Comment by michalu | Hacker News Reader

Comment by michalu | Hacker News Reader

For those who only know the story of Brutus (the leader of assassins whom apparently Caesar didn't expect to be his traitor) there was another Brutus the most famous one in Rome who in the early times of Rome, when it was still a kingdom, killed a tyrant and that put down the foundation of roman republic.

This guys, Lucius Junius Brutus, was a hero of the republic and his killing of then king Lucius Tarquinius Superbus regarded as a great, inspiring act.

Romans according to legends swore to never have a king again. For that reason there was never a king in the empire but an emperor who was not de jure a king, he just held all the leading political functions at once :).

So these assassins who killed Caesar saw themselves as heroes, they didn't think they'll be regarded as criminals and condemned but expected to be the saviours of the republic and remembered for ages to come.

Later in the revolutionary years, when e.g. french republicans were slaying king they too looked up to the legend of the very first Brutus and saw themselves not merely assassins but heroes of the people.

In the case of the very first Brutus, they swore to kill the king after he raped and killed one of his companions wife, one can definitely argue he was a heroic figure. In the case of latter wannabe Brutuses it's very clear they aimed for power consciously or subconsciously hiding behind ideals. The subsequent genocides and thefts of property like in the case of French revolution or Lenin's who even died of syphilis are just too obvious.

You know that's not what happened during the French revolution, right? Like, at all. Most representatives wanted to keep it alive after he was captured in Varennes. They wanted an English-style monarchy, with a stronger parlement

If he had not conspired against France with the Hapsburgs, and let letters proving he was actively participating in the war effort to trap and kill his own citizens (or rather subjects), the representatives would just have kept him under house arrest until the end of the Austrian, Prussian, Spanish, Italian and English aggression (they had no casus belli BTW, maybe the Austrian could justify one, but this was an illegal aggression, I refute the name of first coalition war).

And had he not done it, 'la montagne' would not have taken control of the parlement, Paris' sans culottes would not have been radicalized as much, there would have been less deaths in province. Also, he was one of the investigator of foreign aggression, so less war, less death on the battlefield.

Also, had the pope kept his army in his pants, other Italian and Iberic Nations would have too, and at most the cardinals would have taken an haircut (given the amount they stole, it was only right), and most catholic churches would suffer as much as protestant temple : nothing.

I don't know how you draw parallel between Caesar assassination and Louis XVI lawful execution.

Yes, the excesses of the French Revolution were entirely caused by Louis XVI.

The lengths to which people will go to justify revolutionary slaughter are really something.

Not what I'm saying. His death was caused by the discovery of letters proving he instigated the foreign aggressions and the slaughter of French citizen (I use your words, as most French deaths of this period of time were caused by the coalition army).

At the times, traitors were killed. He was a traitor, he was killed.

This destroyed the Kingdom of France (or was the last nail in the coffin), precipited the formation of the first French republic under pressure of Paris citizens who had been betrayed twice (at least, depending on how you count) and were becoming even more violent. Of course the first republic was violent, considering how it was created.

And BTW, you could consider the revolution ended there, with the fall of the kingdom of France, before the Vendée war and what's called 'la terreur'. Most considered at the time that the revolution ended in 1789, before the monarchy betrayed everyone (twice). Everything else was to keep the French constitution ("All men are born free and equal in rights").

You can read Jean Clément Martin if you want more details.

Hold up though. Russian's massacred in one day at Praga 20,000 people. That's basically the lower estimate of the death toll from 'The Terror'. Yet I don't see historians nor pundits observe such an act as deligitimizing of Tsarist Russia in the way they often see 'The Terror' as some kind of slam dunk against The French Republicans. That kind of slaughter was just one among many perpetrated by monarchies all over Europe against people who were often not even a significant threat in any real way to the perpetrating institutions. 'The Terror' on the other hand was happening at a time when the French Republic was in fact fighting for its existence. Every power in Europe wished to see it fail. There were active conspiracies to sabatoge it. There was an active rebellion in The Vendee. The revolutionary government was loaded with people brilliant and egotistical all vying for more influence. It's not paranoia if people are actually out to get you.

I'm not defending 'The Terror' but trying to place it in context. If we are going to do history in context, we have to see it much more as part-in-parcel of the circumstances surrounding it. My point is that it is sooooooo discussed even while we jot down the political violence of other powers as mete footnotes even while being more justifiable and smaller in scope than those.

TBH No one expects anything positive from Russia, a benighted Oriental tyranny that changed its outer faces, but never its brutal core.

France is home to the Enlightement, though; subsequently, they tend to be held to a higher standard of conduct.

You are naive to believe regicide was not the end goal of the revolution. Every revolution desires to destroy the previous. That's the philosophical basis. As for wanting to emulate Cromwell, as far as I know Charles I was also executed. Of course, you can't commit such act without a good excuse, how else are you going to sell it to the people but we can just speculate now. I've drawn a parallel between regicide of Tarquiniuses assassins and the murderers of lawful king of France (where by the way there is none, one can argue Lucious Brutus was a hero, nothing like the murderers of french king). You can google Brutus and french revolution and you'll see I haven't just came up with it.

Having spent some time in France it always amazed me how they so uncritically celebrate that genocide and many are even proud of it (few can tell why beyond the couple of slogans taught in schools).

> You are naive to believe regicide was not the end goal of the revolution.

Your patronizing attitude is inappropriate, parent obviously knows more than you about the topic.

You're ignorant if you think regicide was the end goal of the revolution.

Why would Barnave declare the king fleeing to Varennes was a kidnapping, with the support of the whole assembly, even the club Jacobin if it was? Wouldn't that be counterproductive? You know the archive of the assemblée constituante are now available, a d you can read the memo yourself, you do not have to believe me.

Or you can read the historian who found, read and categorized those documents, Jean Clément Martin, and you might understand that the revolution is WY more complex than that, and started under Louis XV, by Louis XV.

And also, if by genocide you mean the first coalition 'war', that's true that a lot of French died killed by unlawful war (only Austria and the Prussian had a 'valid' casus belli, and Louis XVI created it.). 300 000 total dead French, not counting the civil war nor Italian republics supporting the French. Don't know if I would call it a genocide though.

Lucretia, according to sources including Livy, explicitly wasn't killed. She specifically stayed alive so that she could live to tell Brutus et. al of Tarquinus's rape.

The part of their plan about "being remembered for years to come" seems to work.

I wonder if this is more of an Europe / USA / Australia / South America thing, or do people in say China / Japan / Korea / Africa / India learn about this too.

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