The French Revolution – The Directorate
Journal Entry: Sâr
Khieu, was one of the first of us to read the Communist Manifesto, which he found in the back of the college library. Books like that were banned under Sihanouk’s rule. But Khieu read it and was determined to understand it.
I was reading something entirely different. Thanks to all the French history books, I was able to read about the French Revolution. There was nothing like it at the time and the shock wave from it rippled out and changed all of Europe forever.
I hated kings. There was nothing I liked better than reading about the King Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette plus many other aristocrats were beheaded by the use of the Guillotine, in 1793.
I saw a picture of a revolutionary holding up high the head of King Louis XVI by his hair. The king’s body was clothed in a white prison uniform. The Guillotine stood on a large dark wooden platform.
The monarchs of Europe were so outraged over the beheadings, that in 1793 Britain, Spain and the Netherlands declared War against France. Needless to say they were unsuccessful and the French proved that kings and queens were unnecessary. The slogans of the revolution were:
“Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité”
The US, at the time, actually has some revolutionaries who inspired this event. It’s odd that such a revolutionary state could become so reactionary in 200 years. A man called Robespierre ruled during the time period from the fall of the Bastille to the reactionary “Reign of Terror.” During that time, many innocent people had their heads lopped off by the Guillotine. During one stretch of paranoia, 1,376 individuals were guillotined in 47 days, filling the streets with streams of blood. Blood gushed as each head fell into brown whicker basket.
The executioners must have been soaked in blood by the end of the day, with blood seeping into their shoes. It must have been a sticky mess.
In 1795 the Reign of Terror ended with the Directorate. The Directorate had saved the French people from the terror of Robespierre. The Directorate was an organization, without a king or god-head expecting the people to bow down to. Its leaders seemed to stay secret. It operated and ran the new revolution. They secularized the country, even starting a new calendar with the year 1, to get away from the Christian calendar the rest of Europe was using,
They also had to protect themselves, so there the Guillotine still had to be used against those who would try and destroy the revolution. The country and the ideals of the revolution were worth loosing a few lives. Especially, when there were so many traitors among them. But there was one traitor the Directorate did not count on. That was their own General, the appointed young Corsican soldier, NAPOLEON, to lead the armies of France against its enemies. By 1799 Napoleon had become head of a new government that was in fact a dictatorship. He abolished the Directorate and set himself up for one man rule. He had betrayed the revolution. He set himself up as a king-head or god-head, calling himself an emperor. He proceeded to try and conquer most of Europe. He was indeed a traitor to the people of France.
