Original subtitles

(birds chirping) (bell tolling)

Give us liberty or death.

Give us liberty or death!

Long live the revolution.

Long live the revolution!

Long live the republic.

In a working class suburb of Paris,

we'll witness the birth of a revolution

that will engulf the French monarchy

and make the whole of Europe tremble.

All those who don't have the right to vote.

(crowd shouting)

From 1789 to 1795,

the French people would fight for rights

that then seemed unthinkable.

(crowd applauding)

All men are born to remain free and equal in rights.

(crowd cheering)

Women and men risked everything

to bring about democracy in their country.

Obviously people now call us heroes.

But at the time, we never said that.

(explosions bursting)

Exceptional records

provide a real understanding of how this revolution

wiped out the old political regime in 1789

(explosions bursting)

and then brought down the monarchy in 1792.

Rights were the reason we had the Revolution

and the destruction of our tyrants

and they brought us also--

Journalists Jean-Paul Marat

and Camille Desmoulins,

political leaders like Georges Danton

and Maximilien Robespierre

relate what the country went through.

(dark intriguing music)

They were also upset

with the prosecutions and the sentencing

by the revolutionary tribunal.

But I have a unique conviction for you:

the destiny of a few men is not worth that of the homeland.

(crowd shouting)

But revolution is always merciless struggle.

Many Frenchmen and women pay with their lives

in this revolutionary period,

swept away by the war or by the wind of terror

that grips the country in 1794.

That's enough! Under whose authority

do you object?

This is the story of a revolution,

one that would shape the destiny of the French

and shake the history of the world.

You bastard.

(dark intriguing music)

(crowd shouting) (guns blasting)

Everyone's afraid!

Who'll protect us?

(crowd shouting)

(guns blasting) (crowd shrieking)

April 28th, 1789.

The Swiss guards and the king's French guards

received the order to quell the riot

that has broken out in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine in Paris.

(crowd shrieking) (guns blasting)

On your knees, go on.

No. Go ahead.

Don't do it!

(gun blasting)

Blind repression

that would claim more than 300 victims.

Get outta here.

(dark intriguing music)

Days earlier,

the Saint-Antoine district flared up

when the operator of a wallpaper manufacturer, Reveillon,

tried to lower workers' wages.

(window shattering) (worker screaming)

With Paris starving

and unemployment hitting the suburbs hard,

the boss' provocation sparked fury amongst the workers.

(guns blasting) (windows shattering)

(crowd shouting)

That day in the streets of Saint-Antoine

soaked in the violence of the royal guard,

we meet for the first time these Parisians

expressing anger suppressed for too long.

(guns blasting)

(window shattering)

Jonas Lebigant, a worker from Le Gobelins Factory,

bemoaning the fate of Parisian workers.

(guns blasting)

(woman speaking foreign language)

Where are you?

Mom.

Mom. (dark foreboding music)

And Gabrielle Pecheloche,

a humble washer woman who must fight to survive

and who lives with her son

in the Faubourg Saint-Marcel south of Paris,

as does Jonas Lebigant.

It's over here, fellas.

Over here.

C'mere.

Jonas is bringing in a casualty.

It's just tragic, that is.

Back in the Saint-Marcel district,

the demonstrators are in shock.

(priest speaking in foreign language)