In 1793, France’s smart set checked into a “hospital” on the rue de Charone, where, for a paltry $50,000 a month, they could drink champagne, play cards, and discuss the current theatre.

"That Great Equalizer" During the French Revolution and the Terror that followed, the new government executed tens of thousands of members of the former ruling classes. In 1792 Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin (1738-1814) invented an improved version of an ancient execution machine that was vigorously employed during the rule of the Jacobins from 1793 to 1794. The French government and other governments adopted the method of execution widely through the 19th century. A weighted blade, raised between two upright posts, would be released to descend to sever the head of the victim. Dr. Guillotin had intended the device to provide a more humane and sure form of execution than the sometimes inaccurate blow by an axman, hanging on ...
…The script for the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution was in serious need of a philosopher. And fast. For whatever reason, Nietzsche is the name that seemed to pop up when the script writers needed one. In Good Will Hunting, the therapist Sean (Robin Williams) asks Will (Matt Damon) whether he has a soul mate. Will says he has several, including Shakespeare and Nietzsche. In The Fisher King, Jack (Jeff Bridges), seriously drunk, remarks that “Nietzsche says there’s two kinds of people in the world: people who are destined for greatness like Walt Disney … and Hitler. Then there’s the rest of us, ‘the bungled and the botched.’ We’re the expendable masses.” And so, it was decided that Nietzsche, despite the handicap of being German, would be the poster boy for the French Revolution. …

" His son - who later became King Louis Philippe - insisted that Orléans was never personally ambitious; so was he truly an idealist, or did he fund the revolution in a fit of pique? Was Jacobinism a hobby to him, like his intrepid ballooning or his pornography collection? After the death of the king he became politically isolated. He called himself "the slave of faction". France was at war but, as Danton said, the national convention was a more dangerous place to be than the army. Philippe was guillotined in November 1793, having dined that day on oysters and lamb cutlets. His last words, to the executioner, were "Get on with it."
A visitor searching today’s Paris for the “monuments historique” of the French Revolution is likely to return home disappointed. Gone is the hotel where Charlotte Corday spent the night before she murdered Marat, gone to all intents and purposes Robespierre’s lodgings on the rue Saint-Honoré , gone the Jacobin Club and the Temple Tower.Even the palace of the Tuileries, the rallying point of so much disturbance, has vanished forever. The French, who have raised anecdotal history, “la petite histoire” , to a level approaching art, have been notably unsentimental about preserving the monuments that are so integral a part of that history.
On the rue de Charonne, at the far edge of the unvisited eleventh arrondissement, one more irreplaceable relic of the Revolution was only demolished in the early 1970′s. Its disappearance is to be regretted, for its walls were witness to one of the strangest stories in the repertory of revolutionary anecdote.

"In 1793, in the ultimate show of disloyalty and hypocrisy, Chartres cast his vote in favor of sending Louis XVI to the guillotine. Louis Philippe Joseph d'Orleans, a prince of the blood, one of the most powerful aristocrats in all of France, condoned and supported regicide. His actions deeply wounded his wife, Adélaïde. She did not agree with his political waffling, nor his underhanded, spiteful tactics. In Ghosthunter, Marsden writes that the memories stored in inanimate objects could be replayed if the conditions were right, if the people present were "sensitive to such paranormal emanations." Paranormal emanations? I know. It sounds like a ridiculous heap of stinking crap, doesn't it? Still, I can't help but wonder if the rings of the Duc and Duchesse de Chartres would emanate any particular memories. Would they project the hope and joy the young, naive Adélaïde must have felt when her dashing duke slipped the bands on her finger? Or would they convey the heartbreak she suffered when she first discovered her husband was as faithless as a hound in heat? Or perhaps the slender golden bands would emanate the profound sorrow Adélaïde surely felt upon learning that her gentle, sweet, much beloved sister-in-law, Princess Lamballe, had been raped, mutilated, and decapitated, her head stuck on a pike and marched through the squalid city streets. "
In the opening days of the revolution the building at 70 rue de Charonne housed a small insane asylum owned and administered by one Dr. Jacques Belhomme. Belhomme’s insitution should not be confused with the madhouse of similar address at Charenton where the Marquis de Sade spent his declining years and which was the inspiration for the play “Marat/Sade” . In its own fashion the Maison Belhomme might have offered the dramatist almost as macabre a setting. But to understand the significance of what Belhomme’s insane asylum was to become during the Reign of Terror, one must first have some picture of the Terror itself.
… Nietzsche is appealing to the Reign because his life sounds like a narrative for the event. Certainly the combination of confidence and madness makes him highly pertinent. He believed he was changing the world and he was right, like a Robespierre. His unrequited love for the exotic Lou Andreas-Salomé, a Russian-born psychoanalyst and friend of Wagner and Freud, promises both excitement and melancholy; it could be the storyline that would fit the passions of Philippe Egalité or Talleyrand.
The rumour about his incestuous affair with his sister adds perverse interest. And then there’s the horse story, often repeated, not quite authenticated, but certainly cinematic: In 1888, when he saw a man whipping a horse, he ran to the animal and threw his arms around its neck to protect it. Then he fell to the ground, unconscious. ….
alt="" width="490" height="624" />
" If you want to understand the historical moment, however, better to read Carlyle's The French Revolution, which describes Robespierre, at the moment of his downfall, as "unhappiest of windbags blown nigh to bursting". Even Anatole France can't beat that."
It does appear that we may be headed in this direction if people get mad enough. This notion of the Tea Party is scary but interesting how it could go in either direction and is quite dangerous in that both are bad. They are much too Brown Shirty for my tastes or comfort. I do sympathize because you can feel the depressive state of pretty much all peoples in all places, except for the ruling classes. The distance between the masses and the elite is greater than ever before, and could cause rise to the public.. All that aside, your comment about Barbara’s character “She’s become a practical philosopher, turning Nietzsche into a how-to book for gold-diggers.” is priceless and I am going to share it with my wife, who is much smarter than me and studied philosophy at Berkeley…. I myself happen to like Nietzsche even if I don’t agree with his perspective. Thanks David
Yaaah! thanks so much for reading. Unfortunately, we are heading there. We are past reconciliation, and a divorce is coming; the question is how messy is it going to be. Both “ways” are feasible, albeit with some adjustments. For myself, I would like to find that intangible “third way”. Our wives are always much smarter, or at least its good politics to state it, though the evidence is not always consistent! I am sort of Nietzsche neutral; I may be a heathen to say this, but sometimes I wonder if he was the sharpest pencil in the box, …I should know. Best.