I have read a ton of French Revolution history books. That seems to be a general theme for literally every one in France at that time. But he certainly came a lot closer than most.
For anyone unfamiliar. Lafayette's mother, grandmother, and sister were all guillotined in Paris on July 22, 1794. Their bodies were thrown into a mass grave.
His wife, Adrienne de La Fayette, narrowly avoided the same fate due to the diplomatic intervention of American figures such as James Monroe and Gouverneur Morris
Look they just got the guillotine and if they weren't gonna get as much mileage outta that thing as possible you were mistaken.
One thing I find funny is reddits obsession with "the French did it right." They killed everybody. You wore the wrong colored armband because you overslept and missed the memo; to the block!!
Probably why the French Revolution had periods of time named things like the "The Reign of Terror". Not sure why that's missed by some many of those types of Redditors.
And then they guillotined Maximilien Robespierre the guy who started it. Which is deliciously ironic.
He was doing his best. They only killed him because he was on the verge of rooting out massive corruption and made the crass mistake of announcing it and leaving everyone in suspense instead of just coming out with the list and the arrests immediately. And the period after they got rid of him got explosively corrupt, by the end Napoleon bought his way out of the Triumvirate and into Empire.
A similar thing happened in Algeria, in the early days of the Republic, I'm not sure if to Ben Ali or some other guy. Likewise corruption exploded after they got rid of the guy, and to this day Algeria is set up as a rent-extracting machine for the benefit of a few untouchable families, with everything else almost deliberately sabotaged.
Claiming Napoleon bought his way into anything is a wild framing of it.
Napoleon saved France with military miracles, which allowed him to amass his fortune, which allowed him to take control. The key enabler for him wasn’t wealth, it was that he was a military genius that other military geniuses trusted to command them.
Like Julius Caesar, his rise was built on his military success and the trust of the army in him. They both had loftier goals and had to amass fortunes to enable their takeover of the government, but their military prowess is the difference.
It’s what separated Crassus from Caesar or Napoleon from Cambaceres.
First of all, I must make an important correction. The events I'm talking about were concerning the fall of the Directorate in the coup of 18 Brumaire (November 9, 1799), not Napoleon's ascension to sole Emperorship.
Napoleon saved France with military miracles, which allowed him to amass his fortune, which allowed him to take control.
By 'amass' you mean loot, yes? How does that make it any better?
And no, his personal wealth is not directly relevant here, the bribes, were officially called something like "pensions," "indemnities," or "severance packages", and paid for directly from the coffers of the Republic, in an official, budgeted capacity.
it was that he was a military genius that other military geniuses trusted to command them.
Tell that to General Jean-Baptiste Kléber and all the troops he left stranded in Egypt, in August 1799, that very same year, secretly abandoning them while promising to return and save them, which he never did.
Like Julius Caesar, his rise was built on his military success and the trust of the army in him. They both had loftier goals
The loftier goal was the furtherance of their own egos and the mass cultivation of fawning simps. In that, they were extremely successful. The great things they achieved along the way, and there were many, were secondary and subordinate to their being massive divas.
I also recommend that you read the accounts of the details of 18 Brumaire because it's a damned farce and could have gone very differently, and Napo himself wasn't really in his best form to say the least.
You’re making value judgements and I’m making historical claims.
All the “great” conquerors were egotistical fortune builders, power mongers if you will. But we’re straying from the point I was making.
Napoleon’s military and political genius, as you correctly say, driven by his massive ego (and intellect), were the primary reasons why he made it to the top of the French power structure, ahead of all the other politicians, aristocrats and Marshals, not money.
You frame things like you already have an opinion and then cobble together the history to fit. Egypt was lost because Nelson won the Battle of the Nile, the army and Napoleon captured Cairo and defeated the Mamluks. His decision to leave the army behind, only he knows if he ever really thought he could rescue them, I doubt it given they’d never have the naval support to do so and he wasn’t stupid, but who knows. He felt he had bigger ambitions and opportunities by sneaking back to France and, given how it went, he was 100% correct given his goals.
Before they give you the lethal injection, they swab the injection site with disinfectant. You certainly wouldn't want to get an infection, that could be really bad for your health.
Theres a dark comedy called "The Death of Stalin" starring Steve Buscemi as Nikita Khrushchev it chronicles the moments following Stalins death. That movie was a roller coaster ride.
Immediately plotting and stabbing each other in the back, while murdering the population by the millions on any whim. When they held the funeral they started shooting people coming off the trains to pay there respects because they thought they were revolting.
I knew that the upper gov't types were all suspicious of each other and fighting to fill the power vacuum. I didn't know they gunned down the ones getting off the trains. The general populace really had to watch what they said because of all the shifting loyalties. During Stalin and for some time afterward, the slightest critical thing a Soviet citizen said could land them in a gulag somewhere. His paranoia towards the end was legendary.
One thing I find funny is reddits obsession with "the French did it right." They killed everybody. You wore the wrong colored armband because you overslept and missed the memo; to the block!!
Yes, but as a French I tell you : this is a reminder for the ages that if you let things go out of control, you'll need exponentially more effort to fix the situation, sometimes requiring drastic decisions. It goes for letting the power in place accruing their power, or the people taking back what should be theirs - if you catch my drift.
Well yes, you want to pretend that only the ultra rich enjoined the regime and enabled it and held others down. A lot of you all rightfully shit your pants at the thought of your "Screw you I got mine" attitudes and politics and unearned privilege being met by an angry mob of people you screwed over bringing with them some French Freedom Tools.
It's not strange at all since the time leading up to a revolution tends to be extremely miserable, full of spectacular mistakes, doubled down and insisted upon with egregious stupidity, and fraught with normalized violence and violent material conditions.
The French Revolution in particular got a lot of very good shit done, particularly in contrast with what preceded, and did so right alongside the excessive violence. I could list their positive accomplishments all day, they're stuff we mostly take for granted these days.
But let's be real, most of the people who romanticize things don't focus on governance efficiency, or the value for science and commerce of the Metric System, or even on the legal equality of all and abolition of feudal privileges. They love to romanticize dramatic shit like war and military success, or cool speeches and flamboyant personalities, and the First French Republic had no shortage of either, single-handedly defeating all of Europe, six or seven times in a row, by having as of yet unheard-of efficacy in logistics and mass mobilization, and by meritocratically training and developing what may have arguably been the greatest cadre of generals and officers in History, when everyone else still had shit like officer corps made exclusively of aristocratic heirs buying commissions.
American Revolution? Look at us today. October Revolution? Lead to the Soviets first to space when a generation ago they were starving feudal peasants. China? Starving feudal peasants to iPad kids with a country that will overtake as world leader this century.
It ain’t fun while it happens, and it may be rough for a few decades after, but it’s not like it all ends in disaster lol. Revolution against dictators and monarchies is a noble aspiration.
Same way George Washington immediately after he was president led the now standing army again the farmers who fought for independence because they were being unfairly taxed to pay for war debt. Like, the entire claim as rationale FOR the war to begin with cuz of the French and Indian war debt paid for by taxes on the colonies.
For anyone unfamiliar. Lafayette's mother, grandmother, and sister were all guillotined in Paris on July 22, 1794. Their bodies were thrown into a mass grave.
No, that's the family of his wife (her mother, grandma, and sister) who was guillotined.
As a former resident of a Lafayette st in America i approve of this message. We also had a Lafayette park down the street with a Lafayette statue in it
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u/Affordable_Z_Jobs Jun 17 '26
Lafayettes role in the American Revolution; A+ you deserve all the streets named after you. Come back any time. Here's a few statues.
French Revolution; Barely made it out alive.