Dear haiducii, I know you got this text from the "History channel", an US-history site, who long have surrendered to simplification, stupidity and nonsense. To reduce the French Revolution to a “decade of political turmoil and terror” is nothing but an intellectual capitulation, which just has to be corrected. So don't take it personally but it is a pain to read a text on a site that claims to be professional and educating. (The longer text on their website isn’t much better btw)
The French Revolution was not only the beginning of the 19th century - the so called "long century", which lasted till 1914. It was also the beginning of the modern age.
The new ideas of basic human rights, civil liberties, democracy, constitutional government, which came from philosophers and the American Revolution became the leading principles in one of the major European states. With Napoleon they were spread over wide parts of Europe (Code Civil) and formed the thinking up till now and today. Some historian even consider Fascism/National-socialism (which isn’t the same btw) to be the anti-movement against the ideas of the French Revolution and there is much in favor of this idea,
In 1789, Parisian revolutionaries and mutinous troops storm and dismantle the Bastille, a royal fortress that had come to symbolise the tyranny of the Bourbon monarchs.
1. There were hunger riots going on. They were not revolutionaries yet. 2. Some might have had weapons, but you can hardly call that "troops" 3. They did not storm the Bastille. The commander surrendered the Bastille.
An almost empty prison (7 prisoners left) with only few soldiers defending it doesn't qualify as a "fortress". Maybe "former fortress" or something like that would describe it better but that would not suit the History channel in its search for drama and entertaining. The late absolute reign of Louis was not characterized by "tyranny" but by incompetence and ignorance. The point is that unlike Austria or Prussia f.e. the French aristocracy was unable to make the necessary adjustments to meet the new ideas of a new time (age of enlightenment). The state was also broke because of the high costs of the involvement of the French in the war in the North-American colonies, where they supported the separatists against the British.
This dramatic action signalled the beginning of the French Revolution,
This "dramatic action" was later romanticized and therefore declared to be the beginning. But the riots were already going on for some days and let's not forget that a political revolution was already going on for some weeks, when the Third Estate declared itself national assembly.
a decade of political turmoil and terror
Now this is a real candy. Yeah, just let's reduce this to the dramatic aspect and not bore the people with details. But the "decade" of terror lasted from 1793 - 1794, not from 1789 - 1799.
And as for details: the terror was not just the result of some nutcases like Robespierre or Marat, it was spawned by the anti-republican forces. There were several wars, in which troops from Great Britain and different German countries tried to defeat the French army/national garde.
in which King Louis XVI was overthrown
Acutally France became a constutional monarchy first but the King tried to leave the country in 1792 to meet with the Prussian/Brunswick etc.pp. troops, obviously to get this throne back, which had been declared as an aim by the Duke of Brunswik in 1792. With this France became a Republic in 1792.
and tens of thousands of people, including the king and his wife Marie Antoinette, were executed.
Yes, of course, to complete the clichee of simplicity, the history channel has to focus on Marie Antoinette.
