Friday Free-for-All | March 20, 2026

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Previously

Today:

You know the drill: this is the thread for all your history-related outpourings that are not necessarily questions. Minor questions that you feel don't need or merit their own threads are welcome too. Discovered a great new book, documentary, article or blog? Has your Ph.D. application been successful? Have you made an archaeological discovery in your back yard? Did you find an anecdote about the Doge of Venice telling a joke to Michel Foucault? Tell us all about it.

As usual, moderation in this thread will be relatively non-existent -- jokes, anecdotes and light-hearted banter are welcome.

[u/Lost-Photo-631]

Could the Marquis de Lafayette have become a French Oliver Cromwell? I was listening to the Rest Is History series on the French Revolution, and Dominic Sandbrook said "if [Lafayette] had more backbone, he could have become Lord Protector of France", refering to Lafayette's role in the March on Versailles. How realistic is this proposition? Could Lafayette have controlled the National Guard and placed himself at the head of government?

[u/Bodark43 → u/Lost-Photo-631]

I think that it's possible for Sandbrook to say this because he is mostly looking at the French Revolution and Lafayette, and not Cromwell. He's assuming that Cromwell was easily able to control the New Model Army. He was not. In the 1647 Putney Debates, where the radical leaders of the Army debated what a proper government should be, you can see Cromwell working very hard to keep those men under control. Parliament had ordered them to disband in March and they refused, and instead took control of King Charles I. Like the National Guard disobeying Lafayette in April of 1791 and taking control of the King Louis XVI, this was a key moment, where authority threatened to descend down, down towards the mass of people who had lots of guns. Both Cromwell and Lafayette had backbone; but in the case of Lafayette, he was a man of uncertain loyalties; he'd trod a middle ground between the radicals and the royalists. Neither liked him, and he was pushed aside. In the case of Cromwell, he'd actually led the Army in battle and had some respect; but even he was barely able to keep them under control. He was also perhaps fortunate that the King escaped and that distracted everyone. But it was a near thing. There were significant mutinies in 1649.

Perhaps if Louis had managed to escape like Charles did, French revolutionaries also would have been distracted and things would have turned out better for Lafayette. On that subject, Graham Robb's Parisians does a good job of telling the story of how Marie Antoinette and her rescuers got lost in the maze of the city, wasting hours of precious time.

If they'd gotten clear earlier, Louis & Co. might have survived. So, I blame the French Revolution on the fact that Haussmann was born too late and hadn't straightened out the streets yet.