Robespierre

10 Responses

1. I think you guys really brushed over some of the good things about Robespierre. I’m not arguing that the things he did weren’t awful, but he was a major player in the beginning of the Revolution. He was a part of the Tennis Court Oath and helped write the Declaration of the Rights of Man. He was very well educated and he actually addressed the King and Queen in welcome before the revolution started.

2. It’s really interesting to read “The State and Revolution” by Lenin if you know about Robespierre, because you really can see how the ideas and methods of the French Revolution were carried forward into the 20th Century by the Bolsheviks.

   I, too, think there are some good things that Robespierre did, said, and thought, that could have been mentioned in the podcast.

3. I can’t believe you didn’t mention the game Guillotine. The Robespierre card is quiet important in it.

4. Talk about co-ink-ee-dink!

   I just watched ‘Reign of Terror’ on the olde time-y movie channel last weekend. My dad was watching it and I thought he was watching Three Musketeers so I sat down to watch. Turns out it was a film about Robespierre and his schemes to take over.

   http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041796/

5. It’s been a while since I saw it, but the film Quills (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0180073/) with Geoffrey Rush as the Marquis de Sade (and Joaquim Phoenix as the Abbot, I think) is also set in the early 1790s. He was locked up in a madhouse (can’t remember its name) but he was sneaking a lot of his writings out. A lot of them were very critical of the monarchy, not just about ridiculous sex and violence.

   It’s possible that Robespierre is mentioned, but I don’t recall, but it wouldn’t surprise me if de Sade’s works contributed.

   Interesting episode, thanks for the history. 🙂

6. I noticed you mentioned Marat. There is a rather famous painting by Jacques-Louis David of him on his death bed (or in in his death bath, really). In the picture you can see that the bath tub is covered up to his stomach. This allowed him to write and work while he soaked. Oddly enough, it was this same cover that kept Marat from escaping his murderer. Here is a link to the painting: http://www.vidarholen.net/contents/junk/files/Death_of_Marat_by_David.jpg

7. I haven’t listened yet (I’m backlogged on Caustic Soda, just finished the submarines ep), but if this wasn’t mentioned, it should be checked out

8. Almost caught up on the backlog. What an exceptional podcast. Where do you get your ideas and so you worry about ever running out?

   Short comment error. Padding. Padding.

   1. At first there was a worry we might run out of topics, but every time we think of something new we add it to our private “Topics” wiki and the list is growing faster than we make episodes.

      On top of that we keep skipping over things like the game Guillotine (which I own, and was going to mention but there just wasn’t time after a LONG information-filled first half) and the Marat painting which we can use in Followups.

      On top of that there’s always the “Caustic” side of normally positive subjects.

9. Like, you know, right, like, right, uh, like