Speaker 1: Everyone says like I could never join a cult, like
Speaker 1: I would never fall for that, in say, I'm too you.
Speaker 2: Would.
Speaker 3: I really love friendly groups. I love cooking.
Speaker 4: I love it when people are like trying to help
Speaker 4: each other actualize their dreams. And I like it when
Speaker 4: people like are dedicated to each other. And a lot
Speaker 4: of times cults are like non violent, except I don't
Speaker 4: like having to be naked in a group of people,
Speaker 4: and I don't like having to do like oral sex
Speaker 4: to like the head of the cults.
Speaker 2: That is, that's called bylaws.
Speaker 5: There's usually some guy, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: Welcome to SNAPO, the show about history's greatest screw ups.
Speaker 1: I'm at Helms, and more specifically, this is a show
Speaker 1: where we look at mishaps from history and wonder, oh,
Speaker 1: what what does this say about humanity? And I always
Speaker 1: bring along a very exciting guest. Today I'm joined by
Speaker 1: one of my dear friends. She's an actress, a writer,
Speaker 1: a comedian. She's been in so many incredible shows and
Speaker 1: movies like Its Borderline Annoying, just to name a few.
Speaker 1: Obvious child Zootopia Gifted Everything everywhere, all at once, and
Speaker 1: Emmy nominee for Dying for Sex with Michelle Williams, an
Speaker 1: Oscar nominee for Marcel Michelle.
Speaker 2: She's the author of two fabulous.
Speaker 1: Books, Little Weirds and Life Form, and she recently launched
Speaker 1: her own podcast called I Need You Guys with Gabe
Speaker 1: Leadman and Max Silvestri. Please welcome, be Amazing. Jenny Slate, Hi, Hi,
Speaker 1: ed Hello. We were neighbors for a short time here
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. I've known you her for a long
Speaker 1: long time, but then at some point in that you
Speaker 1: also were our neighbor, and my family began to call
Speaker 1: U Kramer because because of your wacky interests.
Speaker 4: And also because it was like there wasn't a lot
Speaker 4: keeping me out, you know, like Kramer's always kind of
Speaker 4: busting through the door with some sort of really interesting concept.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure I had those interesting concepts, but I
Speaker 4: was coming through the door with big, you know, big
Speaker 4: energy in my hair and really coming over a lot.
Speaker 1: And it was a full open door policy for Kram
Speaker 1: or Slate to just come on in whenever she wanted.
Speaker 2: I missed those days.
Speaker 4: I do too, I really do, and I will say
Speaker 4: that I feel that we're making up for it. As
Speaker 4: we were talking about earlier, but the fact that we
Speaker 4: now have become people who celebrate Thanksgiving together, not in
Speaker 4: Los Angeles at all, but it's just like something we
Speaker 4: do and it's really I love it so much.
Speaker 3: I just love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too, I'm very grateful for that. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: we won't invite the world into our too deeply into
Speaker 1: our private lives. But I'm so excited for your podcast
Speaker 1: with Gabe and Max, who I also know and a door. Yes,
Speaker 1: obviously it's a very crowded space now. I'm now in
Speaker 1: the fourth season of Snafu. I'm like trying to box
Speaker 1: out everyone I can from also joining the podcast space
Speaker 1: because we need all the listeners we can get. So
Speaker 1: what are you doing? You're horning in on this format.
Speaker 1: But also congratulations and I'm excited for you.
Speaker 2: And what is it.
Speaker 4: We we have a joke that it's like it's only
Speaker 4: it took us only sixteen years to finally do a podcast.
Speaker 3: It just took us so long.
Speaker 4: Like every other comedian in the world has had a
Speaker 4: podcast for many years now, and we just like, I
Speaker 4: don't know, what can I say. We like to chill,
Speaker 4: but Gabe and Max and I I don't know, fifteen
Speaker 4: years ago really started a stand up show in New York.
Speaker 3: First it was in Manhattan at Rafifi.
Speaker 4: In the East Village, and then it was in Williamsburg,
Speaker 4: and we finally got our act together to do what
Speaker 4: we kind of do on stage just on a podcast,
Speaker 4: which is that like on in our stand up show.
Speaker 4: We always started the stand up show with a Q
Speaker 4: and A like before anyone had any questions about our material.
Speaker 3: We would just ask random questions and it was really fun.
Speaker 4: And so now basically our podcast is like it's kind
Speaker 4: of like making our group chat live. It's called I
Speaker 4: Need You guys, because we don't live in the same
Speaker 4: places anymore and we still talk every day and we
Speaker 4: need each other. So we'll bring questions to each other
Speaker 4: about our lives and then we have a friend. Usually
Speaker 4: it's a comedian come and answer, like an etiquette etiquette etiquette.
Speaker 3: It's like, I'm not reading copy.
Speaker 4: I don't need to, you know, miss miss misspeak, like
Speaker 4: a question.
Speaker 3: About etiquette at a quite edi.
Speaker 1: Quite so, just so our listeners know this podcast is out,
Speaker 1: it is you can you can get into it right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: It's really it's kind of like sitting at a dinner
Speaker 4: table with friends.
Speaker 3: It's just a nice, easy, funny easy listen.
Speaker 2: All right, are you ready to snap woo?
Speaker 3: I'm ready to snaph.
Speaker 2: Let's do it. We're going to jump into this.
Speaker 1: We're going to adventure all the way back to seventeen
Speaker 1: ninety one. It was a tough year to be a
Speaker 1: French guy named Louis, especially if you were Louis the sixteenth,
Speaker 1: the French King. So today's topic is the French Revolution.
Speaker 1: Now I'd love to cover the whole thing, but that
Speaker 1: would take at least ten podcasts and like a gallon
Speaker 1: of espresso and a PhD in guillotine technology. So instead,
Speaker 1: we're going to just zoom in on this one really
Speaker 1: tiny but absolutely bonkers episode within the French Revolution, the
Speaker 1: Royal escape attempt that went spectacularly wrong. It's sneaky, it
Speaker 1: is suspenseful, and it turned out to be a massive
Speaker 1: turning point in the entire revolution.
Speaker 2: This is the flight to Vahren. Are you ready?
Speaker 4: Hell?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Man?
Speaker 4: This is so cool. Yeah, expecting to learn so much.
Speaker 4: And you know, I love French stuff.
Speaker 2: What is it you're like about French stuff?
Speaker 3: I love all the jewels that I just stole from
Speaker 3: the Louver. I love the crown. I got.
Speaker 4: I super bummed that I dropped out of the crown,
Speaker 4: but I love like the necklaces and stuff.
Speaker 1: All Right, A quick crash course on the French Revolution
Speaker 1: before we get to our main event here. It all
Speaker 1: started because France was basically broke. The peasants were starving,
Speaker 1: and the monarchy was still out there throwing lavish parties.
Speaker 1: Picture an episode of Succession where they all go to
Speaker 1: a rave and powdered wigs. So the French people were
Speaker 1: just finally like enough, this is enough, and they stormed
Speaker 1: the bast deal and they decided maybe government shouldn't be
Speaker 1: run exclusively by rich douchebags.
Speaker 2: Good good policy.
Speaker 1: I feel like that have any rich douchebags like historically
Speaker 1: have they have any of them nailed it?
Speaker 3: Not that I can.
Speaker 4: I can currently think of. No one's coming to mind
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 2: Oh it's rough. It's rough out there for the populations
Speaker 2: run by rich.
Speaker 3: Duchemann, it's not great.
Speaker 2: We'll cut to a couple of.
Speaker 1: Years later and now, and the revolutionaries have taken power
Speaker 1: and King Louis the sixteenth, Marie Antoinette and their kids
Speaker 1: are basically grounded. They're under house arrest, in the Tuiiri
Speaker 1: Palace in the heart of Paris, and the revolutionaries are
Speaker 1: frantically trying to reinvent their entire system of government, which
Speaker 1: is no small task. Marie Antoinette, of course famous for
Speaker 1: the phrase let them eat cake, darn it, which is
Speaker 1: a very rude thing to say when people are starving
Speaker 1: and they can't get can't get bread.
Speaker 3: I know, but I don't think she said that.
Speaker 2: She didn't know.
Speaker 3: I read this book that says she did not say that.
Speaker 3: You know, she didn't say that.
Speaker 2: She didn't say it.
Speaker 3: Yo, she didn't say that.
Speaker 4: If you're gonna come at me like that, like, she
Speaker 4: did not say that, like check check your fat.
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: I was going to all smarty pants and be like,
Speaker 1: but she did it, and you jumped on that.
Speaker 2: And kudos to you for knowing that.
Speaker 1: It originally appeared in Jean Jacques Rousseau's Confessions, which he
Speaker 1: wrote in seventeen sixty six. Marie Antoinette was ten years
Speaker 1: old and she was living in Austria, so obviously, so
Speaker 1: it's early seventeen ninety one. This is before the revolution
Speaker 1: had gone full just like guillotine chopping everybody's heads off,
Speaker 1: and France is now experimenting with this brand new idea,
Speaker 1: the constitutional monarchy, where the king will share power with
Speaker 1: the population. And spoiler alert, King Louis did not like this.
Speaker 1: He was not a fan. The people were rising up
Speaker 1: and he was feeling very threatened by all of this.
Speaker 1: So by June of that year, the revolutionaries were finishing
Speaker 1: up their shiny new constitution codifying all of this, and
Speaker 1: King Louis, ever the people pleaser, was out there pretending
Speaker 1: to be totally chill about it. He was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's have parliament run things. I'll just be like a figurehead,
Speaker 1: a decorative monarch, a bit of a like just a
Speaker 1: human chandelier, if you will, hanging over over France. And this,
Speaker 1: of course is right after the actual American Revolution, and
Speaker 1: it does it just raises I don't know, it raises
Speaker 1: this interesting philosophical question for me, Like, oppressed people very
Speaker 1: often rise up at a certain they reach a breaking
Speaker 1: point and they rise up, and then they either choose,
Speaker 1: as the sort of American Revolution and the French revolution,
Speaker 1: that option was democracy or like a representative government like
Speaker 1: down with these bully kings, or the other option is
Speaker 1: an oppressed population will sort of like rise up and
Speaker 1: elevate a strong man who is essentially a cam of sorts,
Speaker 1: And why do you think that happens? I think the
Speaker 1: strong man version is actually more common, and it speaks
Speaker 1: to like something in the human condition or we just
Speaker 1: as free.
Speaker 2: I'm too messy? Is it too complicated or too scary?
Speaker 3: You know what I think it is? I mean not
Speaker 3: to be like so self.
Speaker 4: Serious, but I actually think it has to do with
Speaker 4: like fear and trauma. The American Revolution, It's like a
Speaker 4: lot of those people were like wealthy landowners who were
Speaker 4: like we don't want King George, you know, like we
Speaker 4: want to do our own thing. They weren't really like
Speaker 4: we the people rising up, like they were like wealthy,
Speaker 4: you know, and and and then they they took like
Speaker 4: their education and their wealth and they like made you know,
Speaker 4: a democracy. But like if you're just like traumatized and
Speaker 4: frightened and you you're starving, like of course you're going
Speaker 4: to be like bada and just like replace a bad
Speaker 4: dad with what seems like a good dad, like you know,
Speaker 4: just one thing out of time, let's just get this
Speaker 4: guy or you know, I guess occasionally a lady, but
Speaker 4: it's kind of all it's like always the man, get
Speaker 4: this guy out of here, and like, I think, I
Speaker 4: think new Dad is actually going to be like nice Dad.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't know. That's that's my take on it.
Speaker 3: But you know, I'm a professional clown, not a historian.
Speaker 3: It's just how I feel.
Speaker 2: I think that's a very very sharp take. Well, well
Speaker 2: said King Louis.
Speaker 1: At this point, he's he's kind of kind of freaking out,
Speaker 1: and he's kind of stuck in the middle, pretending everything's
Speaker 1: fine and pretending like he has value and has power,
Speaker 1: but he's he's seeing it all slip away. So he
Speaker 1: and and he's feeling threatened. Also, he's feeling like his
Speaker 1: life and his family are very much in danger now
Speaker 1: in this in the middle of Paris. So he hatches
Speaker 1: this plan. They're going to slip out of Paris. They're
Speaker 1: going to meet up with loyal troops near the border
Speaker 1: and stage a royal comeback, but first they must escape Paris.
Speaker 2: And thus begins the flight to Varen.
Speaker 4: Wow, Okay, can I just ask, like, during this time
Speaker 4: when he's stuck in, when they're stuck in there, is
Speaker 4: he still you know, having like three glazed gooses a day,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, Like he's still having those
Speaker 4: like crazy elaborate meals and wearing the stuff, just like
Speaker 4: doing all that stuff. Is he still just like all
Speaker 4: procedures are still those like three hour baths or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, a three hour bath with three glazed gooses. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my sense of it, And keep in mind, I'm very
Speaker 1: much falling into the amateur historian category, but my sense
Speaker 1: of it is that this is a scaled back version
Speaker 1: of that. So in Versailles it was a mess, Like
Speaker 1: it was so decadent, the parties, all of the insanity
Speaker 1: leading up to this, right, there had been protest march
Speaker 1: where they actually grabbed the royal family and marched them
Speaker 1: to Paris. And this was a very humbling experience. And
Speaker 1: so yes, they are still in a palace, they're still
Speaker 1: technically royalty. They're still trying to hash out this shared
Speaker 1: leadership idea, the constitutional monarchy, so they're still acting like
Speaker 1: a king and queen. And so I do think there
Speaker 1: are glazed gooses in the mix, and there are crowns
Speaker 1: and fancy attire, but it's not quite what it was
Speaker 1: very recently in Versailles. They've been humbled and they're now scared.
Speaker 3: Okay, got it.
Speaker 1: So the plan they hatch is quite bold. It's like
Speaker 1: total cloak and dagger stuff. Louis was planned to be
Speaker 1: disguised as a valet, Marie as a governess, and they
Speaker 1: would they were posing as the entourage of this fake
Speaker 1: Russian baron and they would slip out of Paris in
Speaker 1: the dark of night, then of course link up with
Speaker 1: their loyal troops and spark a royal comeback. This is
Speaker 1: in theory a flawless plan, but in reality it turned
Speaker 1: into a train wreck or as we will soon see,
Speaker 1: a carriage wreck of sorts. This elaborate plan, it's very
Speaker 1: like I said, it's cloak and daggery. It starts to
Speaker 1: fall apart immediately. The palace made notice the family packing,
Speaker 1: and then it starts asking weird questions like what's going on.
Speaker 1: They have that detachment from reality where they still feel
Speaker 1: like they have to bring like crazy amounts of royal
Speaker 1: luggage and.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, that situation where you're like so rich,
Speaker 4: you don't know anything. It's like, just get out of here, man, Yeah,
Speaker 4: just don't pack a trunk. You don't need your like
Speaker 4: silver bugle or whatever, and like all your pantaloons, like,
Speaker 4: just get out.
Speaker 2: I mean, the silver bugle might come in handy.
Speaker 3: You don't get a bed pad, you don't get it.
Speaker 3: What do they call it? A little the thing that
Speaker 3: you don't get.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go. You would have been such a
Speaker 2: better Marie Antoinette.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: This delays them like to a day or two.
Speaker 1: And there are as part of the plan, of course,
Speaker 1: there are loyal soldiers, you know, soldiers that are still
Speaker 1: loyal to the king that are supposed to meet up
Speaker 1: with them along the route, and they've been stationed in
Speaker 1: these villages. But when the king isn't showing up, they're
Speaker 1: just these soldiers in these towns, and that's raising questions.
Speaker 1: The peasantry is getting real antsy and like what are
Speaker 1: all these soldiers doing here? This does not feel chill.
Speaker 1: It kind of feels like the National Guard like marching
Speaker 1: into like a normal city, like what people People are
Speaker 1: excited and it upsets people.
Speaker 4: That would be really disconcerting and wrong and feel like
Speaker 4: maybe it's illegal or waiting for a judge to.
Speaker 1: Say I mean yeah, so that's the same vibe going
Speaker 1: on in in these villages, and that wasn't the only delay.
Speaker 1: So it's finally time to ski daddle, and now the
Speaker 1: commander of the Palace guard has decided it's the perfect
Speaker 1: time for like an hour's long chit chat with the king.
Speaker 1: Fun fact, the commander of the guards was none other.
Speaker 2: Than the Marquis de la Fayette, who.
Speaker 1: Played a huge role in the American Revolution and now
Speaker 1: he's back home.
Speaker 2: Yeah this is from Hamilton.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, I haven't actually seen Hamilton, but I
Speaker 4: guess I should know that just because of like history.
Speaker 3: I don't. It's I don't. I just I don't. I
Speaker 3: don't go to a lot of plays.
Speaker 2: This is over. This is over.
Speaker 4: I know, I know, I like, I don't know why
Speaker 4: I admit it that. I just I swear to God,
Speaker 4: like I haven't. I don't think I've ever been to
Speaker 4: a Broadway.
Speaker 2: Are you serious? I'm taking it.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I was supposed to go see Waiting for GOODO
Speaker 4: like two weeks ago, and our daughter got sick.
Speaker 3: So we didn't.
Speaker 2: So you're still waiting to see Waiting for GOODO.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you're still him.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 3: I didn't know if they found him.
Speaker 4: But yeah, no, I just like for a while when
Speaker 4: I lived in New York and I was a student.
Speaker 3: I didn't have enough, like I don't have the extra.
Speaker 2: Money to go to Broadway, and then time.
Speaker 3: I just gave up, and then I don't know anyway.
Speaker 1: The Marquisa Lafayette is played masterfully by Dovey Diggs.
Speaker 3: Oh cool.
Speaker 1: The Marquisa Lafyette is a fascinating he deserves his own podcast.
Speaker 1: He like basically went to America and was like, hey,
Speaker 1: George Washington, I'm here to help. I just think your
Speaker 1: whole cause is awesome. He was a major force in
Speaker 1: the American Revolution. Then he went back to France and
Speaker 1: now he's sympathetic with the revolutionaries in France, and he's
Speaker 1: been put in charge of keeping an eye on King Louis,
Speaker 1: And of course they have a very professional but fraught
Speaker 1: relationship because he's guarding him essentially from the mobs, but
Speaker 1: also from escaping or from so anyway, they have a
Speaker 1: long chat, but it delays the escape even further. Now,
Speaker 1: despite all the delays, King Louis is still rare and
Speaker 1: to go, and they sneak out down a back staircase
Speaker 1: of the palace and here's where just the sort of
Speaker 1: like cartoon mistape.
Speaker 3: He missed us.
Speaker 1: Begin like this is where it becomes like Keystone cops.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: So the original had called for fast carriages, right, they
Speaker 1: would get into like a little clump of carriages and
Speaker 1: be on their way. But this did not sit well
Speaker 1: with Marie Antoinette. She wanted to keep the family together,
Speaker 1: which is understandable. If they got separated it could get scary.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately this also changed the entire journey because they
Speaker 1: wound up in this enormous carriage. So the coach itself
Speaker 1: was a loaner from Axel von Farson. The younger who
Speaker 1: happened to be this is debated, but many think he
Speaker 1: was actually Marie Antoinette's dashing Swedish lover. What is documented
Speaker 1: is he sent her tons of flowers over the years.
Speaker 1: We have an artistic rendering of Axle here. Let's take
Speaker 1: a gander at this this guy.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, look at those peepers. Yeah right, I mean
Speaker 3: what not sure? I'm not sure what I think.
Speaker 4: The person that painted his picture did a pretty weird job.
Speaker 4: It looks like he looks like you know when sometimes
Speaker 4: people wear those George Washington masks, like like they have
Speaker 4: George Washington. You have your own face on the bottom,
Speaker 4: and then you like put George Washington over your like
Speaker 4: you know where a raccoon mask would be.
Speaker 3: Those look like two different faces.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, you're right.
Speaker 1: But what I do love about this he's so smug,
Speaker 1: Like he's like so smarmy and like you can get
Speaker 1: like the sex appeal of someone like that.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, you could.
Speaker 2: Get lost in those eyebrows.
Speaker 4: That's a look of placid, perverted, deliberate entitlement.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he just does not care.
Speaker 1: This carriage was massive and extremely conspicuous. One historian called
Speaker 1: the paint job quite eye catching, yellow and black or golden,
Speaker 1: and there were three bodyguards also dressed in jaunty clothes. Basically,
Speaker 1: in today's terms, this would be like a limousine painted
Speaker 1: like a bumblebee. This is kind of a picture. On
Speaker 1: top of the pain job, that the carriage itself was
Speaker 1: so heavy that it required frequent stops to change horses.
Speaker 1: And this is this is where King Louis got himself
Speaker 1: into even more trouble because King Louie believed that the
Speaker 1: people of Paris obviously were against him, the mobs were rallying,
Speaker 1: but he still thought that the country folk that people
Speaker 1: out in the countryside were royalists and supported him, so
Speaker 1: he would actually get out and start chatting people up
Speaker 1: and just kind of like being totally transparent.
Speaker 2: Like was up, everybody, it's your king, high five. Oh
Speaker 2: this was not smart.
Speaker 1: And even when they were rolling along, apparently he would
Speaker 1: like hang his head out the carriage window and just
Speaker 1: be like, what's up, it's me your fabulous dream. He
Speaker 1: kind of felt like he was the Beatles in the sixties.
Speaker 1: And I'm just I just I don't know if this
Speaker 1: was savvy. This feels like ego getting in the way
Speaker 1: of good judgment.
Speaker 4: USh, what a dumb dumb like his whoever were his
Speaker 4: like devoted handlers must have just been like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: just try to keep him inside the thing. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 4: kid doesn't get it. He doesn't really get it, you know.
Speaker 1: I think there is something like when we see that
Speaker 1: a lot of these tech titans today, you know that
Speaker 1: that have so much wealth and so much power and
Speaker 1: access there, does their behavior does start to betray Like
Speaker 1: you don't really know what's going on in the world,
Speaker 1: and you don't even really know how people behave anymore,
Speaker 1: Like you're clearly detached from a sense of like normal
Speaker 1: decorum or just normal kind of like people interface.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, like no sense of like what sort of
Speaker 4: on the ground risk looks like like in a social
Speaker 4: slash relational way, it's like, hey, whoa like a lot
Speaker 4: of us would not do that. You shouldn't do that
Speaker 4: thing that you just did, really weird touch.
Speaker 1: The royal family was just to be a little more specific,
Speaker 1: they were heading to mont medi, which is a fortress
Speaker 1: town near today's Belgium, and that is where Louis was
Speaker 1: hoping to regroup and then negotiate safely with the French
Speaker 1: National Assembly. But when they reached their first rendezvous point
Speaker 1: to meet up with loyal soldiers who would hopefully escort them,
Speaker 1: no one was there, of course, because they had waited
Speaker 1: and waited and the things had gotten weird with the villagers,
Speaker 1: and the soldiers had left definitely giving like Griswold family
Speaker 1: arriving at wally World vibes just like nothing, there's nothing there,
Speaker 1: just maybe John Candy in a security guard outfit and
Speaker 1: that's all you get. These soldiers that all figure the
Speaker 1: plan was off and they didn't want to hang around
Speaker 1: and like raise more friction with all these villagers and
Speaker 1: so they'd just taken off. I personally don't blame them.
Speaker 1: That feels like they were in a very awkward position.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, this giant bumblebee carriage had to stop and
Speaker 1: change horses yet again. And of course Louie is out
Speaker 1: peacocking around and naturally he's spotted by people who are
Speaker 1: recognizing him, and unfortunately he's also spotted by.
Speaker 2: People who don't actually support him.
Speaker 4: Wow, and they're bold, right, Like, I bet they're really
Speaker 4: really angry.
Speaker 3: Also, where are they getting the horses?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: Where are they? Where are the horse people leave?
Speaker 4: Yes, because it's like if the soldiers left, Like it's
Speaker 4: super weird for the horse reinforcements to stay.
Speaker 1: Well, but horse reinforcement people they're not going to raise
Speaker 1: any eyebrows, Like that's just part of eighteenth century logistics, right,
Speaker 1: there's just always horses and people like taking care of horses.
Speaker 3: They're totally they're flush with horses.
Speaker 4: I get it, But it's just weird that if they're
Speaker 4: all on the same operation, why can't a horse person
Speaker 4: be like, wait, wait, I know you guys, I feel
Speaker 4: uncomfortable here, but just stay because he is coming, Like.
Speaker 3: Or did they not? I mean know, that they were
Speaker 3: all part of something.
Speaker 1: Well, here's another thing I don't know about horse logistics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if if you pre plan all your horse changes, or
Speaker 1: if it's more like a gas station and you just
Speaker 1: stop and you're like, hey, can we trade you these
Speaker 1: like travel horses for your fresh horses?
Speaker 3: I bet it was that. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I bet they're just going being like, give me a
Speaker 4: gi give me the horse, like give it, give me
Speaker 4: your horse right now. We need it.
Speaker 3: We can't say why.
Speaker 4: But then the king would be like popping out of
Speaker 4: that royal.
Speaker 3: Like Rolly Polly popping out with mustard on his.
Speaker 2: Face in there.
Speaker 3: Geez, get back in the bumblebee, louis all right.
Speaker 1: Well, one of the people who recognized them was a
Speaker 1: postman who was furious that the king was escaping and
Speaker 1: jumped on his horse and dashed ahead of the carriage
Speaker 1: to the town of Varenn, which is only thirty miles
Speaker 1: from their final destination of Malmetti. It's so close. This
Speaker 1: guy got to Varenn ahead of them. He warned the town,
Speaker 1: and of course, so when the carriage rolled in u
Speaker 1: there was a roadblock and all of the local officials
Speaker 1: and guardsmen. They were out to snag the king. Oh
Speaker 1: and they surrounded the carriage and the royal escape was over?
Speaker 3: Oh my god?
Speaker 4: And were they dressed as a governess and a what
Speaker 4: was the other guy was? What was the king going
Speaker 4: to be?
Speaker 1: He was going to be a valet, But it seems
Speaker 1: like he had a real hard time with that role,
Speaker 1: Like not only did he have no idea how a
Speaker 1: valet should be, a he probably was like these clothes
Speaker 1: are very uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, can I just wear my royal robe?
Speaker 1: Just? I mean, just, I mean, I'll still pretend to
Speaker 1: be a vout if anyone asks me, but I just
Speaker 1: need to be comfortable.
Speaker 3: Comfortable. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Wow, it's so stressful that they went in that big carriage.
Speaker 1: It does reek of just a total misunderstanding, a misreading,
Speaker 1: a sort of like like I'm with you, like going
Speaker 1: back to just the prep, like don't pack.
Speaker 2: Just by the way.
Speaker 1: They're going to Austria, which is where Marie Antoinette is from.
Speaker 1: Her brother is the king of Austria, so like they're
Speaker 1: gonna be fine, just get there.
Speaker 4: It doesn't make any sense, but you're right that it
Speaker 4: does make sense when it's like they're.
Speaker 3: Really they're feeling fear, a fear.
Speaker 4: That feels serious and that they're probably not used to feeling,
Speaker 4: but they can't exactly make them like sort of like
Speaker 4: cognitive leap, like the understanding to realize that that fear
Speaker 4: is also because a context has completely changed and they're
Speaker 4: still like operating in the old context. And that is
Speaker 4: really that's kind of like a lesson for all of us.
Speaker 4: It's like you actually just have to do a bunch
Speaker 4: of really new stuff, like just drop it and go, yeah,
Speaker 4: don't do any of your old stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh, you are so on point, and you're actually like
Speaker 1: giving me like terror chills right now because I keep
Speaker 1: having this feeling that like America is changing and it
Speaker 1: won't ever change back. It's not gonna be chill. We're
Speaker 1: in this weird h Yeah, it feels like the storm
Speaker 1: clouds are gathering and they're just not going to go
Speaker 1: away totally.
Speaker 4: And also I mean not to get to become too
Speaker 4: much of a bummer, but like that is the story
Speaker 4: of like half of my Like my grandmother was a
Speaker 4: Holocaust survivor because her family literally did leave Paris with
Speaker 4: nothing and went in like hid in the woods for years.
Speaker 4: But half of the family, like didn't do that because
Speaker 4: it's like in what when you're like you're just like
Speaker 4: middle class in Paris, like living in an apartment and
Speaker 4: you have a new couch and you run like a
Speaker 4: pocket book and wallet and hat business. Like, the idea
Speaker 4: that your life would change that much it just doesn't
Speaker 4: feel reasonable.
Speaker 3: It's like, it's really hard to.
Speaker 4: Take action in a way that is completely uncharacteristic or
Speaker 4: disconnected from from everything that you've seen in life, even
Speaker 4: if you've seen it happen to other people.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, oh man, it's so hard to.
Speaker 3: Compare on a bumblebee carriage or whatever, you know.
Speaker 1: And if your life is so gilded as as as
Speaker 1: a royal person, like, it's that changes even harder. It's
Speaker 1: even it's so much more dramatic feeling, oh but all
Speaker 1: the more necessary.
Speaker 2: All right, So now this is interesting.
Speaker 1: They had they had at least taken the step of
Speaker 1: putting together some false papers in case they were stopped
Speaker 1: like this, so they did have past like passports, et cetera.
Speaker 1: But there's a final twist, which is that the officials,
Speaker 1: because of course they didn't this was pre photography, like
Speaker 1: they didn't they couldn't like positively I d the king
Speaker 1: unless there was someone that they that they could verify
Speaker 1: knew the king. There was one instance of somebody sort
Speaker 1: of seeing his likeness on a piece of money, I believe,
Speaker 1: a coin, and that was sort of a hint, like
Speaker 1: we think, we think it's the king because he resembles
Speaker 1: the you know, this piece of money. Eventually they got
Speaker 1: someone they they knew had visited the king, and I
Speaker 1: believe this person was a loyalist to the king. But
Speaker 1: they brought him in too positively, I d and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you would think this guy showing up would
Speaker 1: would be if he liked the king, he'd be.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, I don't know, I don't know, maybe maybe
Speaker 2: it's not the king.
Speaker 1: But when but when they brought him in, he was
Speaker 1: so overcome by seeing the king in the flesh that
Speaker 1: he actually bowed down on one knee and immediately gave
Speaker 1: it away. So they were like, yep, we got him,
Speaker 1: we got the king. He's positively idd darn it. The irony,
Speaker 1: of course, being that this is the treatment he'd been
Speaker 1: hoping for from all of us, right from all the
Speaker 1: country folk, the whole time.
Speaker 2: But this is game over, this is it? And is
Speaker 2: this like the end. So when the royal.
Speaker 1: Family was caught in varn they were held until revolutionary
Speaker 1: soldiers arrived to drag them back to Paris. Descriptions of
Speaker 1: their return to the city of Paris are very dramatic.
Speaker 1: Apparently it was just dead silent, like the mobs were out,
Speaker 1: but it was dead silent. I believe Ropespierre had warned everyone,
Speaker 1: if you cheer for the king, you'll be punished, or
Speaker 1: if you jeer or ridicule the king, you will also
Speaker 1: be punished. So people were.
Speaker 2: Were dead quiet, which is spooky, right.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 4: First of all, there's nothing worse, I think than the
Speaker 4: silent treatment. It is such an insane power grab. It's
Speaker 4: absolutely so humiliating and obviously impossible to decipher except for
Speaker 4: that something is wrong. And then to have everybody like
Speaker 4: all of Paris, all of Paris.
Speaker 2: You're rolling into town. Yeah, it's just like are you
Speaker 2: looking out the way?
Speaker 4: They're like, hi, So we're sorry, We're just gonna shuffle
Speaker 4: forward a bit, We're gonna switch back.
Speaker 2: Are you guys, Are you guys mad?
Speaker 4: Or like? And it's such a such a message of control,
Speaker 4: like if you're you know, trying to say like you know,
Speaker 4: the power should belong to the people, and the people
Speaker 4: who are so impassioned are able to also control themselves
Speaker 4: and agree amongst themselves so much that they're all deadly
Speaker 4: still and quiet. That is that's extraordinary.
Speaker 2: It is. It's sad.
Speaker 3: It's a major move.
Speaker 4: I don't think we'd be able to do that right
Speaker 4: now in ours purerect in our realm.
Speaker 1: A group of royal supporters at this point were trying
Speaker 1: to kind of like spin the story to help the
Speaker 1: king save face, and they came up with this story
Speaker 1: that he'd been kidnapped by sinister foreign agents who actually
Speaker 1: wanted to invade France.
Speaker 3: Not bad, you know, I mean, it doesn't seem like
Speaker 3: that's what happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's a good try.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really pass the smell test because the biggest
Speaker 1: problem with the foreigners kidnapped the poor king story is
Speaker 1: that before they left the palace, the King Louis had
Speaker 1: written a manifesto of sorts. He had said that all
Speaker 1: of his earlier agreements with the National Assembly that supported
Speaker 1: the Constitution, that all of that stuff was a lie,
Speaker 1: and that he had really just been buying time while
Speaker 1: he planned to retake the throne. And retake the entry
Speaker 1: from the revolutionary government. So he basically like laid out all,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking that he would be Ye, well, he
Speaker 1: thought he thought he was escaping, and so he basically
Speaker 1: was leaving his his kind of like thoughts behind so
Speaker 1: that people would understand and that hopefully maybe he might
Speaker 1: rally some support, I guess, And he thought he would
Speaker 1: be coming back from a from a more from a
Speaker 1: position of power to say like, hey, I'm here, it's time.
Speaker 2: To negotiate with me.
Speaker 1: We're going to restore the monarchy, right, But but he
Speaker 1: actually was just kind of humiliated, and this turned out
Speaker 1: to be one of the primary pieces of evidence against
Speaker 1: him at trial.
Speaker 3: Look, you got to keep your paperwork straight.
Speaker 4: You got to you gotta really think about when you're
Speaker 4: going to show your papers.
Speaker 1: This was a huge turning point in the revolution because
Speaker 1: to the extent that there was a belief that they
Speaker 1: could make this constitutional monarchy work and that they could
Speaker 1: sort of share power between a figurehead monarch and representatives
Speaker 1: of the people.
Speaker 2: This escape attempt.
Speaker 1: Just blew that out of the water, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, now the revolutionaries are furious at the monarchy.
Speaker 1: They're furious at the king, and they want him, they
Speaker 1: want him gone, and the monarchy was fully abolished by
Speaker 1: the revolutionary government in seventeen ninety two. All of this,
Speaker 1: the escape attempt, and the letter that he'd left behind,
Speaker 1: were all used against him as evidence at trial, and
Speaker 1: he was of course sentenced to death.
Speaker 2: Oh man, what do you think was that fair?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: The guillotine is really really gross, really really gross.
Speaker 3: You know. Yeah, not my choice, not my choice, death penalty.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing the guillotine is that it was invented
Speaker 1: by someone opposed to the death penalty, and because their
Speaker 1: main beef with the death penalty is how inhumane it is.
Speaker 1: And the thought was that the guillotine was the most
Speaker 1: humane way to kill someone because it's so clean and fast, right,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Yeah, it's so gruesome, right, It's.
Speaker 3: Just so scary.
Speaker 4: It's not like whoever that executioner was was like the
Speaker 4: Temple Grand Ins of France or whatever. He wasn't the
Speaker 4: Temple grand in France, you know what I mean? Like, yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, there's there's something also about the the beheading
Speaker 4: of Marie Antoinette that has always like made me feel
Speaker 4: maybe it's just all ladies that get beheaded like in
Speaker 4: history that I know about, which is like genuinely too.
Speaker 4: It's like Anne Bolin and Marie Antoinette and I'm just like, oh,
Speaker 4: you didn't have to do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's like.
Speaker 4: Literally or somewhere else. Get her out of here, you know.
Speaker 4: If you don't like her, like I don't.
Speaker 3: Well it brace my heart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is upsetting.
Speaker 1: I think even like wherever you stand on the death
Speaker 1: penalty thing, like did they deserve that in this moment?
Speaker 1: But it was I think for the revolutionaries such a
Speaker 1: symbolic gesture of like death to not just these particular people,
Speaker 1: it was death to monarchy as a concept. Yeah, we are,
Speaker 1: we are removing this and of course we're just like
Speaker 1: nixing the bloodline. We're making it permanent. Death is permanent.
Speaker 1: And yeah it's but it's grizzly, and this is not
Speaker 1: me defending it. I'm this is me just trying to
Speaker 1: get into the heads of these of the revolutionaries. Of course,
Speaker 1: it also is a very slippery slope because this red
Speaker 1: to led to Robespiere's infamous Reign of Terror, where thousands
Speaker 1: of people were just like unceremoniously beheaded.
Speaker 4: Well that's what I was going to say is like
Speaker 4: you do send a signal that this is possible if
Speaker 4: you go against what's happening. Like first it's like you
Speaker 4: behead the monarchy, and I get that, but then it's
Speaker 4: like this thing that we did is so extreme and
Speaker 4: it has to hold that if anybody even seems like
Speaker 4: they're not going to be with it, there, they also
Speaker 4: have to get their heads chopped off, and that is.
Speaker 3: Not you know the way I mean.
Speaker 4: This morning, I was actually listening to Ken Burns talk
Speaker 4: about his new documentary about the Revolutionary War, and like
Speaker 4: he was like, a country is born in violence, but like, eh,
Speaker 4: after a while, there's got to be another system that
Speaker 4: that steps up, like a you know, system of rule
Speaker 4: of law and that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 1: I mean, at this point, don't we have a good
Speaker 1: grasp on like what works best?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think we do.
Speaker 2: Isn't the data in?
Speaker 4: I think the data actually is in. And then there's
Speaker 4: like five guys who are like, well, we don't, well,
Speaker 4: let me do my own research. Like the idea that
Speaker 4: I would ever quote unquote do my own research, like
Speaker 4: I don't know how to do that. You know, I
Speaker 4: don't think I'm an idiot, But I'm not like a
Speaker 4: scientist or a politician, like I don't know, I don't know,
Speaker 4: you know, I'd love to trust the experts.
Speaker 2: Actually, there's one last little epilogue here.
Speaker 1: This is kind of fun, a little post credit scene,
Speaker 1: if you will, because I know you're curious about the
Speaker 1: last big old danglin thread here. What happened to our
Speaker 1: Swedish boy toy axel Von person for sure?
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, well he himself was killed.
Speaker 1: By an angry mob when he was mistakenly accused of
Speaker 1: poisoning the Swedish prince in eighteen ten.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: But yeah, angry mobs were a real big deal at
Speaker 2: this point.
Speaker 3: They're really scary.
Speaker 4: I mean, we had one recently in our nation. It's scary. Yeah,
Speaker 4: they're scary.
Speaker 2: They don't generally make good decisions. No.
Speaker 1: I read somewhere a quote I wish I could remember
Speaker 1: who to attributed to the intelligence of a mob is
Speaker 1: that of the dumbest person in the mob. So like
Speaker 1: the behavior, like an entire mob behaves as the dumbest
Speaker 1: person in the mob.
Speaker 3: Actually, I was just thinking about like it.
Speaker 4: For some reason, Americans were able to be totally silent
Speaker 4: while someone rolled through town that they didn't like that,
Speaker 4: Like when I said we'd never be able to do it,
Speaker 4: Like I was fully imagining myself in the in the
Speaker 4: silent crowd, not being able to stop myself from being
Speaker 4: like who fared?
Speaker 2: Like just like.
Speaker 4: That, it's so tempting to disturb, you know, the stillness.
Speaker 4: I think I would be the weakest there was, the
Speaker 4: dumbest person in the in the mob. I'm the person
Speaker 4: that changes us from a core cohort into like a
Speaker 4: freak out.
Speaker 2: Could you ever see yourself being swept up in a mob?
Speaker 2: I think it's emotionally yeah, because I feel like.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things that we all think like
Speaker 1: we're that were It's sort of like cults, right, Everyone
Speaker 1: says like I could never join a cult, like I
Speaker 1: would never fall for that, in saying I'm too.
Speaker 2: You would.
Speaker 4: I don't think I would be in a mob because
Speaker 4: I don't consider myself to be like an impulsive person
Speaker 4: and I don't have like a sort of you know,
Speaker 4: like the switchblade of a temper that comes out.
Speaker 3: But I really love friendly groups. I love cooking.
Speaker 4: I love it when people are like trying to help
Speaker 4: each other actualize their dreams.
Speaker 3: And I like it when people like are.
Speaker 4: Dedicated to each other, and a lot of times cults
Speaker 4: are like non violent. I used to have a stand
Speaker 4: up bit about this actually about how like I would
Speaker 4: totally get drawn into a cult because like, I like
Speaker 4: all the things that they do, except I don't like
Speaker 4: having to be naked in a group of people, and
Speaker 4: I don't like having to do like oral sex to
Speaker 4: like a very very elderly person who has a long beard,
Speaker 4: which I feel like they make you do like the
Speaker 4: head of the cult.
Speaker 2: That is, that's that's in the cult bylaws.
Speaker 4: There's usually some guy who's like, you know what, Actually,
Speaker 4: a lot of the more interesting members of the cult
Speaker 4: are doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, oh wait, why haven't you you fallen into
Speaker 1: a cult?
Speaker 2: Then there are lots of them out there. There are
Speaker 2: lots of great options.
Speaker 4: Hey, I've got a strong family, really great friends that
Speaker 4: are like no no, no, no, no no no, don't
Speaker 4: don't go in there.
Speaker 2: Good answer.
Speaker 1: I also think that you are a inquisitive person, and
Speaker 1: you're someone who like you're you're not only very intelligent
Speaker 1: and uh and sort of like educated, and you've taken
Speaker 1: it upon yourself to learn about the world and learn
Speaker 1: about people, And I think that is some of the
Speaker 1: best armor against these kinds of group think or indoctrination
Speaker 1: of some kind. The minute you start asking questions, even
Speaker 1: with genuine curiosity, not even like an accusatory like wait
Speaker 1: a minute, but you're just sort of like, now, hold on,
Speaker 1: why do you think I should I should blow that
Speaker 1: old man with a beard?
Speaker 2: Like what's the reason? Like why are we getting?
Speaker 4: Well? We have to do that though, you know, like
Speaker 4: if we're all going to transcend and like you know,
Speaker 4: have clear minds, like why would we need to do that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: And you know what is a good place to start
Speaker 4: for me? Sometimes it is like I will ask myself
Speaker 4: for sometimes other people, like if this were a movie,
Speaker 4: who would you be? And like what part of the story,
Speaker 4: Like would it seemed like a good story, if this
Speaker 4: were a parable, if this were like a religious text
Speaker 4: or a fairy tale, who would you be?
Speaker 3: Who would they be?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Who would they be? You know, it's a great question,
Speaker 2: who would be?
Speaker 1: I think you're onto something really quite elegant, which is
Speaker 1: that stories, movies parables the sort of broad whatever gestalt of.
Speaker 2: Hum and storytelling.
Speaker 1: It is rooted in fundamental values, right like a sense
Speaker 1: of right and wrong. My kid loves the Lion King,
Speaker 1: and so I've gotten very deep into the sort of
Speaker 1: like Lion King universe. And and that is a movie
Speaker 1: where good and bad is so clearly delineated, and bad
Speaker 1: is portrayed with Nazi symbolism totally.
Speaker 4: I mean stars when he sings be prepared, that is,
Speaker 4: those thos.
Speaker 2: Are literally goose stepping.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's and so it's it's so interesting to
Speaker 1: me that those kinds of stories that that obviously have
Speaker 1: an intent to kind of raise children with a sense
Speaker 1: of right and wrong and a sense of sort of
Speaker 1: trepidation towards that kind of behavior, towards Scar's behavior. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and yet we see a cultural swing to a greater
Speaker 1: trust in that. Like, I'm so confused. That's such cognitive
Speaker 1: dissonance for me that I'm trying to work through and understand.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because you know, there's also the thing about the
Speaker 4: fairy tale, and I would include you know, the Lion King,
Speaker 4: and that is that like the thing that can be
Speaker 4: hard in adulthood is that you can feel that a
Speaker 4: fairy tale only functions as something to like a warning
Speaker 4: or a disappointment, because it's like, wait, but like the
Speaker 4: Jafar of my life didn't get stops, the scar of
Speaker 4: my life, didn't of my country, like didn't.
Speaker 3: Get thrown off the cliff or whatever.
Speaker 4: Like they they they're sitting on the on the chair,
Speaker 4: they're sitting on the throne whatever. But I think that
Speaker 4: that can actually be a distraction from the other thing
Speaker 4: about fairy tales or archetypes, which is like they're a
Speaker 4: template for us to compare ourselves to. They're not just
Speaker 4: like an outcome or sort of an immature, shallow warning.
Speaker 3: It's like there's they're really used to.
Speaker 4: They're really really useful because you don't get so scared
Speaker 4: about like having to really think about your own life.
Speaker 3: You know, you don't short circuit or get overwhelmed.
Speaker 4: But if you place it outside of yourself and you look,
Speaker 4: then you're like, oh, I guess I do see a
Speaker 4: lot of stuff, because I do see.
Speaker 3: A lot of similarities.
Speaker 4: And then you have to do, you know, the more
Speaker 4: difficult work of figuring out how to turn in a
Speaker 4: new direction. But if you do turn in a new direction,
Speaker 4: you shouldn't go in a big yellow, black bubble we
Speaker 4: carriage because and even if you do that, don't get
Speaker 4: out of the fucking carriage man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, stay inside, right, just stay, keep your head inside
Speaker 1: and go as fast as you can. Change those horses
Speaker 1: and go as fast as you can. Jenny Slade, You're
Speaker 1: amazing and such a device. Thanks so much for coming
Speaker 1: on Snaffoo.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me. I loved this.
Speaker 1: Snaffoo is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snapoo Media,
Speaker 1: a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company.
Speaker 1: Post production creative support from good Egg Audio. Our executive
Speaker 1: producers are me Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Glenn Basner, Andy Kim,
Speaker 1: and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino
Speaker 1: and Tory Smith. Our managing producer is Carl Nellis. Our
Speaker 1: video editor is Jared Smith. Technical direction and engineering from
Speaker 1: Nick Dooley. Additional story editing from Carl Nellis. Our creative
Speaker 1: executive is Brett Harris. Logo and branding by Matt Gosson
Speaker 1: and the Collected Works. Legal review from Dan Welsh, Meghan
Speaker 1: Halson and Caroline Johnson. Special thanks to Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn,
Speaker 1: Lane Klein, and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson,
Speaker 1: Kerry Lieberman and Nikki Ator. While I have you, don't
Speaker 1: forget to pick up a copy of my book, Snaffoo,
Speaker 1: The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest screw Ups. It's available
Speaker 1: now from any book retailer.
Speaker 2: Just go to Snaffo dashbook dot com. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 2: and see you next time week.
Speaker 3: H