Fascinating people,

Fascinating Places.

G'd Aye and welcome to the Dan Mainwearing podcast.

This is where we talk to and about the famous and the infamous,

the celebrated and the obscure, the well-known and the a grisly scene unfolded at the Place Delle Revolution in Paris.

After attempting to address the crowd, only to have his words drowned out by drums,

Louis XVI, the King of France, was decapitated by guillotine.

Spectators rushed forward and soaked their handkerchiefs in his blood to create a macabre souvenir of the event. A critical figure and the demise of Louis

the 16th was the revolutionary, Maximilian Robespierre. He had argued that giving the king a trial would undermine the republic.

His fate had already been sealed.

As Robespierre put it, Louis must perish because our country must live.

But just one year later, the incorruptible revolutionary and reformer would meet the very same fate on the exact spot.

In this episode I examine the life of Maximilian Robespierre, his development from a precocious child into a lawyer, then a revolutionary, and ultimately

in the eyes of many a tyrant.

There are unsubstantiated legends claiming that Robespierre's ancestors came to France from

Ireland during the English Reformation. Geniologists have disputed these claims, but what we do know is that Maximilian was the first-born child of

Francois and Jacqueline de Robespierre, coming into the world on the 6th of May 1758. His father was a lawyer,

they're reputedly a mediocre one. Nonetheless, Rob Speer's sister later claimed that Maximilian was happy and carefree child up until the tragic death of his mother when he was aged six.

As a widower, his father soon decided he couldn't take care of his children and pawn

them off on relatives before fleeing town.

It was at this juncture that the young happy child became much more serious, burying his head in books.

He favoured the classics and developed a particular interest in the Roman Republic,

...