0:00:10 > 0:00:11I'm Richard Clay,
0:00:11 > 0:00:12I'm an art historian.
0:00:12 > 0:00:16I don't just study the creation of art, I study its destruction.
0:00:16 > 0:00:20In many ways, I study the history of art from below.
0:00:25 > 0:00:29In this film, I'm going to tell the story of the French Revolution
0:00:29 > 0:00:32through the destruction of art, buildings and symbols.
0:00:34 > 0:00:36These are often used by those in power
0:00:36 > 0:00:40as weapons to enforce the status quo.
0:00:43 > 0:00:48In a revolution, the destruction and transformation of art and symbols
0:00:48 > 0:00:53is a way to turn the tables. It's called iconoclasm.
0:00:55 > 0:00:56The inside story
0:00:56 > 0:00:59of great revolutions can be uncovered
0:00:59 > 0:01:04through the smashed, altered and reshaped art of the past.
0:01:07 > 0:01:09This is a story about art,
0:01:09 > 0:01:12it's a story about symbols, it's a story about the power of the monarchy,
0:01:12 > 0:01:15the power of the church, the power of aristocracy.
0:01:15 > 0:01:18Were the French revolutionaries just a mob?
0:01:18 > 0:01:20Why were their governments so afraid of them?
0:01:20 > 0:01:22This is the history of art,
0:01:22 > 0:01:25this is a story about the breaking of images,
0:01:25 > 0:01:29this is a story of the city being transformed through destruction,
0:01:29 > 0:01:32arguably the birth of the modern world.
0:01:44 > 0:01:48The French Revolution of 1789 changed the world.
0:01:48 > 0:01:53Inspired by the enlightenment notions of liberty, equality and brotherhood,
0:01:53 > 0:01:59the people of France tore control of their destiny from the king, nobility and church,
0:01:59 > 0:02:03giving birth to a new way of seeing the world around us.
0:02:05 > 0:02:09The revolution was a war whose battlefield was the visual world,
0:02:09 > 0:02:14where the symbols of royal, religious and aristocratic power
0:02:14 > 0:02:16had long controlled people's lives.
0:02:16 > 0:02:20Revolutionaries took these symbols and they destroyed them,
0:02:20 > 0:02:24creating a new political order.
0:02:24 > 0:02:28The word "vandalism" was invented to describe them.
0:02:30 > 0:02:33But I don't think that they were mindless barbarians.
0:02:34 > 0:02:39This battle over who controlled Paris began 24 kilometres outside
0:02:39 > 0:02:42the city, here in Versailles.
0:02:42 > 0:02:48Begun in 1632, King Louis's forebears expanded the Palace of Versailles
0:02:48 > 0:02:53to boast an astonishing 750 rooms with extravagant gardens
0:02:53 > 0:02:55covering 800 hectares.
0:02:55 > 0:03:01This building was the ultimate expression of French, royal power.
0:03:01 > 0:03:06Versailles is famous for being an extravagant piece of architecture
0:03:06 > 0:03:07with beautiful art.
0:03:07 > 0:03:12That's all true, but it's also the heart of ancien regime government.
0:03:12 > 0:03:16The King's apartments are a tiny fraction of this vast palace.
0:03:16 > 0:03:21The rest of it is administration, as well as servants, of course.
0:03:21 > 0:03:24And that's the important thing for the revolution -
0:03:24 > 0:03:27this is where government is done,
0:03:27 > 0:03:30this is the place to come to get decisions made.
0:03:31 > 0:03:36For all its gold leaf, I'm not here to visit the Palace of Versailles,
0:03:36 > 0:03:40because the French Revolution effectively began nearby,
0:03:40 > 0:03:44in this unassuming back street, at the Royal Tennis Courts.
0:03:47 > 0:03:51I've genuinely studied the revolution for almost half my life.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56I've never been in this space before.
0:03:56 > 0:03:57It's amazing.
0:03:58 > 0:04:01This is the truth.
0:04:01 > 0:04:03This is probably, for me at least,
0:04:03 > 0:04:07the most important place in recent French history.
0:04:08 > 0:04:13In 1789, the French world of politics was in turmoil,
0:04:13 > 0:04:19divided into three groups called estates - the church at the top, nobility in the middle,
0:04:19 > 0:04:21and everybody else at the bottom.
0:04:21 > 0:04:24The French people were hungry and angry
0:04:24 > 0:04:28and taxed heavily by a cash-strapped elite.
0:04:34 > 0:04:36France is effectively bankrupt,
0:04:36 > 0:04:40they keep losing wars, it's an expensive business.
0:04:40 > 0:04:41So the King says,
0:04:41 > 0:04:46"I rule by divine right, I request that representatives of
0:04:46 > 0:04:49"the three estates that make up French society
0:04:49 > 0:04:53"come to Versailles and help me find a way
0:04:53 > 0:04:57"of getting my accounts in order."
0:04:57 > 0:05:01The third estate and its champions in the press
0:05:01 > 0:05:02start to say,
0:05:02 > 0:05:05"Well, we're the vast majority of the French people,
0:05:05 > 0:05:09"surely we should have more representatives than everybody else?"
0:05:11 > 0:05:13And when they tried to gather,
0:05:13 > 0:05:17the King refused to let them meet in the allotted space
0:05:17 > 0:05:21and they found the doors locked, so they came to the tennis court
0:05:21 > 0:05:26and they swore an oath, they swore that they would sit in perpetuity
0:05:26 > 0:05:30until a constitution was written for France.
0:05:30 > 0:05:35This is the moment when constitutional politics is born.
0:05:35 > 0:05:39David's painting of the tennis court,
0:05:39 > 0:05:42it seems to be such a scene of consensus,
0:05:42 > 0:05:47all these arms thrusting to the centre towards Bailly,
0:05:47 > 0:05:49who's leading this oath.
0:05:49 > 0:05:53But it isn't entirely a scene of consensus.
0:05:53 > 0:05:59We've got a figure in the bottom right hand corner who sits gesturing,
0:05:59 > 0:06:02firmly holding his arms to his chest, he is not going to raise
0:06:02 > 0:06:06his arm and swear this oath, it's too big.
0:06:06 > 0:06:10Robespierre stands clutching his chest.
0:06:10 > 0:06:13He's realising the enormity of the moment.
0:06:13 > 0:06:16He's not a renowned figure yet,
0:06:16 > 0:06:20but, as we all know, he certainly will gain a reputation.
0:06:22 > 0:06:26And in the very centre, just at the feet of Bailly,
0:06:26 > 0:06:31there is Sieyes, who's such a key writer in the run-up to this event
0:06:31 > 0:06:37and he sits as if in the eye of the storm, totally still,
0:06:37 > 0:06:43as if contemplating what his writing has unleashed.
0:06:45 > 0:06:48This is the birth of modern France.
0:06:49 > 0:06:52The world has been turned upside down.
0:06:52 > 0:06:56It's no longer about the divine right of kings,
0:06:56 > 0:07:02it's about power, sovereignty, emanating from below.
0:07:02 > 0:07:03It's the power of the people.
0:07:07 > 0:07:09For the first time in their history,
0:07:09 > 0:07:12the people had a representative government.
0:07:14 > 0:07:17The King, his nobles and the church
0:07:17 > 0:07:20were losing their control over the people's lives
0:07:20 > 0:07:25and the world around them, a symbolic world that daily demonstrated
0:07:25 > 0:07:29the power of King, church and aristocracy.
0:07:29 > 0:07:35For aristocrats, art was primarily an intellectual experience.
0:07:36 > 0:07:40Perhaps the first thing they'd observe on approaching this painting
0:07:40 > 0:07:45would be, "Oh, look at this masterly final touch of the painter
0:07:45 > 0:07:47"that brings the surface of the painting to life.
0:07:47 > 0:07:51"Look at this astonishing fold in this fabric,
0:07:51 > 0:07:54"described with a single brushstroke.
0:07:54 > 0:07:57"Oh, the spontaneity of the artist and his genius."
0:07:57 > 0:08:00This is an aesthetic object.
0:08:00 > 0:08:04It's also an object that tells a moral story.
0:08:04 > 0:08:08This is a young girl looking boldly at the viewer
0:08:08 > 0:08:10with a bird on her finger,
0:08:10 > 0:08:15but in the history of art, this elite would know,
0:08:15 > 0:08:18the bird in a cage is virginity.
0:08:18 > 0:08:22A bird that's escaped a cage is lost virginity.
0:08:22 > 0:08:26This is a girl who's confident about her sexual virtue,
0:08:26 > 0:08:28holds a bird on her finger.
0:08:29 > 0:08:34There is an element of morality for the viewer to discuss,
0:08:34 > 0:08:38but perhaps most importantly, for them it's a fabulous painting,
0:08:38 > 0:08:41it has aesthetic value.
0:08:43 > 0:08:46With their extensive education, the French aristocracy and middle classes
0:08:46 > 0:08:50enjoyed nothing better than showing off their knowledge over a snapshot
0:08:50 > 0:08:54of mythical life, the racier the better.
0:08:54 > 0:08:59This is a historical painting, the subject Diana,
0:08:59 > 0:09:02goddess of hunting, at her bath.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05Othello, called Actaeon, a mythical Peeping Tom,
0:09:05 > 0:09:08is watching her from the bushes.
0:09:08 > 0:09:11And she sees him and she turns him into a stag,
0:09:11 > 0:09:15and has him hunted down - it's a warning to the voyeur.
0:09:17 > 0:09:22That kind of interpretation of this object was only really open to
0:09:22 > 0:09:27those people who had a vast knowledge of antiquity and of mythology,
0:09:27 > 0:09:32highly educated, a highly educated and a tiny elite,
0:09:32 > 0:09:38particularly made up of an aristocracy who weren't allowed to work for a living,
0:09:38 > 0:09:42who lived the kind of leisured life we see depicted here.
0:09:42 > 0:09:47Who used their knowledge of the past to mark their social distinction,
0:09:47 > 0:09:49and justify their role in society.
0:09:50 > 0:09:53But in a way isn't this rather like the way that
0:09:53 > 0:09:55we think about art today too?
0:09:55 > 0:10:00That we go to the Louvre and we can demonstrate our knowledge of aesthetics,
0:10:00 > 0:10:02and we queue to see the Mona Lisa
0:10:02 > 0:10:06to be able to say we've seen something of historical value.
0:10:08 > 0:10:13The fact that we today share this way of looking at art as a cerebral adventure,
0:10:13 > 0:10:17suggests we've forgotten how powerful and controlling art
0:10:17 > 0:10:21could be for the people of France in 1789.
0:10:21 > 0:10:23For the majority of Parisians,
0:10:23 > 0:10:26through religion, art had a power
0:10:26 > 0:10:28to literally change their worlds.
0:10:31 > 0:10:37Here, Santa Genevieve, on her knees, beseeches the Virgin Mary to ask God
0:10:37 > 0:10:42to intercede and save people suffering because of drought.
0:10:42 > 0:10:45Every religious image has this potential,
0:10:45 > 0:10:47not just to save your soul
0:10:47 > 0:10:52but also to help address the challenges of existence.
0:10:52 > 0:10:57For most people, religious art was an immersive and very real experience
0:10:57 > 0:11:01that helped them elevate their minds to God,
0:11:01 > 0:11:04whose power could change the world.
0:11:04 > 0:11:07This painting from the 18th century
0:11:07 > 0:11:12shows this was a kind of 18th century sculptural installation.
0:11:12 > 0:11:15These women aren't here to contemplate
0:11:15 > 0:11:18the brilliance of this sculptural work,
0:11:18 > 0:11:22they're not interested in aesthetics, nor in history.
0:11:23 > 0:11:29These women are here in the hope that Christ and God will help them
0:11:29 > 0:11:31in their day-to-day struggles.
0:11:31 > 0:11:37Diderot, the great philosopher of the 18th century, said that he thought
0:11:37 > 0:11:42that this chapel was theatrical, he thought it was dangerous,
0:11:42 > 0:11:46that its immersive environment encouraged the poor particularly,
0:11:46 > 0:11:51but people in general, to suspend their disbelief,
0:11:51 > 0:11:53just as if they were at a theatre.
0:11:54 > 0:11:59It's precisely this fear of the role that images can play
0:11:59 > 0:12:04in people's lives that leads them to become such contested objects
0:12:04 > 0:12:06during the revolution.
0:12:08 > 0:12:12It was during the very first crisis of the French Revolution
0:12:12 > 0:12:14that art was used as a weapon in the struggle
0:12:14 > 0:12:17between those with power and those without.
0:12:21 > 0:12:24With the assembly threatening the power of the King,
0:12:24 > 0:12:29rumours had spread that Royalist troops were gathering outside Paris.
0:12:29 > 0:12:31The people were furious.
0:12:33 > 0:12:36Their target was a fortified gateway into Paris
0:12:36 > 0:12:41where astronomic customs duties were raised on imports into the city.
0:12:42 > 0:12:44Known as the Barriere de la Conference,
0:12:44 > 0:12:46it no longer exists today.
0:12:51 > 0:12:55To Parisians, it was a hated building loaded with economic
0:12:55 > 0:12:57and political significance.
0:12:58 > 0:13:00The 12th July 1879, the Parisians
0:13:00 > 0:13:03were walking out of Paris and they were walking out of Paris
0:13:03 > 0:13:07to the Barriere de la Conference on their route to Versailles.
0:13:07 > 0:13:10They wanted to get to Versailles, they wanted to see the King.
0:13:10 > 0:13:12But when they get there, they stop,
0:13:12 > 0:13:16and what they do is they attack the Barriere de la Conference
0:13:16 > 0:13:17which was just at this site.
0:13:17 > 0:13:22But really interestingly, this mob of vandals,
0:13:22 > 0:13:25this ignorant bunch of barbarians,
0:13:25 > 0:13:28had turned up with stone masons and their tools.
0:13:28 > 0:13:30This sounds like they might have had a plan.
0:13:30 > 0:13:33Next to the barrier there were statues.
0:13:33 > 0:13:36One of those statues, a female figure,
0:13:36 > 0:13:39has a shield, on the shield are the fleurs-de-lis.
0:13:39 > 0:13:42The fleurs-de-lis are the symbols of royal France.
0:13:42 > 0:13:47This is, as far as the crowd are concerned, a symbol of royal France.
0:13:47 > 0:13:50The stone masons are there because they have a plan,
0:13:50 > 0:13:53and their plan is to decapitate the statue.
0:13:53 > 0:13:55And that is precisely what they do.
0:13:59 > 0:14:01Many historians of the revolution
0:14:01 > 0:14:04cite this as the first example
0:14:04 > 0:14:08of mindless mobs committing acts of wanton vandalism.
0:14:09 > 0:14:10I disagree.
0:14:12 > 0:14:16This moment of unrest, of violence,
0:14:16 > 0:14:21although nobody's wounded, but violence is against property,
0:14:21 > 0:14:24isn't meaningless, it's meaningful.
0:14:25 > 0:14:29This statue at the gates of Paris in 1789
0:14:29 > 0:14:33says to anybody who's entering Paris from Versailles
0:14:33 > 0:14:39that Royalist France is like a body politic without a head.
0:14:40 > 0:14:45This powerful symbol is not the product
0:14:45 > 0:14:47of the behaviour of ignorant vandals.
0:14:50 > 0:14:52'Doctor Guillaume Mazeau, at the Sorbonne,
0:14:52 > 0:14:56'has been looking at what made the revolutionaries tick.
0:14:56 > 0:14:59'Were they the violent mob of popular myth?'
0:15:01 > 0:15:05These popular protests, these, in some cases, armed protests,
0:15:05 > 0:15:10are these the protests of, of mobs?
0:15:10 > 0:15:14No, er, a lot of these protestors want to avoid violence,
0:15:14 > 0:15:18not because they are peaceful people but they knew that
0:15:18 > 0:15:23the Royal Dragoons can stop these protests by violence.
0:15:23 > 0:15:29So, we can't say that it is a mob because these protestors are not
0:15:29 > 0:15:32influenced by their, only their emotion, their passions,
0:15:32 > 0:15:35their irrational behaviours, but they have - what is quite new,
0:15:35 > 0:15:43is that these protestors acts, erm, in a very modern way.
0:15:43 > 0:15:48What makes these protests of July 1789 so strikingly modern?
0:15:48 > 0:15:52Because they are influenced by other revolutions of the 18th century,
0:15:52 > 0:15:55I mean by the American Revolution
0:15:55 > 0:15:58but also about, by the European revolutions
0:15:58 > 0:16:04and they perfectly knew what freedom means, what equality means.
0:16:04 > 0:16:08So, it's not a mob it's a, it's a political protest.
0:16:10 > 0:16:12Deep within the archives of the Bibliotheque nationale,
0:16:12 > 0:16:17prints from the periods used symbolism of the headless royal statue
0:16:17 > 0:16:21to show us the reality of the situation.
0:16:21 > 0:16:27And this decapitated statue, it seems to me, is a key part of the composition.
0:16:27 > 0:16:32The King no longer is just the simple head of state that he once was,
0:16:32 > 0:16:35now something new has to emerge.
0:16:35 > 0:16:40A member of the people standing where the head was.
0:16:40 > 0:16:42They are now sovereign.
0:16:43 > 0:16:46Even today, transforming symbols of power
0:16:46 > 0:16:49through modification and destruction
0:16:49 > 0:16:52is still a provocative form of protest.
0:17:00 > 0:17:02Deep under the streets of Paris
0:17:02 > 0:17:07are the remains of perhaps the greatest act of iconoclasm
0:17:07 > 0:17:09of the whole French Revolution.
0:17:09 > 0:17:12These stones are all that remains today of
0:17:12 > 0:17:16the huge royal jail, the Bastille,
0:17:16 > 0:17:19the ultimate symbol of royal despotism.
0:17:20 > 0:17:24But the revolutionaries turned it from a symbol of cruelty
0:17:24 > 0:17:26into an emblem of freedom.
0:17:28 > 0:17:30In the days before the storming of the Bastille,
0:17:30 > 0:17:35Parisians were, to say the least, agitated.
0:17:35 > 0:17:38They'd been concerned that the city was surrounded by Royal troops
0:17:38 > 0:17:43and it was. We get Parisians starting to arm themselves.
0:17:43 > 0:17:47And the reason they stormed the Bastille is, Parisians are furious.
0:17:47 > 0:17:52They want to take over the prison because they want the guns and the gunpowder that they
0:17:52 > 0:17:56believe are in there, that's why they march on this symbol.
0:17:56 > 0:18:00But it is also incredibly symbolically significant,
0:18:00 > 0:18:02it is the symbol of despotism.
0:18:05 > 0:18:10After a day-long siege, the Bastille's defenders were overwhelmed.
0:18:10 > 0:18:12Soon the situation turned ugly.
0:18:13 > 0:18:17The prison governor was decapitated by the angry crowd,
0:18:17 > 0:18:20and his head stuck on a pike.
0:18:22 > 0:18:26The people who'd stormed the Bastille begin to demolish it.
0:18:26 > 0:18:31This incredibly powerful symbol of royal despotism is being
0:18:31 > 0:18:35raised to the ground, brick by brick, by the people themselves.
0:18:36 > 0:18:40This is the Place de la Bastille, the greatest, biggest, emptiest space
0:18:40 > 0:18:44probably left by an act of iconoclasm in Paris.
0:18:45 > 0:18:47For me, the siege of the Bastille
0:18:47 > 0:18:51lead to one of the great symbolic transformations.
0:19:02 > 0:19:08It lies here, in a storehouse 100 kilometres from Paris.
0:19:09 > 0:19:13Straight after the fall of the Bastille in July 1789,
0:19:13 > 0:19:16the Commune, a new revolutionary government of Paris,
0:19:16 > 0:19:18were hearing that the people of Paris
0:19:18 > 0:19:21had started to dismantle the Bastille.
0:19:21 > 0:19:24The Commune decided they needed to take action,
0:19:24 > 0:19:26they needed to show that the violence was over
0:19:26 > 0:19:29that they were in control of space,
0:19:29 > 0:19:33and that included all acts of violence against powerful symbols.
0:19:33 > 0:19:36The official responsible for the dismantling of the Bastille,
0:19:36 > 0:19:39Pierre-Francois Palloy, understood
0:19:39 > 0:19:43the powerful messages communicated by symbols.
0:19:43 > 0:19:46He produced dozens of models of the building
0:19:46 > 0:19:50and sent them to all 83 Departements of France.
0:19:50 > 0:19:57Now the Bastille no longer symbolised the despotic power of royalty.
0:19:57 > 0:20:02As a result, this kind of plaster model ended up being circulated
0:20:02 > 0:20:07around France by Palloy, in his entrepreneurial mode,
0:20:07 > 0:20:10so that groups of French people could celebrate
0:20:10 > 0:20:17this act of iconoclasm - others would call it vandalism, I wouldn't, -
0:20:17 > 0:20:21and they could march together in revolutionary festivals,
0:20:21 > 0:20:23perhaps on Bastille Day.
0:20:23 > 0:20:27It's just such a beautifully detailed piece of work.
0:20:27 > 0:20:30The windows, two of them, still there, barred.
0:20:30 > 0:20:37It makes me wonder whether Palloy and his team are actually using metal from the Bastille.
0:20:37 > 0:20:41Certainly much of the metal that was salvaged from the site
0:20:41 > 0:20:45was being cast into souvenirs and sold.
0:20:45 > 0:20:49Whether or not it's from the Bastille, every single set of windows
0:20:49 > 0:20:54bears the signs of having had bars, as a really prominent reminder
0:20:54 > 0:20:57of what a fortress prison this really was.
0:20:57 > 0:21:01This isn't just an incredibly detailed model of the Bastille,
0:21:01 > 0:21:05it's a message that's being sent to the Departements of France,
0:21:05 > 0:21:07that the storming of the Bastille wasn't just
0:21:07 > 0:21:09the efforts of the Parisians,
0:21:09 > 0:21:13it was an effort made by the nation, on behalf of the whole nation.
0:21:15 > 0:21:18The storming of the Bastille frightened
0:21:18 > 0:21:20the new Parisian government.
0:21:20 > 0:21:25They needed to take control of the situation and they needed money.
0:21:25 > 0:21:29Their eyes turned to the wealth of the churches of Paris
0:21:29 > 0:21:33in what was to be the first act of officially sponsored iconoclasm.
0:21:35 > 0:21:39The clergy of San St Peters were incredibly well connected,
0:21:39 > 0:21:42they knew the law was going to change and that silverware
0:21:42 > 0:21:46would be demanded from them in October 1789.
0:21:46 > 0:21:49So they gave a lot of it away in late September.
0:21:49 > 0:21:53The church leaders beseeched the revolutionaries
0:21:53 > 0:21:56to spare their massive silver statue of Mary.
0:21:57 > 0:22:01This statue was particularly symbolic because it was made
0:22:01 > 0:22:05from the old silver that had been given to the clergy by parishioners,
0:22:05 > 0:22:09melted down to create this incredible sculpture by Bouchardon.
0:22:09 > 0:22:13But as the revolution progressed it became clear that the statue
0:22:13 > 0:22:18was going to have to be melted down, that a request made by a pamphleteer
0:22:18 > 0:22:21in the name of the Virgin Mary that it should be used
0:22:21 > 0:22:24for charitable purposes to help the nation
0:22:24 > 0:22:26was going to have to be met.
0:22:30 > 0:22:31And it wouldn't stop there.
0:22:31 > 0:22:33As the revolution had progressed,
0:22:33 > 0:22:37often beyond the control of the authorities,
0:22:37 > 0:22:41so the calls for ever more radical iconoclasm would increase.
0:22:45 > 0:22:50Paris is a city of revolution. They've had five in total
0:22:50 > 0:22:52since the Bastille was stormed.
0:22:52 > 0:22:55Like the revolution of 1789,
0:22:55 > 0:22:58the anti-capitalist riots of 1968
0:22:58 > 0:23:01engulfed most of the city.
0:23:01 > 0:23:03Known as the soixante-huitard,
0:23:03 > 0:23:08the young radicals who manned the barricades are still around.
0:23:08 > 0:23:13Perhaps one of their number, Serge Aberdam, can give me an insight
0:23:13 > 0:23:17into how a revolution acquires a life of its own.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21The first time I was involved in a violent demonstration
0:23:21 > 0:23:26was at that time when they saw them acting like, like a mob.
0:23:26 > 0:23:29They were using those wooden clubs
0:23:29 > 0:23:34and, er, hitting people actually on the middle of the street.
0:23:34 > 0:23:36There were many people there,
0:23:36 > 0:23:39and they were hitting as heavily as they could.
0:23:39 > 0:23:45I was astonished, I was on the side and I was not involved at the time.
0:23:45 > 0:23:48- A few hours later I was.- Really?
0:23:49 > 0:23:54Till the people were beginning to act as a group,
0:23:54 > 0:23:59asking the liberty of their streets and movement.
0:23:59 > 0:24:02Did you have a sense of the fact that you were
0:24:02 > 0:24:05part of a French tradition, a legacy?
0:24:05 > 0:24:07Oh, yes, we did.
0:24:07 > 0:24:13Those days in May when we build barricades in the upper, in the Latin District there,
0:24:13 > 0:24:20and people thought they were in a tradition and raising those barricades.
0:24:22 > 0:24:25'Serge really set me thinking about what it was like
0:24:25 > 0:24:30'on the 12th July or the 14th July'
0:24:30 > 0:24:34and I started to get a sense of how, what starts as a small group
0:24:34 > 0:24:38of protesters can rapidly expand
0:24:38 > 0:24:42into an entire society in rebellion.
0:24:42 > 0:24:44It's an astonishing frontline insight.
0:24:45 > 0:24:47Like the uprising of 1968,
0:24:47 > 0:24:53revolutionary fervour spread throughout the city in 1789.
0:24:54 > 0:24:58The old world of church and aristocracy was now officially under
0:24:58 > 0:25:03attack and the marks of this destruction of the old world
0:25:03 > 0:25:06are still embedded in the walls of the city today.
0:25:07 > 0:25:10There's nothing more familiar in cities than their walls,
0:25:10 > 0:25:14but it's odd how quickly the familiar can become strange.
0:25:15 > 0:25:19Latin graffiti on the wall of a 17th century church.
0:25:20 > 0:25:24"Omnia Communia" - everything belongs to all.
0:25:26 > 0:25:30Then iron bars sticking out of the wall, rusted.
0:25:30 > 0:25:34What was hung from these bars? They look like legs.
0:25:35 > 0:25:40And then a horizontal piece of concrete above. This was a crucifix.
0:25:40 > 0:25:45This was pulled down during de-Christianisation
0:25:45 > 0:25:48in the French Revolution, 1793 or 4.
0:25:48 > 0:25:50And then empty walls.
0:25:51 > 0:25:54A period of peace, perhaps, in Paris.
0:25:54 > 0:25:59And a door with a triangle on top with no religious sign.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02Liberty, equality, fraternity.
0:26:03 > 0:26:07Across Paris, teams of sculptors began removing the symbols
0:26:07 > 0:26:11of the hated oppressors of the Ancien Regime.
0:26:11 > 0:26:15A damaged work of art or even an empty space above a doorway
0:26:15 > 0:26:20speaks volumes about the power struggle at the heart of the revolution.
0:26:21 > 0:26:25A door with roundels chipped out.
0:26:25 > 0:26:27What was here?
0:26:28 > 0:26:33Fleurs-de-lis, all the way up the door,
0:26:33 > 0:26:38both sides of the door, and two roundels with nothing in them.
0:26:38 > 0:26:44What was there? Royal signs, religious signs, signs of feudalism?
0:26:44 > 0:26:50Two harmless, armless cherubs holding nothing.
0:26:50 > 0:26:54Why? Why were their arms chipped off?
0:26:54 > 0:26:58This single wall of a single church in Paris,
0:26:58 > 0:27:02tells the story of a succession of revolutionary conflicts.
0:27:04 > 0:27:08This wall also tells a story of contemporary struggle.
0:27:10 > 0:27:15Omnia Communia? Everything belongs to all.
0:27:15 > 0:27:20The walls speak, we just have to listen and look.
0:27:22 > 0:27:26The aristocrats and their coats of arms that used to plaster Paris
0:27:26 > 0:27:28were also in the firing line.
0:27:30 > 0:27:33So, in August 1789, the National Assembly had just abolished
0:27:33 > 0:27:37feudalism, very sudden, very total.
0:27:37 > 0:27:40All of the signs of feudalism that were all over Paris
0:27:40 > 0:27:42suddenly looked rather out of place
0:27:42 > 0:27:46and it wasn't particularly good to be an aristocrat with your emblems
0:27:46 > 0:27:48on the outside of your townhouse.
0:27:48 > 0:27:50Hence, at a place like this,
0:27:50 > 0:27:53now the Bibliotheque Historique de la Ville de Paris,
0:27:53 > 0:27:58it used to the house of the Lamoignon family, and here we've
0:27:58 > 0:28:02got a black inlay that's been placed on later,
0:28:02 > 0:28:06because what would have happened is the Lamoignon family plastered over
0:28:06 > 0:28:09their coat of arms because they were no longer aristocrats.
0:28:09 > 0:28:11Possibly hoping that one day
0:28:11 > 0:28:15this abolition of the aristocracy would be revoked.
0:28:18 > 0:28:21As the revolution progressed, the temporary solution of just plastering
0:28:21 > 0:28:24over the coats of arms of aristocrats
0:28:24 > 0:28:26was no longer really working.
0:28:26 > 0:28:29They'd been doing that work but now they were starting to emigrate.
0:28:29 > 0:28:34The revolutionary authorities needed a more permanent solution, and this
0:28:34 > 0:28:40solution was simply to chip out the coats of arms above the town houses' doorways, like this example.
0:28:40 > 0:28:44Incredibly elaborate aristocratic frontispiece,
0:28:44 > 0:28:48but with a great big empty space in the middle of it.
0:28:48 > 0:28:52All record of the existence of these families over the generations in
0:28:52 > 0:28:54Paris was being completely erased.
0:29:00 > 0:29:02Only months into the revolution
0:29:02 > 0:29:06and the streets and buildings of Paris had changed significantly.
0:29:08 > 0:29:13But in the summer of 1789, bread was still too expensive
0:29:13 > 0:29:17and people were hungry. Dissent spread on the streets of Paris.
0:29:24 > 0:29:27In October 1789, Paris was hungry.
0:29:27 > 0:29:32Paris was also angry. This combination of hunger and anger
0:29:32 > 0:29:38leads to a kind of protest movement that grows, and in due course,
0:29:38 > 0:29:415th October, several thousand Parisians end up
0:29:41 > 0:29:43marching out to Versailles
0:29:43 > 0:29:48and they camp here, and the next day, when they head back to
0:29:48 > 0:29:51Paris, they head back with the Royal family,
0:29:51 > 0:29:56the centre of government has moved from Versailles back to Paris.
0:30:00 > 0:30:02With the royals safely in the heart of Paris,
0:30:02 > 0:30:06the people could keep their eyes on the King.
0:30:07 > 0:30:11Now in Paris, King Louis kept his head down,
0:30:11 > 0:30:15endorsing revolutionary redistribution of church wealth.
0:30:15 > 0:30:20But Louis was no fool - he knew his family was in danger.
0:30:21 > 0:30:26They made a fateful decision to try and escape to Marie Antoinette's homeland, Austria,
0:30:26 > 0:30:32in the summer of 1791, but they were captured at the Austrian border.
0:30:32 > 0:30:36The family was brought back to Paris in very real danger.
0:30:40 > 0:30:45This is a moment on the 26th July 1791, when the royal family
0:30:45 > 0:30:49are brought back to Paris having tried to escape to Varennes,
0:30:49 > 0:30:54and the people of Paris line the streets as they always would for a royal entry into the city,
0:30:54 > 0:30:57But this time they don't cheer, this time they stand in silence
0:30:57 > 0:31:00and in many places they actually stand
0:31:00 > 0:31:03with their backs to the royal family's carriage.
0:31:03 > 0:31:07This print maker's chosen an amazing moment,
0:31:07 > 0:31:12which is the moment when Louise XVI comes past the statue
0:31:12 > 0:31:16to Louis XV on to the way into the Tuilerie Palace.
0:31:16 > 0:31:22And there are young boys who have clambered up on to the statue of Louis XV,
0:31:22 > 0:31:24this much detested king,
0:31:24 > 0:31:28and they're blindfolding the statue,
0:31:28 > 0:31:32as if to say, even Louis XV
0:31:32 > 0:31:38wouldn't want to see this awful scene of a cowardly king
0:31:38 > 0:31:41who's abandoned his people and abandoned the revolution.
0:31:43 > 0:31:45This was a kind of iconoclasm.
0:31:45 > 0:31:48The revolutionaries used a statue of Louis XV
0:31:48 > 0:31:52as a weapon of protest against the traitorous King.
0:31:54 > 0:31:57To find out what they were really trying to achieve,
0:31:57 > 0:32:03who better to speak to than a modern day so-called vandal.
0:32:05 > 0:32:08What's the link between us and the revolution, what are we doing here?
0:32:08 > 0:32:13Well, you reckon you're vandals, you call yourselves vandals, he's wearing a T-shirt that says vandal on it.
0:32:13 > 0:32:16And I write about vandalism during the French Revolution,
0:32:16 > 0:32:20but I'm saying these people weren't vandals, this wasn't vandalism,
0:32:20 > 0:32:23they're not blind, ignorant barbarians,
0:32:23 > 0:32:25they're incredibly smart people
0:32:25 > 0:32:28and they understand that monuments in public space
0:32:28 > 0:32:31are being used to try and control them.
0:32:31 > 0:32:35So they pour shit on their heads or write graffiti on it.
0:32:35 > 0:32:38- OK.- So, why they hell are you a graffiti artist?
0:32:38 > 0:32:41This whole project was the idea of demonstrating
0:32:41 > 0:32:43that we're not vandals, we're truly artists.
0:32:43 > 0:32:45I like it.
0:32:48 > 0:32:52In 2010, Parisian graffiti artist So What
0:32:52 > 0:32:58lead a 40-strong team that covered the walls of a huge abandoned supermarket with art.
0:32:59 > 0:33:03What was the driving force behind this incredible
0:33:03 > 0:33:05installation of graffiti?
0:33:05 > 0:33:07When I was 16 year old
0:33:07 > 0:33:08I was angry at the world,
0:33:08 > 0:33:11I wanted to burn and graffiti was a way for me
0:33:11 > 0:33:13to get that to the world, you know.
0:33:13 > 0:33:15I had all the reasons in the world to do it.
0:33:15 > 0:33:19We think we're right to do it, and in a lot of places we are right to do it.
0:33:19 > 0:33:22What fascinated us is that this place has been heavily squatted,
0:33:22 > 0:33:25gypsy families, and our government spend a month-and-a-half
0:33:25 > 0:33:28leading a war on gypsies, dismantling gypsy camps
0:33:28 > 0:33:33because they cannot do anything about the economy so they were giving a hard times to the most
0:33:33 > 0:33:35fragile population in this country.
0:33:35 > 0:33:39It's really sophisticated art, it's really thought provoking,
0:33:39 > 0:33:42I'm just wondering whether you got a response
0:33:42 > 0:33:45where anyone's calling it vandalism still?
0:33:45 > 0:33:48I'll tell you this, the whole idea was to make a statement
0:33:48 > 0:33:51that they call us vandals but that's not what we are, you know,
0:33:51 > 0:33:52we are artists,
0:33:52 > 0:33:55I mean, I'm clear about that, at this age,
0:33:55 > 0:33:58I might not have been clear about it at 20 years old but now I am.
0:33:58 > 0:34:01But this is what the project is.
0:34:01 > 0:34:04For me, the beauty of this graffiti
0:34:04 > 0:34:08is that So What and friends were using a controversial building
0:34:08 > 0:34:10as a vehicle for protest.
0:34:10 > 0:34:13Not what I would call vandalism.
0:34:14 > 0:34:19This is incredibly relevant to what else we've been looking at.
0:34:19 > 0:34:22We've been looking at how in the 18th century people would transform,
0:34:22 > 0:34:24physically transform a sculpture,
0:34:24 > 0:34:27but they'd also talk about it in a different way,
0:34:27 > 0:34:30so you can take a symbol and transform it, my dear vandal.
0:34:30 > 0:34:33Exactly, exactly. Are you for a vandal?
0:34:34 > 0:34:38I'm delighted to have met a pair of vandals.
0:34:38 > 0:34:41- All right. Pleased to meet you.- Who I now think are ignorant barbarians(!)
0:34:41 > 0:34:46So What - what an astonishing name, So What.
0:34:46 > 0:34:52what I love about So What is that this incredibly avant garde graff artist
0:34:52 > 0:34:56sees this historical tradition and this historical tradition
0:34:56 > 0:35:00is like, I don't know,
0:35:00 > 0:35:04kind of part of the DNA of the culture of Paris,
0:35:04 > 0:35:08this culture of resistance, this culture of contestation,
0:35:08 > 0:35:13that just because you can afford to build the massive monument,
0:35:13 > 0:35:15like the Eiffel Tower,
0:35:15 > 0:35:18that doesn't mean that you are actually in control.
0:35:18 > 0:35:23Anyone who can hold a pen, a spray can, they have power, too.
0:35:25 > 0:35:29The Parisian ability to take a symbol like the statue of Louis XV,
0:35:29 > 0:35:34and turn it into a witty and cutting attack on the traitorous King
0:35:34 > 0:35:37is alive and well in the guise of So What.
0:35:37 > 0:35:42In the summer of 1792, at a public appearance,
0:35:42 > 0:35:46revolutionaries forced the shamed Louis XVI
0:35:46 > 0:35:49to wear a red revolutionary bonnet.
0:35:49 > 0:35:52Now it wasn't just royal statues that were being
0:35:52 > 0:35:57transformed and used for mockery, it was the King's own body.
0:35:57 > 0:36:00A man who'd once claimed to rule by divine right
0:36:00 > 0:36:06is now dangerously close to becoming an all too human target.
0:36:07 > 0:36:10On the 11th July 1792,
0:36:10 > 0:36:13the National Assembly declared the country to be in danger
0:36:13 > 0:36:15from Austrian invasion.
0:36:15 > 0:36:18Led by the radicals of the Commune,
0:36:18 > 0:36:22the people went after the King in the Tuilerie Palace.
0:36:22 > 0:36:27On the 10th August 1792, Parisians accompanied by National Guards
0:36:27 > 0:36:31from all of the sections of Paris, and by Marseilles troops
0:36:31 > 0:36:34who had marched all the way from Marseilles to protect Paris from
0:36:34 > 0:36:35Austrian invasion,
0:36:35 > 0:36:38stormed up the Tuilerie Palace gardens.
0:36:38 > 0:36:43Halfway down they faltered and Theroigne de Mericout, a woman,
0:36:43 > 0:36:47stood up and led the charge. The men, shamed by this leadership, followed
0:36:47 > 0:36:51her into a hail of musket fire from Swiss Guard.
0:36:51 > 0:36:54Despite the presence of close to 1,000 Swiss mercenaries
0:36:54 > 0:36:57the crowd won the day.
0:36:57 > 0:37:02By the end of that day, Swiss Guards bodies littered the palace gardens
0:37:02 > 0:37:04and the entirety of the palace.
0:37:04 > 0:37:06Almost to a man they were massacred.
0:37:06 > 0:37:11The people, once they got into the Louvre found the royal family cowering in the meeting
0:37:11 > 0:37:13room of the National Assembly.
0:37:13 > 0:37:19A debate opened up and the Assembly managed to calm down the invaders
0:37:19 > 0:37:21to a point where they were dispersing.
0:37:21 > 0:37:26But the next day it became clear that the conclusion of the National Assembly
0:37:26 > 0:37:28was they would simply suspend the monarchy.
0:37:28 > 0:37:32To the people of Paris this was not going to be good enough.
0:37:32 > 0:37:36What would happen the next day was the statues of kings would begin to topple.
0:37:38 > 0:37:39Before the revolution,
0:37:39 > 0:37:43royal power was asserted through statues of kings.
0:37:45 > 0:37:48It was backed up by the threat of violence.
0:37:50 > 0:37:52For these statues of kings,
0:37:52 > 0:37:56these are very specific representations of the monarch.
0:37:57 > 0:38:00He's enormous, he's herculean,
0:38:00 > 0:38:03he's in armour, he carries a martial baton,
0:38:03 > 0:38:09tiny little fleurs-de-lis all the way along it, he's a military leader.
0:38:09 > 0:38:15Behind the power of the king is the power to exert violence on his people
0:38:15 > 0:38:16if necessary.
0:38:17 > 0:38:20This is really about the power of the monarchy.
0:38:22 > 0:38:26Even today, you can find examples of the struggle to control the images
0:38:26 > 0:38:28around us.
0:38:33 > 0:38:35On a column in the centre of the city
0:38:35 > 0:38:40you can find a symbol of Napoleonic power, an eagle.
0:38:40 > 0:38:43Just below, the modern day artist Invader
0:38:43 > 0:38:45has added one of his creations.
0:38:47 > 0:38:52The weird thing is this witty, clever, quite sympathetic intervention in a public space
0:38:52 > 0:38:58is illegal, but that monstrosity, totally out of keeping with the city,
0:38:58 > 0:39:01Paris sponsored by Volkswagen, isn't illegal.
0:39:02 > 0:39:07So who does own the right to make meaning in public space with symbols?
0:39:07 > 0:39:12The space invader artist or global corporations?
0:39:12 > 0:39:17And on the 11th August, 1789, it wasn't images of corporate power
0:39:17 > 0:39:19that got attacked,
0:39:19 > 0:39:24but the detested royal statue of the King's grandfather, Louis XV.
0:39:25 > 0:39:29To actually topple a statue is no mean feat.
0:39:29 > 0:39:33Anybody who's seen the footage of the statue of Saddam Hussein
0:39:33 > 0:39:38being brought down by American Marines during the Gulf War
0:39:38 > 0:39:40will understand the scale of the task.
0:39:41 > 0:39:47There it took an armoured car several attempts to get the statue to the ground.
0:39:47 > 0:39:51So the Parisians are engaging in a complex engineering task.
0:39:51 > 0:39:57When they finally get the statue on to the floor they then begin to break it up, and actually
0:39:57 > 0:40:00that's an important gesture,
0:40:00 > 0:40:04because when the National Assembly give the official go ahead
0:40:04 > 0:40:06for this kind of unlicensed iconoclasm
0:40:06 > 0:40:13a couple of days later, they say the debris should be taken to the forge,
0:40:13 > 0:40:19melted down to create cannons to fire on the armies of kings.
0:40:19 > 0:40:23This is a material transformation of the statue.
0:40:23 > 0:40:25The statue itself is going to become
0:40:25 > 0:40:30a series of powerful, military symbols - cannons.
0:40:33 > 0:40:37Even the much-loved Henry IV was under threat of destruction.
0:40:40 > 0:40:44Come mid-August 1792, the statues of kings were toppling across the city,
0:40:44 > 0:40:50but the statue of Henry IV still sitting in the centre of the Pont Neuf.
0:40:50 > 0:40:53Parisians are trying to decide what they're to do with this much-loved
0:40:53 > 0:40:55statue of this much-loved king.
0:40:55 > 0:40:57Were they to pull down even the good King Henry,
0:40:57 > 0:41:00who they'd constructed as being a sympathiser of
0:41:00 > 0:41:02the revolution?
0:41:02 > 0:41:07In the end, they decided they would, the debris toppled.
0:41:07 > 0:41:12Mercier said, "It turns out it wasn't solid bronze after all.
0:41:12 > 0:41:20"They couldn't melt it down to form cannons, the statue is as hollow as the power of kings."
0:41:20 > 0:41:22Of course, you might be wondering why this statue
0:41:22 > 0:41:24is still here.
0:41:24 > 0:41:31This is an inferior copy, it's put up later by royalists after a kind of counter revolution.
0:41:31 > 0:41:32How very Parisian.
0:41:34 > 0:41:37The radical government of Paris, the Commune,
0:41:37 > 0:41:39becomes increasingly influential.
0:41:39 > 0:41:42The monarchy was abolished.
0:41:42 > 0:41:45From now on, members of the National Assembly,
0:41:45 > 0:41:50like Robespierre, were struggling to limit the Commune's power.
0:41:50 > 0:41:52All royal symbols were at risk,
0:41:52 > 0:41:55even those on the front of Paris's cathedral,
0:41:55 > 0:41:56Notre Dame.
0:41:58 > 0:42:01The facade of Notre Dame has been restored since,
0:42:01 > 0:42:06but in 1793 the statues of kings were annoying radicals
0:42:06 > 0:42:07and the government of Paris.
0:42:10 > 0:42:11Early September 1793,
0:42:11 > 0:42:15the controversy over the statues of kings at Notre Dame
0:42:15 > 0:42:17was reaching a boiling point.
0:42:17 > 0:42:23On 5th September the national convention had declared terror to be the order of the day,
0:42:23 > 0:42:27these were the original terrorists, self-proclaimed.
0:42:27 > 0:42:33Meanwhile, at Notre Dame, the radical sectionaires are saying why have we got these colossal statues of kings,
0:42:33 > 0:42:36still sitting on front of Notre Dame?
0:42:36 > 0:42:40Dougone, Francoise Dougone, a stonemason, and his team,
0:42:40 > 0:42:43come down to Notre Dame by order of the authorities
0:42:43 > 0:42:45and erect an enormous scaffold
0:42:45 > 0:42:48and they work their way along these statues of kings.
0:42:50 > 0:42:54His team got to work surgically chipping off the crowns and royal symbolism
0:42:54 > 0:42:57like fleurs-de-lis from the statues.
0:42:57 > 0:43:01But this wasn't enough, they had to come down.
0:43:02 > 0:43:05The noose is pulled round the neck of the statue
0:43:05 > 0:43:09and the statue is pulled down, and it crashes onto the pavement.
0:43:09 > 0:43:12And this is the major concern in the aftermath of each of
0:43:12 > 0:43:16these falling from that height for the revolutionary authorities -
0:43:16 > 0:43:18we've broken the pavement.
0:43:18 > 0:43:21The debris is piled up beside Notre Dame,
0:43:21 > 0:43:27where a contemporary diarist noticed it was being used as a toilet and it stank to high heaven.
0:43:27 > 0:43:31He says, "The sight of these objects, the smell of these objects
0:43:31 > 0:43:36"is disgusting, but it's not as awful as the smell of the past
0:43:36 > 0:43:37"that they represent."
0:43:37 > 0:43:39In a way, I think,
0:43:39 > 0:43:42he's playing with carnivalesque notions
0:43:42 > 0:43:44of the role of shit in culture.
0:43:44 > 0:43:49The funny thing about shit is, whether you're a soldier,
0:43:49 > 0:43:52a member of the people or you're a king, you all shit.
0:43:53 > 0:43:57But not all revolutionaries thought the statues were worthless.
0:43:57 > 0:44:01The heads were rescued and unofficially preserved for the future.
0:44:03 > 0:44:08The marks on them hold clues to what the revolutionaries were trying to achieve.
0:44:08 > 0:44:11In 1793, things hadn't been looking too good
0:44:11 > 0:44:13for the statues of kings,
0:44:13 > 0:44:16but the amazing thing is that in 1977,
0:44:16 > 0:44:20when building work starts on a bank, in the basement,
0:44:20 > 0:44:25discovered, wrapped in plaster are these remains
0:44:25 > 0:44:28of the heads of the statues of kings.
0:44:33 > 0:44:36This was a deliberate act of preservation.
0:44:36 > 0:44:40After all, these had been condemned as being grotesque gothics,
0:44:40 > 0:44:43which is to say, in very bad taste.
0:44:45 > 0:44:49What we see are some of the traces of the act of breaking.
0:44:51 > 0:44:54So all of these heads are missing their noses.
0:44:54 > 0:45:00Now, this seems too incredible a coincidence, did they all fall flat on their faces from the gallery
0:45:00 > 0:45:02when they hit the path at the outside of Notre Dame?
0:45:02 > 0:45:04I don't think so.
0:45:04 > 0:45:08Clues as to what was going on can be found in recent history, too.
0:45:08 > 0:45:12The cutting out of the faces on the images of despots by revolutionaries,
0:45:12 > 0:45:18like this defacing of the posters of Gaddafi - powerful political acts.
0:45:19 > 0:45:22Were they actively defaced afterwards,
0:45:22 > 0:45:27perhaps as they're lying beside Notre Dame being used as a public toilet?
0:45:27 > 0:45:29That actually seems plausible to me
0:45:29 > 0:45:32but is this an act of vandalism? I'm not so sure.
0:45:35 > 0:45:391793 saw more than the destruction of statues.
0:45:41 > 0:45:44Radicals like Robespierre within the National Assembly
0:45:44 > 0:45:46introduced a policy of terror,
0:45:46 > 0:45:51the arrest and execution of those unfaithful to the revolution.
0:45:53 > 0:45:56Here we are, back on the Place de la Concorde, the kind of beating heart
0:45:56 > 0:45:58of the terror in Paris.
0:45:58 > 0:46:02The beating heart as in the place where all the beating hearts were stopped.
0:46:02 > 0:46:05The real beating heart's probably the revolutionary tribunals
0:46:05 > 0:46:09which are sending people to the guillotine, sometimes with just 24 hours notice.
0:46:09 > 0:46:12But a guillotine was mounted here.
0:46:12 > 0:46:17The irony of having just across the river nowadays the Assemblee Nationale
0:46:17 > 0:46:19is pretty significant.
0:46:19 > 0:46:22But this square saw an awful lot of bloodshed.
0:46:27 > 0:46:29The famous Mr Guillotine.
0:46:32 > 0:46:36"A machine proposed to the Assembly Nationale,
0:46:36 > 0:46:41"for the punishment of criminals by Monsieur Guillotine."
0:46:41 > 0:46:44I think we all know how it works.
0:46:44 > 0:46:46It's quick, it's humane, it's enlightened,
0:46:46 > 0:46:53and it used to sit in the Place Louis XV.
0:46:53 > 0:46:56Finally, in early 1793,
0:46:56 > 0:46:59after being found guilty of treason against France,
0:46:59 > 0:47:02the King was executed.
0:47:02 > 0:47:07The statue of Louis XV had been toppled and it's directly
0:47:07 > 0:47:13opposite the empty pedestal that Louis XVI is executed
0:47:13 > 0:47:19on the 21st January 1793, and his head held up.
0:47:20 > 0:47:23With the destruction of the royals, the radicals within the government
0:47:23 > 0:47:27moved on to the other great power, the church.
0:47:28 > 0:47:32This attack on the church, known as de-Christianisation,
0:47:32 > 0:47:37would engulf the most cherished religious spaces of Paris.
0:47:37 > 0:47:41This comprehensive attack on Christian France began here at
0:47:41 > 0:47:43the great cathedral of Notre Dame.
0:47:44 > 0:47:49On 10th November 1793, radicals, from the Commune,
0:47:49 > 0:47:53decide to challenge the authority of God.
0:47:56 > 0:48:00In the autumn of 1793, a visitor to Notre Dame could have come in
0:48:00 > 0:48:03and happened upon the first ever festival of reason,
0:48:03 > 0:48:07and in coming to the crossing of the knave they might have seen
0:48:07 > 0:48:12a mountain, and on it an actress, an actress in a church,
0:48:12 > 0:48:18who when she died wouldn't even be worthy of being buried in church grounds because she was regarded
0:48:18 > 0:48:21as being tantamount to a prostitute.
0:48:21 > 0:48:25And this actress was playing the role of the deity of reason,
0:48:25 > 0:48:29in a ceremony that was a festival of reason.
0:48:30 > 0:48:34This is an extraordinary moment in the history of this church,
0:48:34 > 0:48:37its first day in a new life,
0:48:37 > 0:48:41not as a church but as a temple of reason.
0:48:43 > 0:48:48Notre Dame wasn't alone. Across Paris the great churches
0:48:48 > 0:48:52ceased to be Christian and they became temples of reason.
0:48:52 > 0:48:57Central to their new status was a state-sponsored campaign,
0:48:57 > 0:49:02the wholesale removal, alteration or destruction of religious symbols.
0:49:04 > 0:49:06On 5th September, 1793,
0:49:06 > 0:49:11the section finally got to hold its first festival of reason.
0:49:11 > 0:49:15Probably all of these chapels to the side were sealed off
0:49:15 > 0:49:18with drapery so you couldn't see the imagery and it's in the pulpit that
0:49:18 > 0:49:25a local sectionaire stands and says to his audience,
0:49:25 > 0:49:28"So, if this god exists,
0:49:28 > 0:49:31"why doesn't he strike me down right now with a bolt of thunder?"
0:49:33 > 0:49:38And then he gazed pregnantly at the ceiling, for a moment,
0:49:38 > 0:49:44and says, "There you go, no thunder, he doesn't exist."
0:49:44 > 0:49:49At the end of this ceremony, the whole of the section take two
0:49:49 > 0:49:54of the wooden statues and they process them to a local square,
0:49:54 > 0:49:55where they burn them.
0:50:04 > 0:50:09With God banished, next to go were the symbols and art.
0:50:09 > 0:50:13The sculptor who brought down the kings at Notre Dame, Dougone,
0:50:13 > 0:50:19worked on the 240-foot high towers of Saint-Sulpice.
0:50:19 > 0:50:23What was so important that it meant risking life and limb?
0:50:24 > 0:50:27Francois Dougone's time at Saint-Sulpice, eight weeks,
0:50:27 > 0:50:31involved making hundreds of changes to the symbolism of the church,
0:50:31 > 0:50:34but this work right outside is the first thing that
0:50:34 > 0:50:36revolutionaries visiting the space would have seen.
0:50:36 > 0:50:41Right over the main door, begins with this bas relief of Faith.
0:50:41 > 0:50:44Here Faith used to hold a chalice,
0:50:44 > 0:50:47but instead now she holds a flaming torch
0:50:47 > 0:50:49that symbolises the enlightenment
0:50:49 > 0:50:52that the visitor is going to receive inside.
0:50:52 > 0:50:56The little cherub beside her once held a cross.
0:50:56 > 0:50:59Now the cherub holds instead, fasces,
0:50:59 > 0:51:03fasces, that symbol of Roman unity,
0:51:03 > 0:51:04also Roman law and order,
0:51:04 > 0:51:09that eventually becomes the symbol that gives the name to fascists.
0:51:10 > 0:51:14In this bas relief, the cherub to the left, this time the cross
0:51:14 > 0:51:19has been turned into a sword, a kind of military symbol, surely.
0:51:21 > 0:51:26So the real work of Dougone began once he got inside the church.
0:51:26 > 0:51:29All of these trophies that line the knave high up,
0:51:29 > 0:51:33that are now blank, re-sculptured by Dougone,
0:51:33 > 0:51:35working at this vast height on scaffolding
0:51:35 > 0:51:39that his team had brought to the church and assembled there.
0:51:40 > 0:51:44But working on the high ceiling was just the beginning.
0:51:44 > 0:51:46Dougone and his team had to go even higher.
0:51:51 > 0:51:54This graffiti here,
0:51:54 > 0:51:56we're on the way to the chapel of the students
0:51:56 > 0:51:58and its Saint Sulpician priests.
0:52:01 > 0:52:03Oh great, it's getting narrower(!)
0:52:08 > 0:52:121967, somebody last came up here.
0:52:17 > 0:52:19We're running out of graffiti.
0:52:19 > 0:52:23This is it, people lose the will to write as they get to this altitude,
0:52:23 > 0:52:27perhaps I'm not the only person who's afraid of heights!
0:52:27 > 0:52:31Above the knave, the interior of the church is covered in graffiti.
0:52:31 > 0:52:35I just can't resist looking for a hastily scrawled "Dougone was here".
0:52:39 > 0:52:44Who are these men who took the time to carve their names
0:52:44 > 0:52:47into this wall, at this height?
0:52:47 > 0:52:50Is that a revolutionary?
0:52:50 > 0:52:511808...
0:52:53 > 0:52:561859,
0:52:56 > 0:52:591830 - the year of the revolution.
0:53:02 > 0:53:06Dougone didn't leave his signature behind, it seems.
0:53:06 > 0:53:10At a height of about 200 feet, I reach the bells -
0:53:10 > 0:53:14even these didn't escape the revolution.
0:53:14 > 0:53:19Wow, the bells - they're all new. During the revolution
0:53:19 > 0:53:21they were all pulled down, all but one of them,
0:53:21 > 0:53:25to turn them into thousands and thousands of coins, each bearing
0:53:25 > 0:53:30the symbol of the republic, for distribution around the country.
0:53:30 > 0:53:32That's transformation of symbols.
0:53:36 > 0:53:41At 240 feet in the air, I can get a sense of the lengths
0:53:41 > 0:53:44Dougone and his team were going to in their roles
0:53:44 > 0:53:46as revolutionary iconoclasts.
0:53:53 > 0:53:56So Dougone, in his report for the work he did at Saint Sulpice,
0:53:56 > 0:54:00said, "I was working at a really prodigious height,
0:54:00 > 0:54:02"and the weather was appalling."
0:54:02 > 0:54:06And this is kind of why he charged so much, now I'm up here
0:54:06 > 0:54:10I kind of understand what he means, and his team must have been
0:54:10 > 0:54:14hanging off here with ropes to chip out the church's signs
0:54:14 > 0:54:17that are just beneath where I'm standing on this tower.
0:54:17 > 0:54:21They must have been working in a similar way on the floor down,
0:54:21 > 0:54:25where the bells are, going outside of the safety of the walls
0:54:25 > 0:54:27to alter the statues.
0:54:28 > 0:54:31Yeah, they were charging a lot of money,
0:54:31 > 0:54:33but even taking account for inflation as they were,
0:54:33 > 0:54:37I kind of think they probably deserved the danger money.
0:54:39 > 0:54:41Dougone might have been an entrepreneur,
0:54:41 > 0:54:44but he was clearly a committed revolutionary.
0:54:44 > 0:54:49Between 1793 and 1794, like other teams of masons,
0:54:49 > 0:54:53he transformed the churches across Paris.
0:54:53 > 0:54:56But the deeply engrained Catholicism of the French people
0:54:56 > 0:54:58was hard to wipe out.
0:54:59 > 0:55:03Robespierre, one of the architects of the terror, realised that the
0:55:03 > 0:55:08revolutionary assembly had allowed the Cult of Reason to go too far.
0:55:08 > 0:55:12In 1794, after executing those responsible,
0:55:12 > 0:55:15he launched a new cult, with a new God.
0:55:17 > 0:55:21On the 8th June 1794, Parisians were invited to
0:55:21 > 0:55:26an enormous festival for a new cult, it was the Cult of the Supreme Being.
0:55:26 > 0:55:29And this festival is to celebrate it - they get to see
0:55:29 > 0:55:33this incredible spectacle, this enormous mountain
0:55:33 > 0:55:37built on the Champs du Mars, and then a massive column,
0:55:37 > 0:55:40which is probably made of paper mache
0:55:40 > 0:55:43and on top of it, an enormous figure of Hercules,
0:55:43 > 0:55:46symbolising the power of the people.
0:55:46 > 0:55:52Yet within just six weeks, this cult was in its last throes.
0:55:52 > 0:55:58Within six weeks, Robespierre himself had been arrested,
0:55:58 > 0:56:01by the very members of the convention who had processed with him
0:56:01 > 0:56:03up the Montagne.
0:56:03 > 0:56:08Members who were increasingly worried that it was chop, chop, chop
0:56:08 > 0:56:12for them as government guillotined them.
0:56:12 > 0:56:18They turned on Robespierre, arrested him, and on the 28th July 1794,
0:56:18 > 0:56:21Robespierre, realising he was cornered,
0:56:21 > 0:56:25tried to shoot himself - simply blowing off his jaw.
0:56:25 > 0:56:2924 hours later he was dead,
0:56:29 > 0:56:34and the Cult of the Supreme Being was dead with him.
0:56:36 > 0:56:37After Robespierre's death,
0:56:37 > 0:56:41the revolutionary Cult of the Supreme Being fell away -
0:56:41 > 0:56:46the people were eager for an end to such radicalism.
0:56:49 > 0:56:54As the assembly fought for control in the aftermath of Robespierre's death,
0:56:54 > 0:56:59an upwardly mobile young general took control of power for himself.
0:56:59 > 0:57:01His name was Napoleon,
0:57:01 > 0:57:05but his coup didn't lead to democracy and equality for all.
0:57:05 > 0:57:09By 1815, Napoleon himself had fallen from power.
0:57:11 > 0:57:14And the royals had returned, rebuilding the statue
0:57:14 > 0:57:19of good old Henry IV on the Pont Neuf, built from the recycled bronze
0:57:19 > 0:57:23of a statue of one of Napoleon's favourite generals.
0:57:23 > 0:57:27It just goes to show, the battle over who controls these symbols of power
0:57:27 > 0:57:31on the streets of Paris has never really ended.
0:57:33 > 0:57:35Just like Parisians of the French revolution,
0:57:35 > 0:57:38from the moment that we step outside of our doors,
0:57:38 > 0:57:43we're in a world of images and symbols that demand our attention
0:57:43 > 0:57:47and even our loyalty, but we have to realise that these symbols
0:57:47 > 0:57:52shape our world and the way that we understand it and imagine it.
0:57:52 > 0:57:55The French Revolution shows us
0:57:55 > 0:57:58that those who control our symbolic world
0:57:58 > 0:58:00can never take their power for granted -
0:58:00 > 0:58:05there's always somebody who's willing to scrawl on a symbol,
0:58:05 > 0:58:07to pull it down, to smash it up,
0:58:07 > 0:58:10to smear it with shit, to set it on fire
0:58:10 > 0:58:14or to make subtle and creative changes to it,
0:58:14 > 0:58:17that create a new symbol.
0:58:17 > 0:58:19As Picasso taught us,
0:58:19 > 0:58:24the act of creation is always first and foremost an act of destruction.