On Maundy Thursday, the King washed poor children's feet...
He washed his disciples' feet
and dried them with the cloth at his waist.
The Lord did not come to be served,
but to serve.
Follow this my example.
...and dried them with the cloth at his waist.
The Lord did not come to be served, but to serve.
Soon, I'll have clogs.
ONE NATION, ONE KING
A PERFUME OF LIBERTY
JULY 14TH
Murderer!
Make way!
May he rest in peace.
His first name?
Fight, if you have to,
with pikes,
rifles, cannons, hammers...
Fight to defend yourselves.
It's no crime.
What did you free?
Seven wretches, a madman, four forgers and a chicken thief.
To hell with the prisoners!
We took the powder! 300 barrels!
For our rifles.
Clémence!
Are you mad?
See to your buckets.
We need water.
Toussaint Grossaire.
Make way for Little Prosper.
Water comes, fortune too.
Margot.
Françoise, see to your daughter.
Paris will resist the King's troops.
Paris stormed the Bastille!
I lost a brother.
I bent over him with my pocketknife.
The governor wasn't moving.
Someone jolted me and the knife plunged into his neck.
Poppycock!
You beheaded the Bastille governor.
Cook's honour, someone kicked me.
Those foul towers have chilled our blood for centuries.
True, you were magnificent.
Finally!
Magnificent like godless men.
So, Desnot here
will keep the head all night.
Know what he replied?
"Being married,
if I take his sticky head home,
there'll be a revolution with my wife."
A revolution!
- What did you do? - With the head...
The same as you.
Want to see, Clémence?
A hard head.
It's not him.
Ah, the beautiful day
For every family
We have just taken
The fortress of the Bastille
Ah, the beautiful day
The beautiful day
When the St Antoine quarter
Brought those foul towers down
And I, Reine Audu
I could say I fought too
Everything will come about in time
We'll have both salt and bread
After the thorn, the flower will bloom
And brandy
Will flow like water
Hallelujah
Blow.
Enough.
Tonin.
Come and see!
Come and see the demolition!
The Bastille demolition.
Sunlight, at last!
Solange!
The first time I've seen the sun here.
Françoise, come and see!
The stones are falling.
Françoise!
Light! Light!
They brought down the Bastille!
The sun, here!
- Look, the Bastille is falling. - The sun feels good!
Come here!
Look, it's beautiful!
Touch the sun, make a wish.
OCTOBER
Stop!
Women of the market.
Women of the faubourgs. All of us.
Listen.
We want the King to leave Versailles
and its foul court.
We want wheat
bread and rights.
We want the King to leave Versailles
and return to Paris's walls.
Liberty will give us bread
and wings.
We want the King to leave Versailles and its foul court
Yesterday, the cockade trampled, tomorrow, a hail of bullets
We're going to Versailles
to fetch our King
We're going to Versailles
to fetch our King
We want wheat and bread Bread and rights
Let the King leave Versailles
And return to Paris's walls
Liberty will give us bread and wings
First French National Assembly
Let us speak.
This is the National Assembly.
Impose the end of speculation on flour
and give it to us.
Impose respect for the cockade.
Bread...
Bread is rare.
We're up before dawn to get any.
Bread
and good laws both give hope.
The new rights,
equality...
Listen!
That's what we want.
Please, one at a time.
We're hungry!
Who speaks for you?
Citizen Maillard.
Patriot
and vanquisher of the Bastille.
Gentlemen...
Gentlemen, Paris is suffering.
Paris is hungry.
How many sacks have arrived in the last ten days?
53.
Poppycock!
Yes, gentlemen.
Just 53 sacks and 100 bushels of wheat...
Lies!
for a starving city.
We're dying.
Dust won't make bread.
Gentlemen!
This is a manoeuvre.
We're tired!
We're hungry!
These women are manipulated
by the Duke of Orléans.
I'm no Austrian.
I'm from the market. I'm Reine Audu.
And I have a stone in my gut.
You feathered fool,
what's in your gut?
Roasts?
Guinea fowl?
This washerwoman
buried her baby six days ago.
Tell them so they know.
Mr President, must we listen to this mob?
Damnation!
Knave!
You're the mob!
Respect this setting.
We have a constitution to write.
It will save us
if the King resides in Paris.
Let him hound out the speculators and exploiters.
A king must be near his people.
Louis XVI in Paris!
The King in Paris!
Louis XVI in Paris!
Their taste for liberty will fade.
The King in Paris? Never!
His place is in Versailles.
You'll never see him in Paris.
Gentlemen.
Mr President,
let's go to the King as a delegation.
Let's inform him about this suffering.
He'll sign the September decrees.
The country waits
and hopes for them.
These women will move the King.
Let's obtain the signatures.
Margot.
They're back.
You scared me.
I waited three hours.
In the oeil-de-boeuf salon.
Then a footman took me
to the council chamber.
The King...
Mr Mounier, you have my acceptance.
Thank you, Majesty.
Could Your Majesty set it down in writing?
"Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
Article one:
Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.
Any social distinctions must serve the common good.
Article two:
Go to hell!
Every political association
strives to preserve the imprescriptible rights of man.
These rights are liberty,
property,
security,
and resistance to oppression.
The principle of all sovereignty lies essentially with the Nation."
The King has signed.
Long live the National Assembly!
Long live the King, restorer of French liberty!
It's wonderful!
Take care of my poor Versailles.
So finally King Louis
Is leaving his dear Versailles
To come to Paris
Far from the scoundrels
The Queen comes too With their daughter and son
It seems he refused to come
And danced upon our cockades
So we had to fetch him And kill fifteen or twenty guards
On seeing our cannons The King was as meek as a lamb
Now he's back in Paris
Drinking the water of the Seine
The King is fit as a flea,
From making love he won't abstain,
And will provide...
As the priest says!
A new egg for her Majesty's nest
Our deputies leave Versailles for the former royal riding school,
near the Tuileries Palace.
Gentlemen.
The committee suggests dividing the realm
into 80 departments.
I'm honoured that the cause I defend concerns the people enough
to ensure me your attention.
Censitary suffrage is a crime.
The project destroys political equality.
Cast your gaze on this class
scornfully referred to as the people.
That's its true name.
- The people! - That's how it's called.
Do you wish citizens to be a rarity?
- What's his name? - No idea.
I only know Mirabeau.
A lawyer. He defends equality.
Robert-Pierre... Or Rabesse-Pierre.
You insult your fellow men with words like scoundrel or populace.
Those men I defend have the same rights as you.
Yet you take them.
Enough, Mr de Robespierre. You preach anarchy.
Do you want an assembly of beggars,
of orphans,
of wretches?
Silence in the galleries!
Silence, the marquises!
This din is incredible.
They make laws here?
Let Robert Pierre speak, damn it!
Silence!
There are no two ways to be free.
One must be entirely free or be enslaved again.
Be gone.
He's right.
You can give laws to the citizens, but you cannot annihilate them.
Wise decision.
There are no two ways to be free.
There's only one.
Ours.
JUNE
Brethren...
I wish to talk of the advantages of the Revolution.
Before we were captive,
timid,
weak as slaves.
Today,
the perfume of our liberty
pervades the whole of Europe.
Yes.
Being French
will be desired
by the whole Universe.
Yes, my friends.
Up, up!
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
Forgive each other.
Forget offence,
remorse, regret.
I want my darling.
Leave quarrels and jealousy at the foot of this liberty tree.
Is there one left?
What's your name?
Every man has a name.
Even you.
I am a donkey.
Basile,
you'll remember this day.
What is this child of God accused of?
He stole my watch.
Julien, listen... If Basile works for you,
accept what's fair.
Forgive me.
Go on, forgive him.
Clémence.
It's freezing.
- All's well, Tonin? - Fine, Janis.
Here's our Molière.
- What did you do today? - I stayed in.
I washed my feet.
In honour of the new machine.
Guillotin, doctor
politic
Feels hanging is an inhumane way And unpatriotic
Guillotin says,
"The mechanism
strikes like lightning,
the head flies, the blood flows,
the man is no more."
Zounds!
Guess what the Assembly voted.
- The Constitution? - When do we see it?
They're working on it,
still working on it.
I know! The Church's wealth restored to the Nation.
Done.
Actor citizens.
Done.
- Jewish citizens. - Done.
Tell us.
- Well? - I know.
Active women.
Women who'd be citizens.
What? Pudding-head!
The Bastille didn't fall alone.
I was there.
We were all at the Bastille.
Excuse me, but I am active.
We've all heard you.
Landelle's never tired.
Her husband really gets it up.
They voted...
"Today, February the 12th, 1791, free cultivation of tobacco is decreed."
Like salt. Long live free tobacco!
God damn it!
To free tobacco!
Janis votes and we don't?
Actors have rights.
Janis will never vote.
He's too poor.
Says who, old goat!
And I'm too woman to vote?
Too poor...
Janis...
The active ones will be the tax-payers.
Censitary suffrage is for the rich.
Oust these scoundrels!
We have our faces in the dust.
From nothing,
we've become not a lot.
I believe in it!
What have you done with my realm?
Majesty?
Is that you?
The Great Louis...
Still in your bed.
Lazy!
You have lost your rank, your place, your people.
What have you made of my realm?
Answer your Sun King.
I also hear
that you have abandoned Versailles.
Abandoned Versailles?
They hounded me out.
Wretch!
You lazy King...
Have you no other distractions than your pillow and your dreams?
Henri de Navarre. I'm held at Les Tuileries.
Times are hard.
I do politics.
You shame us above all.
My ancestors.
A veto?
What custom is that?
A veto!
It's all I have left.
Enough! You appal us.
You ruin us.
You have learned nothing.
History doesn't make us.
We make History.
Never brag of being a Bourbon again.
- You're a buffoon. - A degenerate.
You're our ruin.
Louis the Dull.
Louis the Zero.
Phantom.
Adieu.
Stay.
Don't go.
Only a surge of pride will save you.
How?
War.
THE TIME OF BETRAYALS
The King has fled!
What a coward.
Abandoning us...
Shameful.
Death rather than invasion by foreign troops.
- Long live the patriots! - Loyalty to the Assembly!
All will be fine, all will be fine
By the torch of the august Assembly
All will be fine, all will be fine
All will succeed despite the scoundrels
Loyalty to the Assembly!
All will be fine, all will be fine
It will be fine despite the mutineers
Everything will succeed
Loyalty to the Assembly!
Our deputies must make an alliance.
Like water and land.
Loyalty to the Nation!
- Long live liberty! - Long live the law!
Loyalty to the Assembly!
Loyalty to the National Assembly!
Loyalty to the Nation!
Loyalty to our deputies!
Long live equality!
And after we've have hung them all, Up their asses, we'll stuff straw
It will last! It will last! And in 2,000 years, folk will remember
Look!
They've caught the King!
They've caught him?
They've arrested the King!
In Varennes! With the Queen!
Twaddle! Our King doesn't flee.
He's a stupid pig.
The King fled!
Knave!
The Revolution!
I'm off to see my King!
You still owe me 50 days' work!
Halt!
Drink.
Hey, fat, brainless Louis!
Two turkeys for you!
Shut your ignorant mouth. Respect your King.
That fat runaway pig.
You want war? The Nation torn apart?
Without Louis, the whole edifice would collapse.
Your calm surprises me, Barnave.
Citizen, where are you going?
WHOEVER APPLAUDS THE KING WILL BE BEATEN
On June 25th,
the whole of Paris is on Place Louis XV
for the traitor's return.
WHOEVER INSULTS HIM WILL BE HANGED
People of France,
take back your rights.
Feel your strength.
Feel your dignity.
People of France,
today you dictate your laws.
Even Marat emerged from his lair.
Here he is, back within our walls, this crowned brigand,
perjurer, traitor and conspirator.
Do not be moved by his tears
or by his promises.
If he has deserted his post, he'll desert it ten thousand times.
Now, silence for the traitor.
PATRIOTS OF PARIS, YOU HAVE A DUTY TO HOUSE THE HEROES OF VARENNES
Him?
Citizen...
Eat, it's good to see you eat.
You saw nothing in Varennes?
Leave him be. Eat.
You saw nothing?
Do you know what's happening here?
Why the King left?
Why they brought him back?
Do you have a family?
A village?
Look, the hero's all sad now.
Friend...
Where are you from?
Leave him be with your questions.
It's not what he needs.
I have no father, no mother.
I come and go, and I breathe dust.
I have no village.
Not a soul in my eyes.
So, he's staying?
He's staying.
Is the King a citizen, punishable like any other?
- He's a traitor! - A deserter!
A king is equally a man, a citizen
and a functionary.
In fact, the King betrayed.
He was kidnapped!
Yes, kidnapped.
He may not have been forced physically,
yet he was forced mentally.
He was fleeing abroad
to turn our fields into a sea of blood.
And you defend him?
Silence in the galleries!
A revolution requires order to exist.
Disorder would annihilate it.
Mr Prugnon has the floor.
The day when France has perpetual representatives and no king
will be the last day of liberty.
All power nearly always ends up corrupting men.
The use of authority engenders the ambition for authority.
Every revolution
reveals dominant natures that end up imposing the worst form of despotism
cloaked in the robes of liberty.
When a body in a state says, "I want,"
another body must say, "I refuse."
But if powers are united in one body, there is despotism.
Therefore, we need both a king and an elected assembly,
so that the state may stand firm.
Upright.
Balanced.
The Nation will grow.
Well said!
Bravo!
Ribbons!
Buy my ribbons!
Citizens The Assembly resists
Insurrection is the holiest of duties
There.
Come and read!
You're taking my hand?
And your laundry?
- Joking? - I stopped joking with men ages ago.
What?
...who's going to take Basile
I said...
Friend, I know plenty who took the Bastille
I know one now who's going to take Basile
There'll be consequences.
Out!
I hate chicken thieves.
Get out.
That was before.
They're deceitful.
Get out!
Before the days of the pardons.
Will you leave with the night?
I want my darling.
Buy Père Duchesne's Damn Angry!
I saw the sun.
It touched my hand.
I saw the King. He touched my head.
I saw the Queen once.
She tossed us a handkerchief.
It's strange...
Your lip.
Basile!
Will we succeed?
Françoise!
They want to kill the Revolution!
Mr Barnave, you have the floor.
Gentlemen.
To make its people happy, a government must make them free.
To be good, every government must contain
the principles of its stability.
Any change is now fatal.
Any extension of the Revolution is disastrous.
Are we going to halt the Revolution?
Will we start it again?
Villain! You want to curb the Revolution!
If the Revolution takes one step more,
it cannot do so without risk for, to prolong liberty,
the first act to ensue would be the annihilation of royalty.
For, to prolong equality,
the first act to ensue would be the attack on property.
Mr Barnave!
You're tied to property like a slave to his master!
Marat, calm down!
If the Revolution is made for the Nation,
it must not touch property, it must end
when the Nation is free and when all Frenchmen are equal.
Rubbish! All Frenchmen are not equal.
Equality is just taking its first steps.
Silence in the galleries!
Or I'll suspend the session.
If the Revolution continues in turmoil,
it serves only a few men.
It is dishonoured, and we ourselves are too.
Today,
we must sense
that our common interest is the halt of the Revolution.
Let us listen to those who tell us,
"You have been brave, you are mighty,
today be wise and moderate."
It will ensure your glory.
Yes, gentlemen,
it is time to halt the Revolution.
Rather end Barnave.
That time has come, it is today,
July 15th, 1791.
Therefore, I adopt
the proposition of Mr Salle, partisan of the King's inviolability.
Gravediggers of liberty! Perjurer!
Gravediggers of the people! Of the Nation!
Perjurer!
What does inviolability mean?
They won't judge the King. For them, Varennes never happened.
These deputies are...
Bastards!
We swore loyalty to them. They drop us.
They want us to stay children.
Ignorant children without eyes
or a memory.
How was it?
Gloomy.
But we'll get them.
We're worse off than in '89...
Barnave making a pact with the Queen...
I'm weeping tears of blood.
So, what do we do?
- Take another king? - Not another Capet!
So that he betrays us too to side with Austria, Spain, Italy.
Speak your mind, citizen.
I'm not a La Fayette spy. I don't know laws, I'm in glasses.
Ah, someone to help us see clearly?
The Uncle makes glass. Wine bottles.
To intoxicate us.
Come over here.
King of Hearts...
Let us declare France is no longer a monarchy.
What then?
A republic. Like in Rome.
That's a little hasty.
The Cordeliers say that.
We are the Cordeliers.
A long way from home!
We're petitioning.
17 petitions since June.
Signed by 30,000 citizens, men and women.
The Assembly rejected us again.
Republic is an abstract word for the people.
Some will defend the monarchy until their dying breath.
Defend the monarchy?
Why defend that? We must defend the Revolution.
This Sunday, we're calling on every section to petition.
On the Champ-de-Mars. Come unarmed, with your families.
It will be a fine day for liberty.
At the Champ-de-Mars.
For liberty, you'll see me there. The Uncle.
Antoine-François Momoro, printer, engraver, bookseller.
Varlet.
Jean-François.
Candolle.
Françoise.
Margot Laforce.
We'll come too.
- What section? - The Arsenal.
St Antoine.
They petitioned?
Cross the Seine. Come to the Cordeliers.
No need for a card. Women are admitted.
Especially pretty ones like you.
You Cordeliers!
No matchmaking!
Jealous men make good republicans too.
We'll see about that.
We were strolling along,
everyone with a cockade on their chest.
We were talking.
We were happy.
But then we saw the red flag,
the red flag of martial law.
Break it up! Martial law!
Break this up!
Fill this rabble's backside with lead!
Fire!
La Fayette, you murderer!
Tonin!
Margot!
The Uncle!
Run!
Lord, grant them eternal rest.
May your light shine on them forever.
Through God's mercy,
may the souls of the faithful deceased rest in peace.
Hail, Mary, full of Grace. The Lord is with thee.
Blessed are thou among women
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.
Holy Mary Mother of God,
pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
Angel of God, watch over me at all times.
By night, by day, in the morning, all my life, be my prop.
Preserve me from evil and guide me to eternal life.
We'll put them together.
Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Forgive us our trespasses...
Get out!
Marat has fled. They're arresting Republicans.
I saw Robespierre seek refuge...
Louis-Joseph Henri, alias "the Uncle".
Françoise Candolle.
Yanis or Janis, son of Nicolas Bérucaud, actor.
Damn you!
You're under arrest.
Louis-Joseph Henri, alias "the Uncle".
That's me. Respect the dead.
Yanis or Janis,
son of Nicolas Barucand, actor.
Françoise Candolle.
That's me.
Citizen,
did you go to the Champ-de-Mars on Sunday, July 17th, 1791?
Yes.
Like others.
Name them.
Name them!
Tonin.
Margot.
Why did you go there?
To sign the petition.
Like any good citizen.
We came unarmed,
without sticks or staffs.
What petition was it?
The citizens' aspiration.
To live. Free.
No more Louis XVI.
You signed for the King's deposition?
I signed for justice.
For the Revolution.
Liberty or death.
Did you throw or see anyone throw stones?
No.
Do you belong to a club?
No.
What papers do you read?
I'm not someone who can read.
How many did you count of our dead?
Sorry, I ask the questions.
400.
You threw 400 patriots in the Seine.
Nonsense.
Who has ever seen the Guard throw men in the Seine?
- Marat says so. - He's a rat.
- I don't listen to rats. - So why lift the nets at St Cloud?
So the sea would swallow up the dead.
That's what you're hiding.
Put her in her cell!
- I haven't finished. - I have.
The mad wear me out.
The National Guard opened fire on La Fayette's orders?
The National Guard are citizens like you and me?
Since July 14th, the citizens defend Paris.
Tell me, citizen,
how could citizens open fire on other citizens?
For me, the name citizen has worth.
No betrayal can be more cowardly or despicable.
La Fayette, you killed my sister Margot.
La Fayette, I shall spit on your grave.
The Constitution guarantees as natural and civil rights:
Liberty for every man to come and go
without being subject to detention,
except according to the forms outlined by the Constitution.
Liberty for every man to speak, write,
print and publish his opinions.
Liberty for citizens to assemble peaceably and without arms.
Of monarchy and the King.
Article 1:
Monarchy is indivisible
and inherited by the reigning family,
from male to male,
to the perpetual exclusion of women and their descendants.
Article 2:
The person of the King is inviolable and sacred;
his only title is King of the French.
Mr Thouret brings us something to read.
Article 3:
Legislative power is delegated to a national assembly
composed of representatives freely elected by the people.
Well, ministers,
we shall read it.
Yes, before the Deluge!
Tuesday, September 13th,
1791.
Gentlemen, the King accepts.
He will enact the Constitution.
Long live the King!
The King demands a pardon for all.
Long live the amnesty!
This is France's finest day in 14 centuries.
The Court
and its servants
will never betray you in a vulgar manner.
They will mislead you,
they will lull you to sleep,
they will exhaust you.
They will betray you with talent,
with moderation,
with civic responsibility...
with patriotism.
They will betray you slowly,
constitutionally,
as they have done until now.
The seat of evil is not in Europe,
in Warsaw or across the Rhine.
The danger is a stone's throw from here.
At the Tuileries.
At the Manège.
The danger is also...
among us.
Be brave.
Yell, girl. Liberate yourself.
Let it out! Yell!
- Yell! - Come on.
Liberate yourself.
Hold her.
You're such a beauty.
One more effort, Françoise.
Saint Marguerite,
worthy virgin of God, have mercy on us.
Stay.
Drink.
Pull! Pull, damn it!
She didn't keep us waiting.
There!
Solange, you can fetch the damn water now!
Get up. Come with me.
Basile, life gives to all men.
Take her to the church now.
Summer 1792 THE COMING INSURRECTION
AUGUST
The country is at war.
Foreign armies threaten Paris
should Louis XVI and his family be harmed.
The sections are in a ferment.
Some say that our most sacred duty
is to forget the law to save the Nation.
The Assembly debates and the enemy approaches.
"Citizens of the Paris sections,
let us strike the terrifying colossus of despotism.
Let it fall.
Let it shatter.
May the sound of its collapse alarm tyrants throughout the world.
Let us unite.
Let us say by common consent,
Louis XVI is no longer King of the French."
France cannot live without a king.
Can there be no king but Louis, the traitor?
La Fayette is preparing a coup.
Yes,
we're demanding the right to suspend the law.
To save the Nation.
Why would the deputies listen to you?
They're free to listen or not.
- What then? - You know what.
It's in the declaration of Rights where your children learn to read.
- That's true. - Insurrection...
It's a right
that belongs to all.
Let us not be surprised
if our enemies invoke the Constitution so ardently.
You forget
all of Europe's despots have united to wage war on France.
And save Capet.
Marie, don't moan, file a complaint.
Big mouth...
- We can do it. - We can't.
The Constitution is sacred. You said so.
Sure.
Speak, we're frank here, no censorship!
We all know it'll be chaos and anarchy!
He's right!
I'm not signing for chaos.
Where will you stop, the Cordeliers?
Stop? You sound like that vile Barnave.
The idol is rotten. It must be toppled.
Better a rotten king than a new tyrant.
Not on your life! Never.
Listen, the Constitution is a contract like any other.
If it endangers us, we tear it up and we draw up another.
What's the problem?
It's not anarchy, it's justice.
Emile, sign with me.
I'm not afraid of chaos.
Great things are born of chaos.
You're adding war to war. I won't sign for civil war.
What comes after laws?
Life.
There'll be life after.
You'll have death.
Do you see me?
- We're not blind. - Yes, we see you.
What is it?
- Speak, flunkey. - Do you see me?
Who is this?
I'll sign.
Look, everyone.
Look, you.
Better an hour as a free man than a century as a slave. I'll sign.
We were asleep for centuries.
- I'll sign. - Me too.
Liberty or death. Sign, Emile.
I need names.
Emile, you're such a coward.
Barucand, Janis.
Françoise Candolle.
Basile.
Freedom of speech!
Sit here, please.
Gentlemen,
our sole hope lies in resistance to oppression.
We demand the abdication of Louis XVI.
President, order!
Let us raise 400,000 men
to requisition wheat in the countryside,
pass laws against all forms of financial domination.
Usury and monopoly are moral assassinations.
The people are weary.
Citizen Varlet,
you forget that sovereignty belongs to a whole people,
not one part of it.
"If the legislative body does not grant the people justice and rights
Thursday evening at 11,
at midnight, the bells will sound...
The drums will roll and all will rise up."
Silence! We shall now vote.
Who supports the motion accusing Mr La Fayette?
You're mad.
You sully La Fayette's honour.
Shame.
Who supports the contrary motion?
Shame on you!
Perjurers!
You're all bastards!
The accusation against Mr La Fayette is dismissed.
We demand a roll call.
Traitors!
Paris
does not decide for France.
And never will.
Louis is our rampart.
AUGUST 10TH
My friend, I'm worried about your health.
Great events are under way.
Yesterday, the Assembly absolved La Fayette.
And everything announces
an eruption in Paris tonight.
It's time.
Wake up.
Basile...
Is he here?
It's time.
That's the signal.
St Antoine is rising.
St Marcel is rising.
All 48 sections in Paris are rising.
The Arsenal, let's move!
Filippin!
Is Filippin sleeping?
Where's Filippin?
Damn, Tonin's shirt.
Basile...
The insurrection is not the day of revenge.
Sans-culottes...
Citizens.
It's simple.
It will be liberty or death.
You are going to know a day worse
than all those known until now.
Up you get!
Form ranks.
Liberty does not grow on trees.
You!
Go home to mother.
- I don't have a mother. - Your father then.
- No father either. - Get lost, kid!
Captain!
Some won't let the cannons out.
Their section resists.
I'll be chopped to bits, but those cannons will leave.
Depose him!
Come on, the Arsenal. You're late.
I don't want you to die.
And I won't waste my life working.
I'd rather be nailed to the walls of this palace
than seek refuge at the Manège.
The insurgents are coming in their thousands.
The Assembly is your sole refuge.
But where on earth are our troops?
We lack the men to ensure your defence.
Sire, we are no longer here to beseech you,
we must do our duty.
Monsieur Roederer,
do you answer for the King's life?
Yes.
The Assembly will be your refuge.
So be it.
We shall walk.
Loyalty!
Loyalty to our King!
Loyalty to our Queen!
Back, damn it!
We're all citizens!
All brothers!
Liberty for all!
Don't go!
Move!
It burns!
They're slaughtering our brothers.
Little Prosper!
Louis XVI is in a cage
Let him eat greengage
Like a bird on the rampage
We must keep him all day
And not let him fly away
Along with his female
Antoinette, hypocritical and cruel
That fat, brainless Louis
Is caught by her
And the people deceived
Arise and take up arms
To put an end to the alarms
Louis in all this din
Thought he would triumph
With his heartless cronies
Basile!
I ask the Assembly to safeguard the Swiss prisoners,
30 officers,
by placing them under the law and France's loyalty.
President, this Swiss guard was my enemy.
I want to house and feed him.
Fraternity!
Granted, Citizen Clément.
Make way!
President, I wish to speak.
Legislators...
Citizens...
The people's new magistrates stand before you.
The dangers facing the Nation led to our nomination.
Let the traitors shudder.
This day will see the triumph of civic virtues.
"Article 1:
The French people are invited to form a National Convention."
It's the end! No more traitors!
"Article 2:
The head of the executive is suspended from his functions...
until the National Convention decides the measures to adopt
to ensure the people's sovereignty
and the reign of liberty and equality.
Article 3:
The extraordinary commission will organize a new ministry.
Article 4:
The commission will also present
a project for the royal prince's governor.
Article 5..."
See children weep for their fathers.
Who caused this sorrow?
The executive! Those traitors!
The King suspended,
but not deposed!
The King is not deposed!
Courage, girl.
Basile says the Uncle is badly wounded.
You saw Basile?
Justice for our fallen!
What are our battles compared to our victories?
What are our wounds compared to our conquests?
Until now,
we have stirred up the people
to make them fight against tyrants.
Now,
the laws must be as terrible against those who break them
as the people were
in striking down tyranny.
FIRST SESSION OF THE CONVENTION
The laws must punish all culprits
so the people have nothing to desire.
We're listening, Danton!
Give the people justice
so they don't apply it themselves.
With terrorizing law, order will return.
Citizens...
Prove you want the reign of laws.
But prove also
that you want the people's security.
And, above all,
spare the blood of the French.
Gentlemen, listen!
"When I see the stamp
of most deputies to the National Convention,
I despair of public safety.
50 years of anarchy await you.
O, people of talkers, if you only knew how to act!"
This call to crime is signed by Marat!
Listen to Marat!
I have a great many personal enemies in this Assembly.
All of us!
I demand that this monster be arrested on the spot.
I beseech the Assembly not to unleash excessive rage against me.
I testify that this piece was written
ten days ago.
Ten days.
Before this Convention convened.
At the time, I was outraged to see
the triumph of the Gironde faction that pursues me today.
A minority of these men here!
Yes!
I did ask that the people nominate a dictator,
a military tribune.
If the people could have sensed the wisdom of this measure,
everything would be calm today.
The traitors would have shuddered.
100,000 patriots would not have been butchered.
Throw that pygmy out!
100,000 others
would not be threatened with such a fate.
Rivers of blood
will show the error of your ways.
But...
the indisputable proof that I want to march with you...
you, the true friends of the Nation,
that proof is here.
The first Journal de la République française.
If only you'd seen him...
If, through my printer's negligence, I had not had this journal,
what then?
Incredible...
Would you have delivered me to the tyrant's blade?
A lion...
Such fury is unworthy of free men.
But I fear nothing
under the sun!
If the decree of accusation had been made against me,
I'd have blown my brains out.
Solange!
Three years of prison and torment to save the Nation have led to this.
This is the fruit of my sleepless nights,
of my work, of the risks that I have run.
Well, I shall stay among you
to brave your fury.
I second Barère's proposition.
Let us decree that the French Republic
is one and indivisible.
When I came round, I heard...
It is decreed that all public acts will henceforth bear
the date of year one of the French Republic.
YEAR I THE REPUBLIC
Republic... The Republic...
This is it.
They must listen to us.
If not, Danton will be right.
Things will only get worse.
Lift your head.
And the furnace?
The furious? The Revolution needs men like Marat.
No, the furnace.
It's going out.
What do we do?
I'm in no position to look into the future.
You're an idiot.
Joseph...
- Do you think God... - What about God?
Do you think God supports us?
Could He support tyrants and counter-revolutionaries?
The vermin that plot,
put ground glass in flour and attack our borders?
Damn it, God approves of the Revolution.
He wouldn't support equality and new rights?
Solange, you'll see...
The intoxication of liberty will spread to all.
And the September dead?
Them...
May they rest in peace.
I'll order the wood.
AUTUMN 1792
THE DAY OF JUDGMENT APPROACHES
Step closer.
One...
Two...
Three...
Four...
Five...
Six...
Seven...
Eight...
You're not ready.
I believed you tougher.
Citizen Saint-Just has the floor.
I say the King must be judged as an enemy.
Rather than judge him, our role is to fight him.
I see no natural link between people and king.
Citizens are bound by a contract.
A sovereign has no bonds.
I see no middle ground.
This man must reign or die.
No, Mr Saint-Just.
Trying the King is an essential dignity.
He oppressed a nation.
He posed as its enemy. He abused its laws.
He must die to ensure the people's repose.
He wore down the people to ensure his repose!
No one can reign innocently. Every king is a rebel and a usurper.
He is the assassin of the Bastille, the Champ-de-Mars, the Tuileries...
What enemy,
what foreigner hurt us more?
Some try to inspire pity.
They'll soon buy tears.
They'll do all to interest us and corrupt us.
Citizen Fauchet has the floor.
Allow me to invoke the eternal justice of Nature
whose laws predate all social laws.
You promise us the Nation's repose through a national crime.
Mr Saint-Just, your repose for the Nation
is a bloody infamy that would horrify the whole world.
You have to last twenty seconds.
What's twenty seconds compared to your years of poverty?
Twenty seconds to eat your fill.
Eleven...
Twelve...
Thirteen...
Fourteen...
Fifteen...
Sixteen...
Go and drink.
Citizens,
the Assembly has been drawn far from the actual issue.
There is no trial to be held here.
Louis is not the accused.
You are not judges.
You have no sentence to hand down for
or against a man,
but a measure of public safety to take,
an act of national providence to perform.
The tyrant's trial
is insurrection.
His judgment is the fall of his power.
Dictator!
His penalty, what the people's liberty demands.
Let him kill kings but not become a king himself.
Silence!
Friends of Brissot.
Peoples do not judge like judiciary courts.
They pass no sentences.
They hurl the thunderbolt.
They do not condemn kings.
They thrust them back into nothingness.
As you know, I abhor the death penalty foreseen by your laws.
I have previously demanded the abolition of that death penalty.
And, for Louis, I feel no love
or hatred.
I only hate his crimes.
I regretfully utter
this fatal truth.
- Louis must die... - No, Mr Robespierre!
Because the Nation must live.
I ask the National Convention to declare him a traitor to the Nation,
a criminal towards humanity.
I therefore ask it
to set an example for the world
where, on August 10th,
the martyrs of liberty died.
Well?
How does it look?
It's no good.
Try again.
Gently. Not too much.
Not too much, I said!
And to know the traitors,
for some are in this Assembly...
Name them!
To know the traitors...
To know them with certainty,
I propose an infallible method.
The death of the tyrant
should be voted by roll call.
And that this roll call
be published.
The day of judgement approaches.
Have the courage to speak the truth.
The truth burns in silence in all hearts,
like a bright lamp in a tomb.
The roll call can begin.
The question is the following:
What penalty does Louis,
former King of the French, deserve?
As the draw has selected the letter G,
the department of the Garonne will speak first.
I believe the tyrant will harm us more by his death
than by the continuation of his shameful existence.
I vote for imprisonment
until peace returns
and for banishment thereafter.
Citizens,
I search deep within my conscience...
The people
have no right
to slaughter a vanquished prisoner.
The courts of Europe, Austria,
Prussia, England, Spain,
have sent their prettiest whores to corrupt our deputies.
Each man is the master of his bed.
No man of his grave.
I fear that Louis's head,
in falling, may open
an abyss of passion
and volcanoes of ambition.
I fear anarchy
and that is enough to push
any idea of death far from my mind.
Keep it regular.
Gently.
In...
a free and generous nation,
death is an outrage against humanity.
I have neither a father nor sons to avenge,
but 100,000 of my fellow citizens.
Death.
To make something strong and sound, you need more than time.
You have to use gentleness.
The gentleness of the hand, understand?
I have no love of long speeches
on obvious issues.
They are a bad omen for liberty.
I vote for death.
I do not belong to that mass of men of State
who are unaware that one does not deal with tyrants,
who are unaware that kings must be struck on the head.
I vote for the death of the tyrant.
Death within twenty-four hours.
In his November article, Manuel wrote,
"A dead king does not make one man less."
I vote for death,
too late perhaps for the honour of the Convention.
Given my personal conviction
that Louis is responsible for deeds
that shed so much blood on August 10th,
and all the massacres soiling France since the Revolution,
I vote
for the death of the tyrant
within twenty-four hours.
Concerned solely
with my duty...
The King's cousin
Convinced that those who attack
the sovereignty of the people deserve death,
I vote for death.
- The monster! - His own blood!
The tree of liberty,
an old man said,
grows when watered with the blood of tyrants of every ilk.
It is my firm conviction that the death of Louis XVI
is the tomb of public liberty
and the triumph of my country's enemies.
I vote for banishment.
Death.
Since Louis XVI was the enemy of the people,
their liberty and their happiness,
I vote for his death.
The sentence for conspirators is death.
This sentence is contrary to my principles.
I shall never vote for it.
I am convinced that Louis is guilty.
Final voter
But his death, however just,
seems to entail risks that his preservation does not.
I vote for death, but support a reprieve.
Voting is closed. Now the count.
I protest! A deputy is missing!
Nicolas Bourgeois is ill.
JANUARY 17TH, 1793
370 votes for Louis's immediate death.
319 for banishment.
Long live the Nation.
I declare in the name of the Convention
that the sentence against Louis Capet
is death.
You'll repent!
You're not king yet, Danton!
It's perfect.
Perfect.
This is it.
We did it, by God!
Shut up!
She's mad! Help me!
- I'll rip your tongue out! - Perjurer! I pity your souls!
Louse!
Poxy hag!
- Trollop! Yellow pisser! - Enough!
Shut your mouth!
That's enough.
I pity your souls.
Who'll wash the feet of the poor now?
We'll all be sans-culottes. And headless!
The Revolution will give them clogs.
What a joke!
You're monsters.
Criminals.
Killing our King, by what right? What arrogance!
The shame. The sorrow.
You deserve the blade too!
Landelle,
where is the evil?
Evil is for the nostalgic.
You?
In a thousand years, you'll still repent.
"Blessed be my rock...
JANUARY 21ST, 1793
"And let the God of my salvation be exalted.
It is God that avengeth me,
and subdueth the people under me.
You delivereth me from mine enemies:
thou liftest me up above those rising against me:
thou hast delivered me from the violent man.
I will give thanks unto thee among the heathen,
and sing praises unto thy name."
Just execute me as I am here.
I fear that will be impossible.
Careful, it's slippery.
He's fat.
He's tall.
Where are my people?
My good people!
Stop that!
I die inno...
Executioner, tremble not!
The Universe is watching you.
Long live the Nation!
Too fast!
It was better before.
Before, they'd have broken his bones and thrown his ashes to the wind.
For my Judgment Day.
In a republic, a king's blood is lucky.
Marie Pique.
Marie Pique Egalité...
A child of '92.
Subtitling: ECLAIR