The Great Fear of 1789: When Panic Swept the French Countryside

In the summer of 1789, as the Estates General gave way to the National Assembly and the Bastille fell in Paris, a different kind of revolution was erupting across the French countryside. The Great Fear — la Grande Peur — was a wave of panic and peasant uprising that swept through rural France in July and August of that year. This episode tells the story of how rumors of aristocratic bandits, the 'brigands', set villages ablaze with fear, how peasants armed themselves against imagined invaders, and how that fear turned into attacks on châteaux and the burning of feudal documents. We explore the famous night of August 4, 1789, when the National Assembly abolished feudalism in a fit of revolutionary fervor, and we ask what the Great Fear actually accomplished — and who really benefited. Along the way, we meet figures like the duc d'Aiguillon and the marquis de Noailles, who gave up their privileges in that surreal session, and we consider the legacy of a moment when rumor became history. An episode about the power of fear, the fragility of order, and the birth of a new France. #History #FrenchRevolution #GreatFear #PeasantUprising #Bastille #NationalAssembly #August4 #Feudalism #DucDAiguillon #MarquisDeNoailles #RuralFrance #Brigands #Chateau #1789 #RevolutionaryFrance #FexingoHistory #EuropeanHistory #SocialHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo