The French Revolution's Legacy
In Our Time
BBC
4.6 • 9.9K Ratings
🗓️ 14 June 2001
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the French Revolution. In 1789 the Bastille was stormed, the King Louis XVI was put under national guard and the calendar was turned back to zero. The French Revolution began its upheavals in the name of Liberté, Egalité and Fraternité.On this side of the English Channel there were those who thought it ‘bliss in that dawn to be alive’, but the statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke was not among them. He said, “The age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever”.What was really the end of an age? What was the impact of this revolution on the culture of Europe? And did it really change political life in Britain for ever? With Stefan Collini, Professor of Intellectual History and English Literature at Cambridge University; Anne Janowitz, Professor of Romantic Poetry at Queen Mary College, London;the nineteenth century historian Andrew Roberts.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thanks for learning the Inartime podcast. For more details about Inartime and for our terms of use |
| 0:05.4 | Please go to bbc.co.uk forward slash radio for. I hope you enjoy the program |
| 0:11.5 | Hello in 1789 the Bastille was stormed a King Louis XVI was put under National Guard and the calendar was turned back to zero |
| 0:20.4 | The French Revolution began its upheavals in the name of liberty a Galate and fraternity on this side of the English Channel |
| 0:27.2 | Hello are those who thought bliss it was that dawn to be alive |
| 0:30.4 | But the statesmen and philosopher Edmund Burke wasn't among them. He said the age of chivalry is gone that if |
| 0:37.5 | Sofisters economists and calculators have succeeded and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever |
| 0:43.8 | Was it really the end of an age? |
| 0:45.3 | What was the impact of this revolution on the culture of Europe and did it really change political life in Britain forever? |
| 0:52.2 | With me to discuss what kind of a watershed the French Revolution marked in the tide of history |
| 0:57.4 | Especially in this country is Stefan Kalini professor of intellectual history and English literature at Cambridge University |
| 1:03.3 | He is currently working on a book of the intellectuals in Britain and France and |
| 1:07.7 | Janavits professor of romantic poetry Queen Mary College London who wrote lyric and labor in the romantic tradition and the 19th century |
| 1:15.2 | Historic under robots who's currently working on a book on Napoleon and Wellington and |
| 1:19.6 | And Janavits can you set the scene for us about British revolutionary culture say in around the 1780s 10 15 years before the French Revolution |
| 1:27.8 | What links were that to start with between the British and and French as it were would be revolutionaries? |
| 1:33.5 | Well, I think it's very important to realize that there was a domestic radical movement in England that |
| 1:40.1 | Begins |
| 1:41.3 | Centuries before and the idea of Anglo-Saxon freedoms and the notion of a freeborn Englishman that |
| 1:48.2 | That continues and develops in the 18th century and that becomes quite important around a series of radical campaigns in the second half of the 18th century |
| 1:58.0 | including the campaign for enfranchisement |
| 2:01.6 | the campaign for |
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