January 6, 2021 is likely to be written into American history texts as the day when the US Capitol was attacked by supporters of Donald Trump. Ben Sasse, US Senator from Nebraska, had some choice words to decry the day’s infamy: “Americans are better than this: Americans aren’t nihilists. Americans aren’t arsonists. Americans aren’t French revolutionaries taking to the barricades” (https://www.sasse.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2021/1/sasse-statement-on-attack-against-the-people-s-capitol). Sasse is right about not being French revolutionaries but for reasons even sadder than might appear at first glance.

French revolutionaries lived under absolute monarchy, not democracy. Their leader was no elected official. They had no genuine representation in a national legislature, let alone arbiters of justice in an independent court system. They were in the throes of a despondent and incompetent king who led a gilded life in the palace of Versailles, secluded from the common person. By comparison, the current White House, Mar-a-Lago, and any number of Trump properties around the world might not seem so different. But those rioting the Capitol today were not directing their ire toward their leader.

Before the barricades, French revolutionaries could be found in the very halls of Versailles. Convened to make their case for greater participation in government on behalf of people throughout France, they vowed not to leave until they got a constitution. This act of defiance led to the creation of the first real parliament in France.

Revolutionaries were also found among the women of Paris, many impoverished and fed up with the king’s ignorance of their plight, who marched eighteen miles to Versailles to demand change.

Revolutionaries were also the writers, intellectuals, and salon keepers—activists by today’s standards—who helped propagate ideas about freedom and equality.

Revolutionaries were surely those who took up arms, both to protect themselves from royal guards threatening their lives and to topple the old regime.

No doubt, the French revolution took an ugly, violent turn over the months to come after that fateful 1789. Barricades did indeed go up while heads came off. French revolutionaries became synonymous in the British and American press with radicals.

To compare French revolutionaries from over two hundred years ago with today’s Americans rioting the Capitol, however, is to miss the point. French revolutionaries fought against an insanely rich man who clung to whatever corrupted power he had left. They fought for a republic with democratically elected representatives. Today’s Trump supporters are fighting for just the opposite.