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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>Did a mass of unwashed peasants really kidnap hundreds, maybe thousands of aristocrats and send them to the guillotine?
Yes
>Were there trials?
Not really.
>What was the legal pretense, if any, for doing this?
“You did the same to us”
>Who was rich enough to get executed and who was considered not rich enough?
In the first phase it was only about people of noble birth. Those that claimed god gave them the right to rule. The rich citizens were actually supporting the revolution.
>Did it even really happen or was it just the royal family that was executed, and it was exaggerated over time?
It really happened. And later the phase of terror started with everyone being executed who was deemed an enemy of the revolution, and then Robespierre, the “leader” of the revolution losing his head too because people got fed up with the terror.
All in all it was a huge violent mess.
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