In French speaking countries, an "hôtel de ville" is exactly what a city hall is for English speakers. Vidéo très bien faite, merci !

Tbh if the hotel could speak it probably would have ptsd.

“God chose me to be king so suck it peasants” 🤣🤣 god damn the writing’s dope hHaha

How is "dangling jaw being ripped off" not more common knowledge, another well done video as always.

You guys should do a Geographics about the Acre of Massacre during the second Boer war, if for no other reason than both Winston Churchill and Mahatma Gandhi were there.

Sad part is when you're French, we walk by or drive by those magnificent buildings filled with history and we don't care a bit because we see them every days.

Ah, favorite French pastime, revolutions and rioting

Paris has such an interesting history, it’s had SO many revolutions that it’s almost hilarious. They literally do the exact same thing over and over again.

That guy with the botched suicide that blew his jaw off.. he must of been in so much pain the next n last 24hiurs of his life. I just cant even begin to try to imagine his suffering

I’ve actually never heard of this place, when I heard it got burned down I was aww man. Knowing how that such a long standing building that’s seen so much bloodshed and horror found a new life as a beacon of hope and freedom at the end of ww2, makes me glad. I hope it continues to stand for many more centuries to come.

This video reminded me of a book I read just last year - "A Gentleman in Moscow", by Amor Towles, which took place (almost) entirely inside Hotel Metropol Moscow.

I can't say that was awesome, because it was so damn tragic, but it was most definitely stirring. I very nearly cried at the constant failure to learn from their not even distant tragic history.

Damn a hundred years of Revolution after Revolution.

I love this channel ❤️! I listen to it at work, I'm an overnight shift janitor so these stories are great to travel and be engaged during my repititive and gross job. Thank you!

I can't remember who said this but it seems true enough. France is not exactly liberal but every once in a while it's revolutionary ;)

15:18 July monarchy: (happens) Hotel de Ville: Merde.

If anyone wants to know more about the events described in this video, Mike Duncan covers all of them in depth in the Revolutions podcast, which I highly recommend.

Good lord Paris is metal af

60 year old USA boomer here. Thank you for this one. It's all been Names and Dates to me over the decades I've tried to get a handle on all this Parisian history in bits and pieces. This video was a perfect explanation for all that was happening ( while I was comparing it to USA history) by using The Hotel as a solid enduring character for the novel Paris write over 100 or so years. After that well...it was easy...ww2...cold war...China getting huge...I've been here for all that. Thanks Simon and crew

I realize it's a different channel, but you should really do the Marquis de Lafayette on Biographics. He seems to have had his hands on every important happening in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Unless I'm accidentally combining two people into one.

Watched this and now I want cake 🍰

A beautiful building, host to many wonderful art exhibitions now, among other things. Saw a retrospective of the cartoonist Sempé and the singer Edith Piaf. To me the Hotel de Ville is symbol to all things French, from blood thirsty history to artful culture. Great video, Simon.

“The executioner ripped off what was left of his dangling jaw” that’s quite the mental picture and the next day no less! God almost a whole day of my jaw hanging by a bit of flesh and or muscle, that horrendous...

I would love to see Marie Antoinette’s daughter have a video done.

1:20 - Chapter 1 - When a hotel is not a hotel ? 4:05 - Chapter 2 - The fires of revolution 10:15 - Chapter 3 - Say you want a revolution 14:50 - Chapter 4 - The king & the emperor 18:50 - Chapter 5 - The commune reborn 21:15 - Chapter 6 - Burning down the hotel

Seeing as you mentioned the widening of the boulevards a video on Baron Hausmann might be interesting for your subscribers.

Extremely well done! Thank you...

Excellent video! Hotel originally meant a large urban public building. A noble would have a château in the country and a hôtel in the city. It’s only after many of these old huge houses were turned into places to stay that the word “hotel” came to mean a very large urban inn. So Hôtel de Ville here is in its archaic sense. Just as a “hôtel-dieu” means a hospital. Thanks for taking the modern views about what the Revolutions of 1830 and of 1848, and the Commune of 1871, signified. A very good historian wrote your script. I’m a little less caustic about Robespierre, seeing more of a reluctant dictator like Lenin, whose aims were good but whose methods were terrible. But everything is quite accurate.

I love this channel! Lovely video as usual.

I didn't know they ripped Robespierre's jaw off! When you said that, I shuddered. 😳

This was a particularly well done episode, glad I subbed to the new channel!

"Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children." -- Jacques Mallet du Pan

Amazing episode of Geographics. What an awesome concept, using the hotel as the main character and backdrop for the story. Love it. Keep em coming please.

One of your best ever. Love the French history vids!

Thank you . Fascinating ,

Great video, one of your best! 👍

This should have been a biographics of the hotel.

Thanks for this very interesting episode!

The French Revolution! Otherwise known as: "How NOT to do a proper revolution against tyranny." It is honestly breathtaking what an epic disaster the French Revolution, and the nearly 100 years of savagery it brought about, was.

Excellent Episode.

Very interesting, one of your best!

WOW, what a history!!! Thanks Simon!!

When I first started living in France, I was in the center of town and asked my GF , “Who owns the franchise of the “Hotel du Ville”? They have all the best placements in towns!” I was stupid, in a way, but still a good question!! 😂

Really enjoyed this deep dive.

Simon, I thoroughly enjoy your daily cocktails of learning. I subscribe to all of your channels. Thanks for being a fun part of my day! With that said; is there more to the story of the rebuilding. I'm totally in awe of this magnificent and surprisingly massive "Hotel". I was always one of the clueless Americans who never knew it was a public building. Thanks for the brain food!

Thank you for this amazing history!

You sir, have gained a subscriber. Well done channel, all around

That was brilliant! 💯👌

This video was amazing, I learned a lot of things I didn't even have a clue before regarding the french revolution, thank u so much, you're a great explainer, I'm kinda begining to like the British accent as well haha

Did Simon just painted the picture of God being a pokemon master when talking about the Charter of 1814 on 10:50 ?? If it was intentional or not Simon, it was brilliant!!! (and not the app)

You forgot the part where Robespierre put on a play in which he stood on a mountain in white and basically said he was chosen by God. The people thought this sounded a little too familiar, that's when things started going down hill for Robespierre pretty quickly.

This was a super interesting video! Sometimes people overlook the historical significance of buildings, and that's a crying shame. The history that is encapsulated by some buildings in parts of Europe is absolutely incredible.

Well written and very interesting.

Best channel ever.

"...blood in the gutters and the whiff of gunpowder on the air..." Poetic.

Come on you guys, I'm still hoping beyond hope to see the Potala Palace video soon.

Please do Sansoucci! Love your videos 🙂

When I was younger I spent a lot of time in Paris. Thank god I saw it when I did.

A few things: - Thermador was only partly a reaction to the terror. It was also that many genocidal Jacobins, like Fouche, who butchered Lyon during the war, worried that Robspierre was coming after them, next. Fouche's role in Thermador completely destroys any moral highground the Thermadorians had. - The role of the Austrian war needs to be emphasized. The war is not an excuse for the terror, but any explanation without it is just incorrect. The Girondin helped start a war because they thought it would rally everyone behind the new government. Then, when France started losing, and when the king refused to send troops to protect Paris, August 10th was planned and the terror took off. The terror would not have been legalized to the degree that it was if the French establishment - both the liberal Girondin and the Monarchists - hadn't supported war with Austria. Without explaining the role of the war, you make it sound like the Terror was just caused by political fanaticism. Fanaticism is only part of the story, and leaning on the fanaticism alone is just incorrect.

This needs a part 2

Yes, very interesting!🤔

My street where I grew up was Eron Way which intersected with Lafayette Way. My little neighborhood in El Paso, Texas, was Lafayette Place.

A very entertaining and informative story, Simon (even if Robespierre hardly tried to shoot himself (in the jaw- really!)

This was a very good video, Vive la France

I can't get over the Communards being in charge. Mandatory 80s brit-pop for all of Paris. "Don't leave me this way I can't survive, I can't stay alive Without your love, no baby." See, it has a whole new meaning now.

Simon you hire THE BEST writers, even if you do lock them up in your basement sometimes.

Could you guys do a video on the Lubyanka Building?

a quibble if you will... the Communards of 1871, did not appoint a strong man because they feared that said person would, as had happened in the 1st committee of Public Safety, become a dictator. As much as I enjoy a rousing history (as you usually deliver) it is, in my mind, equally important, to be as accurate as possible...even if you have to rush... I encourage all who watch this to explore more deeply all his/herstory (soorry..had to)

Simon, you should do a vid on Westminster Palace

Oh, our dear French brothers and sisters. You guys know how to have a good revolt.

Nice video. Perhaps a video on Notre Dame is in order, now.

Thank you for pointing out The Communard history, which few people know about. I have read reports of the Seine running red with blood weeks after the people of Paris were mowed down by the French army.

You guys should do Nazaré, Portugal. I saw a video of the crazy waves there and was reading about how it has only recently become popular with extreme surfers.

Oh-tell de-Vee Simon!

I am: Lisa Renée de Ville - Uribe, from Louisana, USA. I am the daughter of Pierre Lunsford de Ville of Louisiana. My people on my father’s father side are from Paris! (Uribe- is my Married name - which is an ancient name of Basque). I cannot understand a word that you are saying about my people, and history. 😢. You talk, too, fast with your harsh British accent. Cannot you try to slow it down and give respect to this important subject. It’s delivered so haphazardly! I am discouraged. I know so little about my history. 🦚⛲️❤️⚖️☄️🥳 However, there is no doubt that I belong to the Kingdom of Heaven, and that I am a woman of the Most High GOD, which is what’s more important, especially, during these End Times. All the best to you. I pray you find passion for what is honorable and true. 🙏🏼⚖️. I realize that it is the French that have mastered passion, and I pray they rediscover their true essence, during these last hours. As a True-blooded French woman, I must say: Your behavior is so commercial- and your inflection is offensively artificial, that elicits mind-programming- like the news castors (news commentaries), which are commanded by this New World Totalitarian Government System. It is a programming that I have not watched since 2009, when The Lord GOD Almighty warned me that this was mind programming. Your behavior concerns me and I pray for your salvation for eternity. 🙏🏼☄️ You have bowed down to another god. It’s not too late for you. How you spend eternity is up to you. Choose wisely. Eternity has no expiration. Such pompous commentary! This is beyond discouraging. There are no words to describe such a disappointment. 😢. Jesus Christ can set you free from homosexuality.

I can practically hear "Round the Bend"* playing during this video. * The tune from that brutal "driver's ed" video in the Simpsons episode "Duffless".

I always found French history rather tangled and confusing...you haven't changed my mind. On the other hand, with a few more watches of this video I might come to grasp the gist of this part of it. Thank you for that.

This was an awesome european history lesson! Thanks, Simon! Or do you prefer Si? Or neither?

Would LOVE to see a GeoGraphics video about Notre Dame!!

All teach history, but you teach with taste❤❤

"Napoléon overthrows the Directory, attacks Russia, is also overthrown" Next!. Great job! I laughed at the translation, I never heard it before: "the Tennis Court Oath."

To be correct, it was actually a handkerchief that the executioner tore off. The handkerchief had been tied to hold the jaw in its place by a doctor when Robespierre was arrested. But the part about him letting out a horrible cry of pain until the blade chopped his head off is true.

Do that, collaborate with many producers from all of your channels, even other channels, and make a toptenz list of the ten days that changed history the most.

I truly believe that there are so many places around the world that, as Simon said, could tell a lot of stories if the walls could talk.

You were right, this was more interesting

What about music venues like the free trade hall or the Hammersmith Odeon or even the cavern club?

I woud like to see a episode on the smith Masamune.

10:19 I forgot what the name of the piece is that's playing

Hotel de Ville is French for town council office building. HdV in Paris is the area where the historical Paris town council building is.

Can you please cover the Parthenon?

Holy Shit! I had no clue that the executioner ripped off Robespierre's jaw off! Thats, pretty damn metal.

ripped someone's jaw off shortly before guillotining them is the most metal thing I've heard about in awhile

Simon: “estates general” Me: *AP euro flashbacks*

I first learned of the French Revolution playing Assassin's Creed Unity. They used the game to help rebuild the Notre Dame after the fire destroyed the roof.

Paris Hotel de Ville... I wonder if it has made appearances in every movie... and in every comic... I'm thinking "The Rose of Versailles", which page does this place appear in? On a side note: was George Eliot's historical novel "Romola" influential enough to have inspired other works of fiction such as Jose Rizal's "Noli Me Tangere" and "El Filibusterismo", Riyoko Ikeda's "The Rose of Versailles", etc?

Simon Whistler, it's the neon SW logo that keeps me clicking but it isnt in this video. W the ever loving F dude

Great closet bruv. The hurricane of human history.

Don’t mess with a French person’s lunch!

Correction, it was not a tennis court but a place for the "Jeu de paume". It not the same at all.

This presents like the screenplay for a movie. You should pitch it.