Eh, it was one king. Only Legitimists consider Louis XVI's son to have been king, and his death was from illness (perhaps hastened by neglect), not a formal execution.
You can advance the science of chemistry, you can set up a democratic republic, you can establish the metric system, but you execute ONE KING, and all that people will remember--
The revolutionaries were quick to behead Lavoisier, who was a member of the establishment and tax collector for the king. He did his best work under the monarchy.
Not sure you can give revolutionary France credit for that field.
To be honest, the historical stereotype of France that I've heard mentioned most as an American is their surrender in WWII, not the regicide in the French Revolution. I imagine it might be different in Europe, though.
* ordinary people, children, and eventually themselves.
The stench of the bodies was so great they moved the guillotines outside the city. One day after beheading a convent of nuns that refused to stop praying, next up was a young boy caught stealing. As he was led up to the guillotine, a shout could be heard from the crowd "Please, no more children!"
But hey, at least they replaced their King with an Emperor.
No, it was an orgy of terror by which France replaced a weak king with a strong emperor. The lesson being, don't become a weak king or these forces will be unleashed again.
Seriously though, I find the entire period fascinating (mostly via the Revolutions postcast, and reading Hilary Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety). The French Revolution is such a pivotal point in Western history that I believe that precision is important.
I mean, all I know is some proto-marxists overthrew the king, murdered everybody who looked at them funny for 5 years straight, went crazy, got overtaken by Napoleon who was basically the next king again.
That's a few years as a republic, and an extremely bloody and dysfunctional one at that, how was that pivotal? Was it "just" because it was the situation let Napoleon take power? I'll definitely agree that Napoleon was pivotal :-)
But I'm very shallow wrt this topic, I'd love to learn how (besides the bloodshed), the revolution changed matters.
Countries were transformed from feudal holdings under a monarch into nation states.
I sincerely urge you to learn more. It's much more complex than a few fanatics overthrowing a king and then falling apart. Specifically, it's about how the full military power of France was unleashed upon Europe, and crucially, this was a power driven by ideology - people should govern themselves, not be beholden an ancient royalty and church.
Napoleon could probably never had risen as far as he did under the monarchy. And crucially, he took power in part because he was so successful in waging the Republic's wars.
I never understood the revolution as causing the Napoleonic wars, and I had always gotten the idea that Napolean waged his wars for the much more mundane reason of an Emperor wanting to expand his borders, because ego. I never understood that so much of the revolution's ideas persisted into Napoleon's rule and conquest.
Also I've always had a bit of a beef with people celebrating the French Revolution as some glorious victory of "the people" over their evil oppressors, without mentioning the Terror that followed. Maybe that's made me a bit blind to how much of the good parts persisted :-)
