as a tendency of the radical left, and not as a story as old as time related to power structures in general. The only reason you are associating this with "the left" is because this is one of the first times they have gained some semblance of power. Europe is filled with denunciation mania associated with both the left and right throughout history.
This is such good content. Both are great tellers.
Love it! thank you for your effort.
This is a wonderful Podcast
If you are interested in the Revolutionary/Napoleonic period, there are several podcasts: Napoleonic Quarterly (chronologically going through the period), Generals & Napoleon (personalities and some battles), Napoleonic Wars Podcast (mostly British with some French), Age of Napoleon (also chronologically, but focused on Napoleon's career). That will give you something for the cold winter evenings. Epic History is also looking at Napoleonic battles at the moment. Good to see another podcast bringing attention to this period.
Top as always 🫡
Excellent as always - love you guys :)
Great history….with no ads…..ha ha ha advertisers scorn history…..great stuff to fall asleep listening to.
Love this channel
I’ve been waiting for this one!
You two are brilliant, gripping story-tellers! You may have perfected the historical deep-dive genre!
Kudos to you!
You're back! Yes!
Excellent stuff. Having a degree n European history, l always find the French Revolution fascinating. It gives birth to so many tropes that have dominated modern politics down to the present day. As Chou En Lai once said, when asked what he thought was the significance of the revolution: "it's too early to say!"
Love the topic and love the dynamic between these two experts. 🎉
Good afternoon from the SF Bay Area. Wonderful! I've been on the edge of my chair for weeks now waiting to find out how this story ends! 🙃😄
I’ll be so mad if there’s spoilers! LOL
@@GoBlueGirl78 🤣
@@chappellroseholt5740 Heads will roll, amirite?
The way you’ve brought it alive is excellent! I just want to perhaps correct a bit of the pronunciation 😅but that doesn’t matter much
Sacre bleu!!! C'est trop fort!!!
Wonderful stuff!!!
Jefferson is rather typical for a continental congressman when he calls for bloodshed then does a runner when things get a bit too bloody
The French Revolution was a bloody, disgusting bisness. Absolutely horrific and no-one can błame the king and his family that they wanted to escape. The Paris plebs was decapitating pałace guards and biking them over the fire! And the genocide in Vandee?! There is nothing light about that time in France. That country has not recovered from that time to this day.
And the Russians were stupid enough to follow a century and a bit later …😢 Even more senseless deaths, and Far from being recovered either.
So excited for this series
(sing) "Don't be fooled by the jewels as I rant-on, for I'm still Danton from the Canton".
0:35 You need to get your smoke alarm tested.
This is really funny
Thank you!😮🇨🇵
Wonderful earphones! Retro, I love it those monstrous 1980's versions you both proudly ware. Tom, however, has strayed by using Bluetooth while Dominic prefers wonderful dangling wires and a raised cage over his head.
I've watched a few of your videos, but never realised one of you was Tom Holland - one of my favourite historians. Only found out today when an article in the Telegraph mentioned it.
Oh where oh where could Talleyrand be? In Louisiana surveying land and taking care of business! I wish you guys would cover him❤
I’d love a series just on him!
I listened to the first series and was VERY disappointed that this wasn’t covered.
Thank you for this most excellent series. I went to public school in the USA so I never got a decent education in history.
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" ...or maybe the first as well as the last.
"Will to power"
They gave us Edmund Burke and that's the best this Colonial Briton can say about 1789 and All That. Less facetiously, it's a great yarn of fascinating people and ideas. Never gets old, must admit.
“Competence and the regular payment of taxes”, but are they fair taxes? Taxes levied without representation? Taxes on the people but not on the oligarchy?
"Trains that run on time"?
35:04 one of the most British sentences ever uttered
I've been listening to this podcast for years at this point. And as you might expect I have built an image of Dominic and Tom in my head. And I have to say I got it exactly right. Except that the faces are opposite what I expected
Love this history series.
Although distracted by the blurring of the biography of Hitler on the bookcase.
I need a tshirt that says, "I like competence and the regular payment of taxes".
....and meanwhile the Sun gets closer to Tom as he tries to shield his eyes from the oncoming doom....
Fascinating!!!
Live this!!!
So good! 🤓 📚
49:38 gestapo and stasi come to mind. I was taught as a child the French Revolution was for the better good so to speak. But the more I learn about it, the less I like it.
The French revolution is a very complicated piece of History if you tear it down to its bare essence it's very simple
The postman rings once.
and the historian answers the door with a grimace
Lafayette's men didn't have machine guns. I'm guessing 50 dead and hundreds wounded is much closer to the truth. People are going to scatter pretty energetically in that situation.
Marvellous! Back to France...
Full video series drop alongside audio for RIHC members! I demand it! We demand it! Viva la revolution!
God I love this show
My favourite spot, surrounded by books and bookcases, with headphones on😊
My family (Wiegand) were driven out of Germany by the Catholic Sun King and wound up in Newburgh, NY thanks to the Queen of England. We were charged with setting up a barrier between the English settlers and the French/Indians.
" There were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake?
A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror-that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves. "
-Mark Twain
What a radical!🙂
I'm laughing out loud because when I finished watching all the previous videos I went back a couple of times searching for this part of the French Revolution that I thought I had somehow missed.
I'm laughing out loud because this is the part of the French Revolution that I am most interested in and it makes me feel like a cretan but I'm just not that kind of a guy.
It's just so satisfying when the bad guy gets his just due.
I'm a monarchist, so revolution is like a stake through my ❤, not to mention regicide😮😢
History never ends!
It’s just one damn thing after another.
Yes! Much cake (or brioche) will be eaten while listening to this gold!
Turns out sixteen Louis’ were one Louis too many.
If I could make one request. The French language is difficult to decipher. It would be helpful if you could splash across the screen for a few seconds when you pronounce a French town, person or thing. So that people can do their own inquiry.
Great
Great !
You only forgot two points :
1 That Robespierre asked the National Assembly to abolish the death penalty.
2 That he obtained that the members of the National Assembly could not be candidates for election to the Legislative Assembly
They already stated several times that robespierre voted against the death penalty .