January 21, 1793 – Louis XVI Sent into Exile

After giving military and monetary aid to the young republic in the Americas to humiliate her ancient enemy Britain, France would find herself upturned by revolution. Louis XVI had initially hoped that French troops could seize the United States after its war, but, in 1789, economic crisis brought famine, and the storming of the Bastille signaled an uprising as had not been seen in Europe for centuries. The elected National Assembly ruled alongside Louis in a constitutional monarchy that ate away at absolutist authority. That October, a mob of angry women marched on Versailles and joined with others to bring the royal family to the Tuileries in Paris where they would be held to higher accountability.

Louis and Marie Antoinette attempted to escape in 1791, but they were brought back and viewed with great suspicion by the people. A year later, the Brunswick Manifesto promised vengeance from Austria and Prussia if the king's family were harmed, which only furthered the poplar suspicion. It seemed now that the king not only cared little for his people, but was also willing to deal with foreign strength against them, as great an insult as the use of Hessian mercenaries in the Americas during their revolution. On August 13, Louis was officially arrested, and a month later the National Assembly abolished the monarchy and declared a republic.

While the king waited and war raged on the German and Italian borders, the revolutionaries forged themselves into factions competing for similar, though unique, goals. Question of creating a permanent constitutional monarchy may have been answered with the discovery of the armoire de fer hidden in the king's rooms, but the iron chest believed to be holding the secret documents of ministers' double-agendas was destroyed in a sudden fire.

Nonetheless, loud cries for trial on grounds of treason brought Louis to trial before a special Convention. A body of 721 deputies heard the cases and word of crimes against the state by the king, but the resulting vote was indecisive. The king was thought to have been invaluable as a hostage, but it was evident that the threats to his safety were raising the tempers of the crowns of Europe. After French victory at the Battle of Valmy, the Prussian and Austrian armies had retreated out of France, but they would certainly return as the spring campaigning season came. Finally the decision was made to use the king as a pawn in a bid for peace. It was an unpopular notion to many in the National Assembly, but the fiery writings and loud cries of the masses demanded peace.

Ambassadors were sent to Prussia, and discussions went into the new year. At last Brunswick spoke out over the Bourbons and assured peace with the French Republic provided that the royals were made safe. They agreed that he could be sent to a neutral court, and his relatives in Spain volunteered to host him along with a contingent of French guards who would make certain Louis would not be used as the banner for royalists to rally. By this point, it was obvious to those close to Louis that he was unfit for rule, devastated by depression and poor nutrition into an indecisive mumbler.

Peace came to France on February 1, 1793, while the other countries worked to put down their own republican insurrections. Demands of constitutions were met across Europe, ending the age of autocratic rule that had been best illustrated by France's own Louis XIV. The security and return to prosperity allowed France to quiet its extremists and organize its army into an effective force rather than the desperate mass-conscription that had been anticipated to fight off the hordes of Europe.

France came to notable stability as the eighteenth century dawned. Its colonies enjoyed great liberalization and became leaders in the abolition movement. Not all were happy, however, and the colony of Corsica rebelled in 1803 under native who had been trained in Paris as an artillery commander. After a decade of cunning ambushes, Corsica was granted independence in 1813. The revolutionary leader Napoleon Bonaparte would set himself up as king while the French looked on and laughed to themselves about those foolish enough to give up republican freedom for tyranny.


–

In reality, the “iron chest” was discovered with its many secret documents that incriminated Louis XVI as conspiring against his people to reassert his domination. He was executed by guillotine, pardoning the people in his last speech. Spain, Portugal, Britain, and the Dutch would join Prussia and Austria in attempting to smother the revolutionaries with war. Levée en masse conscripted French young men as soldiers by the hundreds of thousands who would eventually fight off the external threats while the Reign of Terror sought out and destroyed anyone who opposed them from within.

July 14, 1789 – Storm at the Bastille Leads to Calm in France

For two days since the dismissal of Jacques Necker, the Third Estate had been on the warpath through Paris. Soldiers (many of whom were foreign) had been organized in Versailles by the king, which only increased stresses with peasants fearful of a mercenary force enslaving the people in their own land. After the Gardes Françaises infantry had sided with the rebellious populace, the nobility did not know whether to trust the rest of the soldiers. They left Paris to boil in its own juices, which would only allow leaders to rise to the top.

Rioters became organized, and the people began to plunder stores of food, guns, and ammunition. Some 30,000 muskets were seized the Hotel des Invalides, and more than 600 rebels now headed for the Bastille, a large medieval fortress used as a prison, often known for its duties as a political prison. At the time, there were only seven inmates, and it was scheduled to be shut down as overly costly in the tough economic times. Mainly, it was used as storage for gunpowder.

Eighty-two invalides (wounded veteran soldiers) served as the garrison, and they had been reinforced by 32 Swiss. Attackers arrived at mid-morning, calling for surrender. Negotiations began, but the crowd rioted after hours of waiting and began to storm the fortress. When the gunfire began, the already mad mob turned madder in a seemingly unending onslaught. Mutinous soldiers and deserters joined in the fight on the side of the populace, adding skill to the weight of the attack, only lengthening the ordeal. Governor de Launay, commander of the Bastille, began to suspect complete massacre and then to contemplate surrender to spare the lives of his men as well as the poorly armed people they cut down.

In late afternoon, the order finally went out to the Royal Army on the Champs de Mars to intervene. Soldiers formed ranks and marched against the rioting people, and the bloodbath was ended. Seeing that troops were still willing to carry out commands, the king called for order in the streets, and the soldiers at Versailles were put to organize curfew and end the rioting.

On the morning of July 15, the air in Paris was clear. People returned to their homes, taking the Bastille as a symbol of the fastidiousness of the royal order. The king set about clearing the National Assembly and forcing the Estates General into solving the country's dire financial situation. He threatened to remove the protection of his soldiers from estates in the countryside of uncooperative nobles, which would allow the Third Estate to loot as they pleased. Gradually, the country came back to order.

Through the next few decades of peace, Europe would grow and spread their colonial powers. The United States of America would have a second war with Britain over border disputes, and the mother country would take back its wayward colonies in a brutal war. Though the experiment of republicanism had failed, new ideals would cause of the 1848 revolutions, which weakened the stranglehold of absolute monarchists but could not defeat it. As technology flourished, the people became more educated and desirous of justice, leading to the great upheaval of the Workers' Rising in 1899 that would cause an end to nearly every kingdom and empire in Europe. The resulting new social order would have its share of birth-pains, but fair socialism would finally spread throughout the world.


–

In reality, the order for intervention was never given, and the soldiers at the Champs de Mars did nothing as the Bastille was taken by revolutionaries. Governor de Launay would be executed along with several of his guards, and the Storming of the Bastille would serve as a great rally for the Third Estate, forcing the king to recognize the National Assembly and dismiss his soldiers. While the Revolution would eventually lead to the rise of Napoleon as an emperor, for the time, the French people had freed themselves.

July 13, 1793 – Marat Survives Assassination Attempt

Jean-Paul Marat served as a fiery radical behind the French Revolution using newspaper journalism, public speaking, and essays to spread his ideas for the defense of the downtrodden Third Estate. In the past month, he had been one of the three most powerful men in France (along with Danton and Robespierre) as the Girodin political club disintegrated under Jacobin pressure. Change was coming to the Revolution, and Marat's sense of prophecy looked toward better days.

Marat also suffered from a skin disease that caused itching, blistering, and a great deal of discomfort. He would spend most of the time in his bath, his head wrapped in a vinegar-soaked bandana to ease his pain. Meanwhile, a desk had been set over his tub to allow him to write while he soaked.

On the night of July 13, a twenty-four-year-old girl would come to the house of Marat, saying she had knowledge of a Girondist uprising. She had come before and been turned away, but now Marat agreed to see her. The girl was Charlotte Corday, a Girondin sympathizer who held Marat as a powerful enemy to the Republic because of his endorsement of violence. For example, she considered Marat responsible for the September Massacres in which mobs slaughtered priests and prisoners out of the panic involved in the Duke of Brunswick's invasion of Verdun. Corday aimed to save the Republic by assassinating Marat, killing “one man to save one hundred thousand.”

After a fifteen minute discussion of the supposed uprising, Corday pulled an eight-inch knife and leaped at Marat. Marat's wife Simonne, having not trusted the girl, leaped at the same moment, subduing her and saving her husband's life. Corday would later be guillotined on grounds of attempted murder.

Marat would go on as a leader of the Jacobins and the Revolution, often knocking heads with his ally Robespierre. While George Danton would rise to higher standing as a more moderating force, the two would target one another enough that each seemed to cancel out the other's radicalism. Though both Robespierre and Marat would call for purges against counterrevolutionaries (what some whispered as a “reign of terror”), much more import was placed on fending off the invasions of the European powers seeking to end the Republic, which had so far become a stalemate. The war finally reversed in 1794 with overwhelming French victories. Politics calmed as fears did, and the Gironists returned to power, though not completely overthrowing the Jacobins.

In 1795 (Year III), a convention amended the constitution, Jacobins managing to keep the Gironists from tossing it out altogether. Maintaining universal suffrage for males, the new constitution at least improved the political flow. Directors (the executive office) often leaned toward corruption, but the biting words of Marat's journalism kept politicians in order for fear of the people. Gradually, the problems in France were becoming solved. In 1799, a young general named Napoleon Bonaparte swept elections because of popular wording about his victories from Marat's writing. Marat would die the next year, and the growing fame of Napoleon would leave him all but forgotten. Under the Corsican's leadership, France would be put into financial and judicial order and even come to peace with Britain at the Treaty of Amiens. While some suspected Napoleon and his reforms as ambitions toward something of an emperor, politicians such as “The Incorruptible” Robespierre kept him in check (such as preventing the return of slavery in the French colonies).

Britain would declare war again in May of 1803, and Napoleon would return to the field as a general, leaving the nation much to itself. While many called for the war to be colonial (such as in the proud French colony of Haiti, made up of freed slaves), Napoleon built a European empire for France by defeating the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Coalitions in the field. While Napoleon hoped to invade their ally Russia to enforce his Continental Blockade, the French people would refuse to allow further enemies. Instead, Napoleon built up his massive Grande Armée and began the invasion of Britain by means of a massive earthen-work isthmus across the English Channel. While under nearly continuous bombardment, 400,000 soldiers plus volunteer workers emptied load after load of soil and rock into the sea. The monumental action terrified England enough to call an end to the war, removing troops from Spain and finally giving France its guarantee of a republic.

Fearful that Napoleon would use his fame to overthrow their government, Robespierre and others suggested many schemes including assassination, but finally the military genius was sent into pseudo-exile on expeditions in the colonies, branching out from his bases in the Sahara and Ivory Coast. Though able to conquer enormous tracks of Africa, Napoleon would succumb to yellow fever in 1821, and France's colonial empire would stall. Gradually over the nineteenth century, France would begrudgingly sponsor the puppet republics it had established in Germany, Italy, and Austria to become self-governing as Nationalism grew in public spirit.

France's success, along with that of its longtime ally the United States of America, in the Great Experiment of republicanism would give much credence to the idea. As economic fallout of the Industrial Revolution gave birth to new ideas of socialism and communism, political philosophy would shift again, leading to the Revolutionary Wars in the 1940s. The government of France would be seen as corrupt with a lost vision, and Europe would once again turn upon it as the Commune reformed just as the philosopher Marx had proposed.


–

In reality, Corday's knife met its target, and Marat would die in minutes. She was guillotined on July 17 on grounds of murder and treason. The fear of counterrevolutionaries would grow as more kingdoms of Europe invaded, giving way to Robespierre's Reign of Terror and, ultimately, Napoleon becoming emperor and wiping away the republic.