The French Revolution: The Reign Of Terror

[Frances]

Source:- http://freemasonrywatch.org/frenchrevolution.html

Masonic Traitors, Treason, and Treachery: The French Revolution, Jacobins and Jacobites.

The French Revolution by Jim Marrs.

If one desires to point to a major world event proven to have been inspired by secret society machinations, one need look no further than the French Revolution, which devastated that nation between 1787 and 1799. Revolutionary leaders, in seeking to overthrow the decadent monarchy of King Louis XVI, launched the first national revolution of modern times.

Although popularly believed to have begun due to a public uprising over lack of food and government representation, the record is quite clear that the revolution was instigated by cells of French Masonry and the German Illuminati.

The New Encyclopedia Britannica tells us that in France there arose a political system and a philosophical outlook that no longer took Christianity for granted, that in fact explicitly opposed it... The brotherhood taught by such groups as the Freemasons, members of secret fraternal societies, and the Illuminati, a rationalist secret society, provided a rival to the Catholic sense of community."

Secret society researcher and author Nesta H. Webster was even more pointed, writing in 1924, "[The Masonic book A Ritual and Illustrations of Freemasonry] contains the following passage, 'The Masons... originated the Revolution with the infamous Duke of Orleans at their head.'"

Author Bramley wrote, "During the first French Revolution, a key rebel leader was the Duke of Orleans, who was grand master of French Masonry before his resignation at the height of the Revolution. Marquis de Lafayette, the man who had been initiated into the Masonic fraternity by George Washington, also played an important role in the French revolutionary cause. The Jacobin Club, which was the radical nucleus of the French revolutionary movement, was founded by prominent Freemasons."

It was the Duke of Orleans, grand master of the Grand Orient Lodge of Freemasons, who reportedly bought all the grain in 1789 and either sold it abroad or hid it away, thus creating near starvation among commoners. Galart de Montjoie, a contemporary, blamed the Revolution almost solely on the Duke of Orleans, adding that he "was moved by that invisible hand which seems to have created all the events of our revolution in order to lead us towards a goal that we do not see at present..."

Drawing on an impressive number of contemporary writings, Webster added, "If, then, it is said that the [French] Revolution was prepared in the lodges of Freemasons - and many French Masons have boasted of the fact - let it always be added that it was Illuminized Freemasonry that made the Revolution, and that the Masons who acclaim it are Illuminized Masons, inheritors of the same tradition introduced into the lodges of France in 1787 by the disciples of Weishaupt, 'patriarch of the Jacobins.'"

Guiseppe Balsamo, a student of the Jewish Cabala, a Freemason, and a Rosicrucian, became known as Louis XVI's court magician Caliostro. He wrote how the German Illuminati had infiltrated the French Freemason lodges for years and added, "By March 1789, the 266 lodges controlled by the Grand Orient were all 'illuminized' without knowing it, for the Freemasons in general, were not told the name of the sect that brought them these mysteries, and only a very small number were really inititated into the secret."

Jacobins and Jacobites

Pro-revolutionary members of France's National Constituent Assembly had formed a group which became known as the Society of the Friends of the Constitution. After the Assembly moved to Paris, this group met there in a hall leased from the Jacobins' convent of Catholic Dominican Friars. These revolutionaries, sworn to protect the revolution from the aristocrats, soon were known as the Jacobin Club. Since that time, all revolutionaries have been called Jacobins.

At least that is the official story of the Jacobins. As usual, the Jacobins are tied to earlier secret societies, in this case a movement to restore a kingship in Britain.

In 1688 England's unpopular and pro-Catholic Stuart king, James II, was deposed by his Dutch son-in-law, the Protestant William of Orange. James - whose name in Latin was Jacobus, hence the name Jacobites - fled to France. There he continued to be supported by Freemasons in Scotland and Wales who sought to restore him to the English throne. They were accused by French Freemasons of converting Masonic rituals and titles into political support for this restoration.

According to some versions of Masonic history, James was ensconced in the Chateau of Saint-Germain by his friend, French King Louis XIV where he established a system of Masonry that became known as the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.

After a series of failed rebellions, the Jacobites in Scotland were finally crushed at the battle of Culloden Moor near Inverness in 1746. Their leader, Charles Edward Stuart, "Bonnie Prince Charlie, the young pretender," escaped to France, taking with him Jacobites imbued with "Freemasonic ideals". A year later in Arras, France, Charles chartered a Masonic Sovereign Primordial Chapter of Rose Croix known as "Scottish Jacobite"...

French Masons too were heavily involved in the political events of that day. Webster noted, "All the revolutionaries of the Constituent Assembly were initiated into the third degree" of Illuminized Masonry, including revolutionary leaders such as the Duke of Orleans, Valance, Lafayette, Mirabeau, Garat, Marat, Robespierre, Danton, and Desmoulins.

Honre-Gabriel Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau, a leading revolutionary, indeed espoused ideals which were identical with Adam Weishaupt, founder of Bavarian Illuminized Masonry. In personal papers Mirabeau called for the overthrow of all order, all laws, and all power to "leave the people in anarchy." He said the public must be promised "power to the people" and lower taxes but never given real power "for the people as legislators are very dangerous as they only establish laws which coincide with their passions." He said the clergy should be destroyed by "ridiculing religion."

Mirabeau ended his tirade by proclaiming "What matter the means as long as one arrives at the end?" - the same end-justifies-the-means philosophy preached from Weishaupt to Lenin to Hitler.

Contrary to popular history the storming of the Bastille was not the spontaneous action of a downtrodden mob. "That brigands from the South were deliberately enticed to Paris in 1789, employed and paid by the revolutionary leaders, is a fact confirmed by authorities too numerous to quote at length... In other words, the importation of the contingent of hired brigands conclusively refutes the theory that the Revolution was an irrepressible rising of the people," wrote Webster.

We see in the French Revolution the first time where grievences were systematically created in order to exploit them," wrote author still.

Such exploitation began with the Freemasons as early as 1772 when the Grand Orient Lodge was firmly established in France, counting 104 lodges. This number grew to 2,000 lodges by the time of the Revolution, with 447 lodge members participating in the 605 member Estates-General. One of their primary goals was the Nationalization of all Church property to help pay off the large debts Revolutionary France incurred in assisting their Jacobite Masonic brethrens plans during the American revolution.

Meanwhile, buoyed by the situation in France, Masonic-based revolutionary clubs sprang up in other countries, including England, Ireland, the German states, Austria, Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland. Tensions between outside nations and France rose until 1792 when France declared war on Austria and Prussia.

Confronted with both a war and a revolution, France degenerated into the Reign of Terror, during which time King Lous XVI, Marie Antoinette, and many thousands, chiefly aristocrats, were executed.

In a move similar to Hitler's action 150 years later, the Jacobins closed down all Masonic lodges in 1791, ironically fearful that Freemasonry's organizing power might be turned against them.

"Behind the Conventions, behind the clubs, behind the Revolutionary Tribunal, there existed... that most secret convention which directed everything... an occult and terrible power of which the other Convention became the slave and which was composed of the prime initiates of Illuminanism" noted Webster.

Author Epperson, after an exhaustive study of the subject, agreed. He wrote, "The invisible hand that guided the entire French Revolution was the Illuminati, only 13 years in existance, yet powerful enough to cause a revolution in one of the major countries of the world."

Wars, riots, and coups continued in France until a young General Napoleon Bonaparte finally seized complete control in 1799. Although he carried on his own brand of terror in Europe for years, Napoleon proclaimed an end to the revolution. France was in shambles. Hundreds of thousands had died of starvation, war, violence, and the guillotine. The power of both the monarchy and the monolithic church had been largely destroyed.

"So in the 'great shipwreck of civilization,' as a contemporary has described it, the projects of the Cabalists, the Gnostics, and the Secret Societies which for nearly eighteen centuries had sapped the foundation of Christianity found their fulfillment," commented Webster.

Rule by Secrecy, by Jim Marrs.
Page 221
Jim Marrs
Harper Collins, 2000

Further Reading

Freemasonry in France, Belgium (E.U.), Monaco and French Africa.
Frances.

[bsbray]

I guess there are two sides to every story, and I'm not sure which side of the fence Marrs is on here. But in both the case of the United States and France, I think it was better in the long run to be separated from both the monarchy and a state-sponsored religion.

[Frances]

21st of January 1793: execution of Louis XVI « Versailles and More...

Source:- http://blog.catherinedelors.com/21st...-of-louis-xvi/

Long article so go to the above link to read more.

By Catherine Delors.

As usual on this blog, I will strive to recount this dramatic event through the testimony of eyewitnesses.

Let us simply remember that, following the storming of the royal palace of the Tuileries on the 10th of August 1792, Louis XVI and his family (Marie-Antoinette, their two children, Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte and Louis-Charles, and his sister Madame Elisabeth) were jailed in the medieval tower of the Temple.

Then, in December of 1792, the trial of the deposed King had commenced before the National Convention, the newly elected legislative body. The votes were tallied, counted and recounted for days, and it seemed that, though the guilty verdict on the counts of treason was a foregone conclusion, the King might receive a stay of the death sentence. Yet in the end by an extremely narrow margin (some say one single ballot) the Convention voted in favor of the immediate execution of Louis XVI. What happened next?

First we will listen to Madame Royale, the King’s daughter, then fourteen:

About seven in the evening [of the 20th] we learned of the sentence by the newspapermen, who came shouting it under our windows: a decree of the Convention allowed us to see the King. We ran to his apartment, and found him much altered; he wept for us, not for fear of death; he related his trial to my mother, apologizing for the wretches who had condemned him; he told her that it was proposed to attempt to save him by appealing to the people, but that he would not consent, lest it should excite unrest in the country. He then gave my brother some religious advice, and desired him, above all, to forgive those who caused his death and he gave him his blessing, as well as to me. My mother was very desirous that the whole family should pass the night with my father; but he opposed this, observing to her how much he needed a few hours of repose and quiet. She asked at least to be allowed to see him next morning, to which he consented.
Frances.

[Frances]

Source:- http://blog.catherinedelors.com/16th...-antoinette-2/

Link to the full articles & web site.

16th of October 1793: execution of Marie-Antoinette by Catherine Delors.

Marie Antoinette by Prieur
After the fall of the monarchy on the 10th of August 1792, the dethroned Queen was imprisoned in the Tower of the Temple, along with her husband, Louis XVI, their children and Madame Elisabeth, the King’s younger sister.

The following December, Louis XVI stands trial before the National Convention, the elected body that now governs France. Louis is executed on the 21st of January 1793. Then, the following August, Marie-Antoinette is transferred, alone, without her children or sister-in-law Madame Elisabeth, to the jail of La Conciergerie. It is located within the premises of the main Courthouse of Paris, next to the Revolutionary Tribunal. For an ordinary prisoner that would mean that trial is imminent.

But Marie-Antoinette is no ordinary prisoner. She may have some value as a hostage in war negotiations with the Austrians, and the National Convention sends emissaries to that effect to the enemy. But Marie-Antoinette’s brothers, Joseph II and Leopold II, no longer reign over Austria. The new Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II, her nephew, has never met her. He is not ready to compromise the hopes of a victory against the French armies for the sake of an aunt he does not know.

This is the context of her transfer to La Conciergerie: the National Convention hopes to step up the pressure and show Francis II that a trial is a real possibility. To no avail: the Emperor is content to express his indignation. For the National Convention, there is political advantage in executing a hated public figure, and none in keeping her alive.

Furthermore, several escape plans, including one that took her only yards from freedom, have been hatched while Marie-Antoinette was jailed at La Conciergerie. The National Convention does not want to lose face if she managed to flee. The case is therefore set for trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal, and a preliminary hearing is held at the beginning of October.

The trial itself begins on the 14th. The accused states her name: “Marie-Antoinette de Lorraine d’Autriche.” In itself this is a very bold move: she reminds the jurors of her French paternal ancestry (Lorraine) but also, less diplomatically, of the phrase The Austrian Woman. And France is at war with Austria… For a full transcript (in French) of the trial, I direct you to the irreplaceable Royet site. I will not enter into the details of the trial, which would require its separate – and very long – post. The Tribunal remained in session 15 hours on October 14, and almost 24 hours on October 15 and 16. The transcript notes that “Antoinette almost always kept a calm and assured demeanor; during the first hours of her questioning, she was seen running her fingers on the arm of her chair, as though she were playing the pianoforte.”

In my first novel, Mistress of the Revolution, one of the main characters is Pierre-André Coffinhal, a judge of the Revolutionary Tribunal. I have him relate the trial (it was eerie to write, because I had always thought of it from Marie-Antoinette’s standpoint.)

Her main line of defense was that she was not responsible for any of her actions! She claimed she had obeyed her husband’s orders when she prepared the flight to Varennes, or when she sent the French war plans to her brother, the tyrant of Austria. Her argument might have succeeded had she been any other woman. In her case, it was common knowledge that Capet [Louis XVI] had fallen entirely under her influence, that he was a hapless imbecile without any will of his own... Of course, that jackass Hébert [representative of the Municipality of Paris] had to disgrace himself by testifying that she had taught her son to pleasure himself. You may trust that scoundrel to bring up something lewd at every opportunity. [The presiding judge] Herman, who is no fool, let it pass without questioning Antoinette on it. The rest of us judges also ignored it, but one of the jurors insisted that she respond. That gave her an opportunity to feign outrage and appeal to the public.

This is of course her famous response to the incest accusation: “I appeal to all mothers!” Throughout the trial, Marie-Antoinette, very pale, physically exhausted, but as imposing as ever in her patched-up black dress, defends herself with energy and dignity.

She is assisted by two famous attorneys: Chauveau-Lagarde and Tronçon-Ducoudray. When the case goes to the jury in the early hours of the 16th, the outrageous incest accusation has been dropped. Only remain the counts of treason, conspiracy and collusion with domestic and foreign enemies.

The jury retires for over one hour. This is a very long by Revolutionary Tribunal standards. Then the verdict is read: guilty on all four counts. The sentencing is immediate, and there is no appeal from the jugements of the Revolutionary Tribunal. Had Marie-Antoinette harbored any hope of a different outcome? One of her attorneys, Chauveau-Lagarde, notes that “she was like annihilated by surprise.” She silently shakes her head when the presiding judge asks her whether she has anything to add. She leaves the courtroom without a word, her head held high.

From then on, we will simply follow a timeline.

4:30 AM: Marie-Antoinette is taken back to her cell, within the Courthouse building. She feels very faint now. One of the gendarmes, Lieutenant de Busne, offers her a glass of water and his arm to go down the steep corkscrew stairs. He holds his hat in his hand as a sign of respect. Once in her cell, she is given a candle, ink and paper. She writes her famous last letter to her sister-in-law, Madame Elisabeth, a translation of which is provided by Elena at Tea at Trianon.

She also writes a few words in her prayer book:

This 16th of Oct. at 4:30 in the morning
My God, have mercy on me!
My eyes have no more tears
to weep for you my poor
children; farewell, farewell!

7:00 AM: Rosalie Lamorlière, a young servant who has been attending to the former Queen, offers to bring her some food. “I do not need anything anymore,” responds Marie-Antoinette. “All is over for me.” Upon Rosalie’s insistence, Marie-Antoinette accepts a bowl of bouillon, but she can only swallow a few spoonfulls.

She is informed that she is not to wear her black dress to her execution. She puts on her only other remaining garment: a white cotton dress, with a black petticoat, and a white cap adorned with black ribbon. She has been bleeding profusely (she is apparently suffering from a uterine fibroma, or possibly some more serious condition) and wishes to change her shirt. She must do so, only shielded by Rosalie, in the presence of the gendarme officer who has replaced Lieutenant de Busne (the latter has been briefly arrested for showing her too much respect.) Rosalie also cuts Marie-Antoinette’s hair short on the neck. In this fashion the executioner does not have to do it himself to facilitate the operation of the guillotine.



MARIE ANTOINETTE EXECUTION

10:00 AM: The prison concierge and the turnkey find Marie-Antoinette kneeling by her bed, in prayers. She rises. Soon arrive the Court clerk and the judges, who read her the sentence, as required by law. She replies that she knows it all to well, but is told that she must listen to it again.

Then enters Henri Sanson, the executioner, who ties her hands behind her back. Again she protests. Louis XVI’s hands were not tied until he reached the foot of the guillotine, but the deposed Queen will receive far less consideration than her late husband. She is taken to the clerk’s office for the last formalities.

11:00 AM: She leaves La Conciergerie and reaches the Cour du Mai, in front of the Courthouse. There an open cart, drawn by two large white horses, is waiting for her. Louis XVI had been taken to the guillotine in the enclosed carriage of the Mayor of Paris, but again she will be treated like any other convict. However, the security is out of the ordinary: 30,000 men have been called to prevent any escape.

A sworn priest (meaning a cleric who had pledged allegiance to the Constitution) accompanies her to the cart, but she politely declines his services. Again this is a stark contrast with the execution of Louis XVI, who had been granted the assistance of an unsworn priest of his own choosing.

The executioner and his helper, their hats in hand in sign of respect, also climb onto the cart. It slowly makes its way through the streets of Paris, in the midst of a jeering crowd assembled to see one last time the Queen in her capital. Marie-Antoinette sits very straight in the cart, proud and calm in the face of this display of hate, contempt and anger.

12:00 PM: At last the cart reaches Place de la Révolution, where she can see both her former Palace of Les Tuileries and the guillotine. She shows a strong emotion, but soon regains her composure. She steps off the cart promptly, lightly. Without requiring any help, she climbs the steps to the scaffold. She does not oppose any resistance and even apologizes for stepping on the executioner’s foot.

12:15 PM: The blade of the guillotine falls. So dies Marie-Antoinette, two weeks before her 38th birthday.
Frances.

[Frances]

Duke Of Orleans At His Execution 1793.

Source:- http://www.heritage-history.com/inde...-dir&f=orleans

Louis Philippe Joseph d'Orléans was the cousin of King Louis XVI of France, and a central player in the turbulent times of the French Revolution. Despite his position as a member of the royal family, he held anti-royalist sympathies for much of his life, and as a member of the National Convention, voted for the execution of King Louis XVI. Despite his political views, his Bourbon connections caused him to fall under suspicion, and he was ultimately executed by the same Convention he had helped place in power.
The Duke of Orleans’ early life and career were hardly sterling. Although he married (at the age of twenty), a rich heiress, he was a known womanizer, and his decidedly anti-royalist sympathies had him on bad terms with the court, especially the Queen, Marie Antoinette. Despite this, he and his wife Marie-Adelaide had five children, the eldest of whom would later become Louis-Philippe I, King of France.

From the start of the Revolution, d'Orleans' sympathies were quite clear. He was one of the first to abandon the Estates-General and join with the National Assembly, after the famed Tennis Court Oath. His money and position enabled him to monetarily and politically further many of the Revolution’s goals, although his connection to the crown caused some to wonder if he was simply attempting to depose his cousin and claim the throne for himself. After the King’s aborted flight to Varennes, the Duke changed his name to ‘Philippe Egalite’ (in English, ‘Philip Equality’) in order to further prove his support of the Revolution and its ideals.

Despite the name change, and his vote in support of the execution of Louis XVI, the defection of Philippe Egalite’s sons along with Charles Dumouriez caused him to be arrested, along with all the remaining members of the House of Bourbon left in France. He was tried and executed in November of 1793, a victim of the Revolution he had helped create.
Frances.

[Frances]

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88Y7in-04Ng


The Song Of The French Revolution from Les Miserables 2012.

[bsbray]

This is the real song of the French Revolution:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIxOl1EraXA


Your articles above discuss the Masons being responsible for the movement of militarized peasants to Paris. They arrived in Paris from as far as Marseilles, and the story is that the French arriving from Marseilles were singing this stirring call for bloodshed in the defense of this new idea of a country, rather than a king. This new and inspiring idea of nationalism led France to muster an unheard-of million-man army against foreign invaders, just as radicalized nationalism would also be very effective in leading to massive conflict during WW1 and WW2.


English translation of la Marseillaise:

Arise children of the fatherland,
The day of glory has arrived.
Against us tyranny's
Bloody standard is raised.
Do you hear the sound in the fields,
The howling of these fearsome soldiers?
They are coming into our arms
To cut the throats of your sons and consorts

[Chorus]
To arms, citizens
Form your battalions
(Let us) March, march
Let impure blood
Water our furrows

What do they want this horde of slaves
Of traitors and conspiratorial kings?
For whom these vile chains
These long-prepared irons?
Frenchmen, for us, ah! What outrage
What methods must be taken?
It is us they dare plan
To return to the old slavery!

What! These foreign cohorts!
They would make laws in our courts!
What! These mercenary phalanxes
Would cut down our warrior sons
Good Lord! By chained hands
Our brow would yield under the yoke
The vile despots would have themselves be
The masters of destiny

Tremble, tyrants and traitors
The shame of all good men
Tremble! Your parricidal schemes
Will receive their just reward
Against you we are all soldiers
If they fall, our young heros
France will bear new ones
Ready to join the fight against you

Frenchmen, as magnanimous warriors
Bear or hold back your blows
Spare these sad victims
That they regret taking up arms against us
But not these bloody despots
These accomplices of Bouillé
All these tigers who pitilessly
Ripped out their mothers' wombs

We too shall enlist
When our elders' time has come
To add to the list of deeds
Inscribed upon their tombs
We are much less jealous of surviving them
Than of sharing their coffins
We shall have the sublime pride
Of avenging or joining them

Drive on sacred patriotism
Support our avenging arms
Liberty, cherished liberty
Join the struggle with your defenders
Under our flags, let victory
Hurry to your manly tone
So that in death your enemies
See your triumph and our glory!

[Frances]

Thank you bsbray, your educated input adds a great deal to my little walk through "The French Revolution".
I kook forward to more.

A wonderful inspiring song. It will get many plays.
Frances.

[bsbray]

I'm enjoying the articles you're posting a lot. I had heard before that there was a large Masonic aspect to the French Revolution but I had never looked into it, but now this makes a lot of sense to me. Also the Jacobin club discussed above, and the Scottish masons who founded it in France. Those Scots included the Fraser Clan from Scotland, and Simon "the Fox" Fraser who was a leader of the revolt in Britain and a wanted man. I'm descended from the Fraser Clan, and even though I'm probably not a direct descendent of that man, I'm sure we share direct ancestors from not many generations before that. The Frasers in Scotland go back to William the Conqueror, who was from Normandy himself, so it all comes full circle as far as that Scottish/French connection goes.

Thanks for posting all of this info Frances.

[Elen]

Thank you from me too, Frances. You've given me and a lot of others, a great insight into that window of time.

Elen

[Frances]

Source:- http://www.neworleansonline.com/newo...ry/french.html

A little article I came across. History linking The Duke Of Orleans to the U.S.

French History in New Orleans

Because the French founded and settled New Orleans, the city developed a unique outlook from its inception. Even after the city’s close relationship with France had ceased, the French attitude at the heart of the city’s culture was the framework upon which New Orleans built its own traditions.

Background

The French were Catholic, not Protestant like the founders of most other New World settlements which eventually became American cities. The French Catholic did not share the unremittingly severe, sober view of life with the New England Puritans, for one. While religious, the French Catholics also enjoyed good food and sensual pleasures. Mardi Gras, the most famous and raucous of New Orleans festivals, is a Catholic holiday after all. And in French, Mardi Gras means “Fat Tuesday” – a time of indulgence before the self-imposed austerity of Lent. The tension between the sacred and profane, the joyous and the mournful (as with jazz funerals, for example), has long formed an essential part of the Crescent City’s character.

French Catholic Influence

Early in New Orleans history, a coterie of Ursuline nuns were invited to establish a convent to give the colony spiritual guidance and instruction. They inducted people of all races, enslaved and free, into Catholicism and solidified New Orleans’ Catholic character. (In addition, they started a Catholic girl’s school in 1727, the oldest one in America still operating.) The Catholic nature of New Orleans helped attract future populations of immigrants that shaped the city, from Italians who for a while turned the French Quarter into “Little Italy” to the Irish who built a canal important for New Orleans’ growth, from the Haitians who introduced voodoo in the early 19th century to the Vietnamese who arrived after the Vietnam War.

The Founding French Fathers

Louisiana was claimed for France in 1682, and two brothers of the surname Le Moyne, formally known as Sieur d’Iberville and Sieur de Bienville, founded New Orleans seventeen years later. La Nouvelle Orléans was named in honor of the Duke of Orleans, France’s ruling regent until the young Louis XV could take the throne, but the French name was also chosen to encourage French settlers who would have balked at coming to a place with an Indian name like Biloxi or Natchitoches. Two French engineers laid out the first 66 squares of a walled village, what later would be known as the French Quarter or the Vieux Carré (Old City). Streets were named after lesser royalty in the Duke’s court. Indian hunters, German farmers, and trappers traded their goods in a clearing where the French Market stands today.

Forever French

Even during forty years of Spanish rule, New Orleans remained unequivocally French. Schools taught lessons in French, newspapers published in French, and New Orleanians looked to France for culture and fashions. In 1803 when New Orleans permanently passed into American governance, the French Creoles found themselves at odds in many ways with the Americans moving in. Since then, New Orleans has become an American city, but its French heart is still beating.
Frances.

[Frances]

Fashion a la Victim & The French Kiss.

The revolution had brought an end to the excessively ornate fashions of the early to mid-1700s. Gone were the tall powdered wigs and hairdos and brilliant jewelry. Fashionable men and women cut their hair short and ragged, high on their neck in the back with curls falling over their foreheads in the front. This à la victime cut imitated the way the executioner sheared off the hair of those who approached the guillotine, so that the blade could cut cleanly through the neck.



Women's gowns became simple loose dresses, like the nightgowns and underclothes worn by those who were herded from prison cells into carts bound for the public square and death. Red ribbons became stylish, worn around the neck to indicate the bloodline where the head was cut, or wrapped in an "X" across the breasts and around the arms to represent flowing blood.



Both women and men wore small reproductions of the guillotine as jewelry. Ladies' hats were designed to look like the Bastille, a prison that had symbolized the cruelty of the old government. For supporters of the new government, these fashions symbolized the demise of the oppressive old rulers.



Though fashion à la victime was mainly for those who wanted to show support for the new government, there were also bals à la victime, or "dances of the victim." These were large parties to which only those whose relatives had been guillotined were invited. Guests wore black neckbands and armbands and danced together to mourn their dead by celebrating life. The simple styles of the fashion à la victime transformed into the Greek-inspired styles of the late eighteenth century such as the robe en chemise.



The celebratory atmosphere following the "Reign of Terror" gave way to a number of frivolous yet gruesome fashions and pastimes, one of which was the Victim's Ball. In order to qualify for admittance in one of these sought after soirees one had to to be a close relative or spouse of one who had lost their life to the guillotine. Invitations were so coveted that papers proving your right to attend had to be shown at the door, and some were even known to forge this certificate in their eagerness. All the rage at these grand balls was to have the hair cut high up off the neck, in imitation of "le toilette du condamne" where the victim's hair is cut so as not to impede the efficiency of the blade.



There were several popular hairstyles including cheveux à la titus or à la victime for both women and men, where the hair is given very short and choppy cut, and the "dog ears" worn by Muscadins, where long flops of hair are left on either side of the face, but cut right up to the hairline on the back of the neck. And for the ladies, a thin red velvet ribbon worn round the neck, or red ribbons worn croisures à la victime, a kind of reverse fichu, or ceinture croisée, across the back of the bodice forming a symbolic "x marks the spot" across the upper back.

Will posterity believe that persons whose relatives died on the scaffold did not institute days of solemn and common affliction during which, assembled in mourning clothing, they would attest to their grief over such cruel, such recent losses, but instead [instituted] days of dancing where the point was to waltz, drink and eat to one's heart's content.
—Mercier
Frances.

[ERK]

Fashion a la Victim & The French Kiss.

The revolution had brought an end to the excessively ornate fashions of the early to mid-1700s. Gone were the tall powdered wigs and hairdos and brilliant jewelry. Fashionable men and women cut their hair short and ragged, high on their neck in the back with curls falling over their foreheads in the front. This à la victime cut imitated the way the executioner sheared off the hair of those who approached the guillotine, so that the blade could cut cleanly through the neck.



Women's gowns became simple loose dresses, like the nightgowns and underclothes worn by those who were herded from prison cells into carts bound for the public square and death. Red ribbons became stylish, worn around the neck to indicate the bloodline where the head was cut, or wrapped in an "X" across the breasts and around the arms to represent flowing blood.



Both women and men wore small reproductions of the guillotine as jewelry. Ladies' hats were designed to look like the Bastille, a prison that had symbolized the cruelty of the old government. For supporters of the new government, these fashions symbolized the demise of the oppressive old rulers.



Though fashion à la victime was mainly for those who wanted to show support for the new government, there were also bals à la victime, or "dances of the victim." These were large parties to which only those whose relatives had been guillotined were invited. Guests wore black neckbands and armbands and danced together to mourn their dead by celebrating life. The simple styles of the fashion à la victime transformed into the Greek-inspired styles of the late eighteenth century such as the robe en chemise.



The celebratory atmosphere following the "Reign of Terror" gave way to a number of frivolous yet gruesome fashions and pastimes, one of which was the Victim's Ball. In order to qualify for admittance in one of these sought after soirees one had to to be a close relative or spouse of one who had lost their life to the guillotine. Invitations were so coveted that papers proving your right to attend had to be shown at the door, and some were even known to forge this certificate in their eagerness. All the rage at these grand balls was to have the hair cut high up off the neck, in imitation of "le toilette du condamne" where the victim's hair is cut so as not to impede the efficiency of the blade.



There were several popular hairstyles including cheveux à la titus or à la victime for both women and men, where the hair is given very short and choppy cut, and the "dog ears" worn by Muscadins, where long flops of hair are left on either side of the face, but cut right up to the hairline on the back of the neck. And for the ladies, a thin red velvet ribbon worn round the neck, or red ribbons worn croisures à la victime, a kind of reverse fichu, or ceinture croisée, across the back of the bodice forming a symbolic "x marks the spot" across the upper back.

Will posterity believe that persons whose relatives died on the scaffold did not institute days of solemn and common affliction during which, assembled in mourning clothing, they would attest to their grief over such cruel, such recent losses, but instead [instituted] days of dancing where the point was to waltz, drink and eat to one's heart's content.
—Mercier
Frances.

My favorite fashion period lol. I have commissioned many miniature dolls over the past 25 years in that period (I am a collector of 1:12th scale miniatures) and a very talented German artist just finished up a replica of Hortense de Beauharnais (Napolean's stepdaughter and Queen of Holland) for me.

[Frances]

Hello ERK, it would be nice to see some of those dolls if you wish to post some photographs.
Frances.

[ERK]

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Hortense de Beauharnais~ she's en route to me from Germany. I have a bunch (lost count) commissioned from this exhibit as well: http://napoleon-fashion.com/