Fulfilling a meme-request

[therealsnape]

Ah, that infamous meme. How busy it all keeps us, and that's even without actuallly writing the stories we're asked for.

kellychambliss  request was: Describe one historical event you wish you could have witnessed and explain why.


I'm taking 'one' in a Pickwickian sense, it's a series of events, actually. If I had my way, I'd time-travel to Paris (where else) in 1356.

Picture it:
 Paris is still much smaller of course; St Germain is a village, and Mont Martre is quite a way off. But some of the landmarks are there already: Notre Dame, the Tour St Jacques, the Sorbonne. And students will be students ...
In the autumn of 1356 Paris is angry. France has just lost a major battle (Poitiers, big drama) and a king (John the Good, who was taken captive; best thing that could happen to France, really, only now they have to pay a king's ransom. Literally).
The Parisians grumble and want a scapegoat. And this time, they pick on the nobility.
Apart from shamefully loosing battles and kings, their noblemen ask too much taxes and don't contribute nearly enough to the city. Go and google the Complainte de la bataille de Poitiers, if you want a full list of irritations, ranging from overdressing to high treason.
But, after all, it's Paris that will have to pay most of the ransom, and it's the rich bourgeois who'll be the worst off. So they have their reasons for grumbling about the useless articles that govern them, about changes that should be made.

And then Etienne Marcel, the prevost of the Parisian merchants, sees his chance.
He has plans for change, he has ideas that are so novel that it took a major disaster to consider them. And he is a powerful speaker of the "Yes, we can!" school of charisma. 
 He tries to transform France into a controlled monarchy, with limited powers to the king and a larger input of the bourgeois.
During the next two years, a revolution nearly happens. Marcel more or less takes over Paris, manages to get several of the Northern cities on his side, and seems to be heading towards a new France.
Then he commits some major errors, one of which would classify as a crime.
Marcel kills, in cold blood and in the present of the Dauphin, two French marchals. This turns the Dauphin (the future Charles V) into his implacable enemy, whereas otherwise Charles might have sought collaboration. Charles could do with the help of intelligent burghers and (unlike most French kings) he knew it and was willing to act upon it. 
Marcel doesn't take advance of the other great peasant rising of the day: The Jacquerie. The farmers sought his support, and it might have given him a priceless foothold in the coutryside, but he was too focussed on the cities, and on the rich bourgeoisie.
And Marcel strikes up an allegiance with Charles le Mauvais of Navarra - not called 'the evil one' for nothing.
When he tries to hand over the keys to the city to Charles le Mauvais, he is murdered, in 1358.

Had he succeded, France might still be a monarchy, on the English model. The 1789 revolution might not have happened. All because of one man and his impossible, but fiercely pursued dream. The dream that was dreamt four centuries too early, perhaps. If he could have imagined a world without a king, if he could have avoided the Charles of Navarra mistake ...  If only I could be a clerc at the Maison des Pilliers at the time (now demolished, the current Hotel the Ville is built in its place) and see the whole, rich tapestry unfold.
 

Comments

[kellychambliss.livejournal.com]

Just fascinating. I love "turning point" stories in history: moments that you can look back to and see clearly how differently things could have turned out if only X had happened or Y hadn't happened. From the vantage point of the present, it's so easy to think of the current state of things as somehow an inevitable development. But it doesn't take too much historical study to realize just how easily our world could be completely unlike what we now know. (I remember reading one article that made a convincing and very scary case for the idea that if the Nazis had persisted with the Battle of Britain for even another month or six weeks, England would likely have fallen.)


a full list of irritations, ranging from overdressing to high treason

Now overdressing IS a reason for revolution /g/


Thank you for the interesting and well-told story! I'm so glad this meme came up.

[therealsnape.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it!
if the Nazis had persisted with the Battle of Britain for even another month or six weeks, England would likely have fallen. That *is* a scary idea, indeed!