I’ve read A Tale of Two Cities. I took high school history. I have access to Wikipedia.
But I somehow can’t really believe it. Did a mass of unwashed peasants really kidnap hundreds, maybe thousands of aristocrats and send them to the guillotine? Were there trials? What was the legal pretense, if any, for doing this? Who was rich enough to get executed and who was considered not rich enough? Did it even really happen or was it just the royal family that was executed, and it was exaggerated over time?
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It was a lot more organized then what you might imagine. It would have been as you describe on the streets during the more violent part of the revolution but it was a far more orderly afair. Even though France were a monarchy and the king and nobles held all the power there were a lot of regular people required to actually run the country. The government ministers, kings cabinet, clerks, officers, etc. And they were very influenced by the philosophers of the enligtenment and would clearly see the downfall of the monarchy and try to possition themselves favorably. The revolution actually took place over several years with the kings power slowly declining. For example the storming of the Bastille (something which were easy when all the soldiers were loyal to the people rather then the king) did not directly end the monarchy but forced the king to give key members of the cabinet he had let go back their possitions. Eventually there were trials. The king was found guilty of treason and executed, similar to his English peer over a hundred years prior.
Being rich or even noble did not become illegal. But all the rights of nobles were stripped away and a lot of the property of the rich were given back to the people. For example if you rented a house before the revolution you would typically be given the house for free, and if your previous landlord tried to stop this he would be dealt with by the guards.
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