A journey through the dramatic and destructive years of the French Revolution, telling its history in a way not seen before - through the extraordinary story of its art. Dr. Richard Clay has always been fascinated by vandalism and iconoclasm, and believes much of the untold story of the French Revolution can be discovered through the stories of great moments of destruction. Who were the stone masons in the crowd outside Notre Dame that pulled down the statues of kings? Why do the churches of Paris still carry all the coded signs of anti-Christian state legislation? What does it mean, and who was carrying this out?
Telling the story of the French Revolution - from the Storming of the Bastille to the rise of Napoleon - as the significant modern outbreak of iconoclasm, Dr. Clay argues that it reveals the destructive and constructive roles of iconoclasts and how this led directly to the birth of the modern Europe.
Terror! Robespierre and the French Revolution is a BBC drama-documentary examining Robespierre's year in charge of the Committee Of Public Safety during the French Revolution. The watchwords of the French Revolution were liberty, equality and fraternity. Maximilien Robespierre believed in them passionately. He was an idealist and a lover of humanity. But during the 365 days that Robespierre sat on the Committee of Public Safety, the French Republic descended into a bloodbath. The Terror only came to end when Robespierre was devoured by the repressive machinery he'd created. This drama-documentary tells the story of the Terror and looks at how Robespierre's revolutionary idealism so quickly became an excuse for tyranny, and why a lover of liberty was so keen to use the guillotine.
