In the French Revolution, old ladies knitted while watching aristos being behead

Question: In the French Revolution, old ladies knitted while watching aristos being beheaded!. Did they sleep soundly!?
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Life was much more coarse during that time, one went out with family to watch people being hanged, tortured, burnt, the British would tour the madhouse of Bedlam to laugh at the madmen and women locked there just as if they were visiting a zoo!. If you paid a guardian he would even prod the poor mad soul to make him react!.
So I would say yes, as soundly as old people sleep usually!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

First of all the aristocracy of France and the aristocracy all over Europe treated the peasants like dog vomit!.

You could 'buy' a peasant for a few francs back in 1700 France!.

There was a double standard for everything which favored the aristocracy!.

The guillotine was invented as the most relatively humane form of execution but it was reserved strictly for the aristocracy; the peasants were 'broken on the wheel' and other hideous forms of public execution (hanging: where the hangman sat on your shoulders and rode you down while his assistant stood under the scaffold and caught your legs and pulled; disembowelment; and various mutilations for lesser crimes)!.

The aristocracy throughout Europe commited all sorts of crimes against the peasantry which very few aristocrats where brought to justice!.

When Thomas Jefferson visited France he approved of the beheading of the aristocracy!.

So when the old ladies sat around "Madame Dufarge" watching the aristocrats get their heads chopped off with a gush of blood, remember that these ladies probably lost family members to more hideous public executions because of a false accusation by a member of the elite aristocracy!. I bet they slept soundly indeed!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

First of all, the image of the old ladies knitting at executions was invented by Charles Dickens!. I don't know if it actually happened or not!.

But to address the bigger question of how you can watch an execution and then sleep soundly!. These days, millions of people all over the world can watch killings done in their names (in Iraq, Afghanistan, and lots of other places) turn off the TV, go up to bed and sleep quite soundly!. They have convinced themselves the killings are necessary!. I'm sure the French peasants felt the same way!.

Maybe we ought to stay awake some night and think about it a little harder!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

I'm sure people in those days were not very surprised seeing people beheaded!. I know for sure that their were people that were disturbed by it but with the totalitarian dictators in control there was not much people could do about it!. they might have gotten beheaded as well!Www@QuestionHome@Com

Yes!. Public executions were a popular form of entertainment everywhere, they went on in England until the mid-nineteenth century!. People were a lot less squeamish in those days than they are now!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

beheadings were like circuses back then, and they would watch for entertainmentWww@QuestionHome@Com

Hi Cam,
Hard to say, what were they knitting, hats for the heads!?!?
Cathorio!.Www@QuestionHome@Com