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Call of the Estates Generals
King Louis XVI calls forth the Estates General together for the first time in a long time. Featuring the clergy, the noblemen, and the rest of France together. On May 5, 1789, Louis XVI convened the Estates-General. Almost immediately, it became apparent that this archaic arrangement—the group had last been assembled in 1614—would not sit well with its present members. -
Tennis Court Oath
On June 17, the Third Estate decided to break from the Estates General and draw up their own constitution. On June 20, 1789 they found themselves locked out of their regular meeting place, and so they gathered in an nearby tennis court. This was the first step of the French Revolution, as the Third Estate had no right to act as the National Assembly. They would not stop until they had made a new constitution for france. -
Storming of the Bastille
Parisian revolutionaries and mutinous troops attacked the Bastille which was a royal fortress and prison. This action signaled the start of the French revolution. -
Declaration of the Rights of Man
This document proclaimed the Assembly’s commitment to replace the ancien régime with a system based on equal opportunity, freedom of speech, popular sovereignty and representative government. This document also improved the rights of men. -
March on Versailles (October 5, 1789)
On this day many Parisians marched their way to Versailles. Many of them were women who were doing it as protest mostly for the shoratage of bread as well as of how overpriced it was. -
The War Starts
The revolutionaries pushed for war because they thought it would unify the nation and spread the ideas of the Revolution to the rest of Europe. On April 20, 1792, France declared war on Austria. -
Attack on the Tuileries Palace
On August 10, a crowd of about 20,000 people attacked the Tuileries Palace. The King and Queen had escaped the Palace and placed themselves under the protection of the Legislative Assembly. Fearing further violence, the Assembly placed them under arrest. The Revolution was moving into a more radical phase. -
Declaration of the Republic and the Trial of Louis
Following the arrests of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette the Legislative Assembly replaced itself with a new political body named the National Convention. Their first dession was to declare France as a republic. -
Reign of Terror
Maximilien Robespierre came to dominate the Committee and established himself as the leader of the so-called Reign of Terror. Robespierre wanted to rid France of all enemies of the Revolution and to protect the “virtue” of the nation. On July 27, 1794, Robespierre was arrested -
Directory and the Rise of Napoleon
After the fall of Robespierre, the National Convention created a new constitution for France that was implemented in 1795. In 1799, a military commander named Napoleon Bonaparte returned from a military expedition in Egypt and ousted the Directory. Napoleon established what he called the Consulate and himself as the First Consul.
