Ed Helms

It was a tough year to be a French guy named Louis, especially—

if you were Louis XVI, the French king.

So today's topic is the French Revolution.

Now, I'd love to cover the whole thing, but that would take at least 10 podcasts and like a gallon of espresso and a PhD in guillotine technology.

So instead, we're going to just zoom in on this one really tiny but absolutely bonkers episode within the French Revolution, the Royal Escape Attempt

that went spectacularly wrong.

It's sneaky, it is suspenseful, and it turned out to be a massive turning point in the entire revolution.

This is the flight to Varennes.

Are you ready?

What is it you like about French stuff?

All right, a quick crash course on the French Revolution before we get to our main event here.

It all started because France was basically broke.

The peasants were starving and the monarchy was still out there throwing lavish parties.

Picture an episode of Succession where they all go to a rave in powdered wigs.

So the French people were just finally like, enough.

This is enough.

And they stormed the Bastille and they decided maybe government shouldn't be run exclusively by rich douchebags.

Good.

A good policy.

Rich douchebags like historically, have they have any of them nailed it?