The Bottom Line: Learn more about the French Revolution.
The Full Story:
- Anywhere between 18,000 and 40,000 people were beheaded at the Guillotine during the revolution ensuing what was called “The Reign of Terror.”
- While peasants had to pay taxes to their noble, the King, and the Church, the nobility were exempt from paying most taxes
- Thomas Jefferson was a U.S Minister to France during the French Revolution
- Charles Dickens’ book “A Tale of Two Cities” is set during the French Revolution
- The Victor Hugo novel “Les Miserables,” which has been turned into a Broadway musical and film is set during the French Revolution.
- When the prison of The Bastille was stormed there were only seven prisoners inside, but revolutionaries were after the arms and powder stocked within the walls.
- Revolutionaries had their own decimal calendar. A week had ten days, a day had ten hours, an hour had 1000 minutes, and a minute had 100 seconds.
- King Louis XVI was executed in January of 1793
- It is believed that Marie Antoinette gave her executioner a purse full of gold coins to ensure the blade of the Guillotine was sharp, to make sure her 1791 death was quick and clean. Word is, it wasn’t.
Source: This Is France