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Declaration of the Rights of man
The representatives of the french people determined to set forth the declaration, it proclaimed the Assembly's commitment to replace the ancien regime with a system on equal opportunity, freedom of speech, popular sovereignty and representative government. -
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The National Assembly
The revolution is just beginning, France had many revolts and riots which initiated the French Revolution. The monarchy's power is falling and many hardships start to occur. -
Tennis Court Oath
The deputies of the Third Estate, which represent commoners and the lower clergy, met on the Jeu de Paume, to take an oath to not separate until a new French constitution has been adopted. -
Storm on Bastille
A great crowd armed with muskets, swords, and weapons began to gather around the Bastille, Launay requested reinforcements but as more Parisians were coming he raised a white flag to surrender. King Louis XVI was overthrown and later executed along with his wife and thousands of people. -
Feudalism is abolished
Nobles agree to end their special privileges creating equality of all citizens before the law. -
Women's march
Thousands of women march from Paris to versailles demanding food, violently they forced the royal family to return to paris. -
Church Property
In order to pay off debt, the national assembly wanted to sell of church lands. The church had to be under the state control for them to have possession of the lad -
Civil Constituion of the Clergy
The Clergy attempted to reorganize the Roman Catholic Church in France on a national basis. It caused a schism within the French Church and made many devout Catholics turn against the Revolution. -
Clerical Oath
The National Constituent Assembly issued the following decree, requiring all members of the clergy to swear an oath of loyalty to the king, the nation and the state. -
The Emigres
The National Assembly sent mediators who assembled, in Bedarrides, delegates from the communes of the Comtat and Avignon. On August 18, 1791, they voted by a large majority integration into France, ratified by the National Assembly on September 14, 1791 -
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Legislative Assembly
The Directory was a democracy that the wealthy controlled. They were the only ones who had voting rights. The Directory was intended to be permanent and it used the army to control the people. -
Constitution of 1791
it retained the monarchy, but sovereignty resided in the Legislative Assembly. The franchise was restricted to "active" citizens who paid a minimal sum in taxes, about two thirds of adult men had the right to vote for electors and chose local officers. The constitution lasted less than a year. -
The National Convention
Radicals, called Jacobins, call for a new election for the legislature and insist that all male citizens should have the right to vote, not just property owners. The Jacobins draw up a new Constitution and erase all titles of nobility -
Hebertist too threatening
In the ensuing autumn the Hébertists had the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris turned into a Temple of Reason and had some 2,000 other churches converted to the worship of Reason. They favoured the execution of Louis XVI in January 1793 and the Reign of Terror; but, once the Revolutionary government of Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety was fully in power, it found the rebellious Hébertists too threatening. -
Parisians Storm the Palace
Parisian revolutionaries and mutinous troops storm and dismantle the Bastille, a royal fortress and prison that had come to symbolize the tyranny of the Bourbon monarchs. The royal family flees to the legislative assembly. -
Invasion of the Tuileries
The people of Paris laid siege to another royalist symbol. This time the target was the Tuileries Palace, the official residence of Louis XVI and the home of the Legislative Assembly. The king concluded that it was impossible to defend the palace without slaughtering thousands of Parisians. Leaving orders with the guard, Louis and his family walked across the Tuileries garden and took refuge in the Legislative Assembly building. -
The September Massacres
Citizens attack prisons that held nobles and priests and kill the prisoners, the massacres were an expression of the collective mentality in Paris in the days after the overthrow of the monarchy. -
Battle of Valmy
The Prussian march on Paris to restore the French monarchy was halted and the French Revolution saved. The Prussians and their allies withdrew, allowing the French to renew their invasion of the Austrian Netherlands. -
Battle of Jemapes
The battle of Jemappes, was the first major offensive battlefield victory for the armies of the infant French Republic, and saw the French Armée du Nord, containing a large number of new volunteer soldiers, defeat a regular Austrian army and capture Brussels. -
Criminals lose their heads
Robespierre begins the Reign of Terror where courts conduct rushed trials passing death sentences. The Reign of Terror lasts about a year, killing 40,000 people with the use of the guillotine. Many who died were members of the moderate revolution from 1789. -
Execution of a Queen
After being condemned for treason of and sentenced to death. -
Law of Suspects
The Law of Suspects, passed by the National Convention in September 1793, ordered the arrest of persons suspected of opposing the revolution. -
war of the vendee
In 1793 in the area known as the Vendée, which included large sections of the départements of Loire-Inférieure (Loire-Atlantique), Maine-et-Loire, Deux-Sèvres, and the Vendée proper the first wae occurred -
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Reign of Terror
Many new reforms and ideas were created, the Paris Commune drove the Girondins out of Paris and France slipped into civil war. The government tried to restore order by creating the C.O.P.S. to intimidate citizens during the Reign of Terror. -
Execution of a King
One day after being convicted of conspiracy with foreign powers and sentenced to death by the French National Convention, King Louis XVI is executed by guillotine in the Place de la Revolution in Paris. -
Law of Maximum
The Law of the Maximum was an attempt by the National Convention to fix price levels, in order to appease the sans culottes and their supporters in the Jacobin movement. -
Battle of Hondschoote
The battle of Hondschoote was a victory for the new mass armies of the French Republic, and forced an Allied army under the Duke of York to abandon the siege of Dunkirk. -
battle of Wattignies
The battle of Wattignies was a French victory that forced the Allies to lift the siege of Maubeuge, and removed the threat of an immediate Allied invasion of France. -
Committee of Public Safety
This was the executive branch of the new government, the Committee was responsible for finding enemies of the new government. Because of the war, it had almost dictatorial power. -
Republic of Virtue
Robespierre gave a speech, he basically believed that revolutionary France was to be a republic of virtue, where virtue and a form of terror, which he called prompt and severe justice, are hand in hand. -
Battle of Fleurus
The battle of Fleurus was the decisive battle in the two year long campaign in the Austrian Netherlands between the forces of revolutionary France and the powers of the First Coalition. -
Robespierre dies
Robespierre and a number of his followers were arrested at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris. The next day Robespierre and 21 of his followers were taken to the Place de la Révolution (now the Place de la Concorde), where they were executed by guillotine before a cheering crowd. -
Constitution of 1795
Reaction to the Reign of Terror, moderates produce another constitution setting up a 5 man Directory and a two-house legislature. Middle-class men dominated the Directory until 1799. -
The Directory
The Directory or Directorate was a five-member committee which governed France from 2 November 1795, when it replaced the Committee of Public Safety, until 9 November 1799, when it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire, and replaced by the French Consulate. -
Coup of 18
Coup of 18–19 Brumaire, coup d’état that overthrew the system of government under the Directory in France and substituted the Consulate, making way for the despotism of Napoleon Bonaparte. The event is often viewed as the effective end of the French Revolution. -
The Consolate
Napoleon Bonaparte helped overthrow the weak Directoryand established the Consulate, a 3-man governing board. They drew up a new constitution, however, Napoleon named himself First Consul for life -
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Age of Napolean
Executive power would lie in the hands of a five-member Directory appointed by parliament. Royalists and Jacobins protested the new regime but were swiftly silenced by the army, now led by a young and successful general named Napoleon Bonaparte. -
Emperor
Napoleon gains enough power to declare himself Emperor of France and invites the Pope to his coronation ceremony. The French support him because he calls for reforms to create new jobs and industry under strict government control. -
Levee on Masse
The levee en masse was the mass conscription of French citizens for service in the Revolutionary War. It was issued by the National Convention.