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Storming of The Bastille
On July 14, 1789, an angry crowd marched on the Bastille, a medieval fortress in east Paris that was mostly housing political prisoners. To many people in France, it was considered as a symbol of the much hated Louis’ regime. Angry, unemployed and hungry Parisians saw it as a place to vent their frustrations. The commander of the Bastille, Marquis de Launay and his troops resisted for a few hours before they surrendered to the mob. -
March on Versailles
Many people in Paris and the rest of France were hungry, unemployed and restless. In October, a large crowd of protesters, mostly women, marched from Paris to the Palace of Versailles, convinced that the royal family and nobility there lived in luxury, oblivious to the hardships of the French people. They broke into the quarters of Queen Marie Antoinette. The crowd demanded bread and wanted to bring the King and his family back to Paris to “live among the people”. -
Flight to Varennes
The National Assembly continued working on a new constitution for France. They took away some powers from the monarch. The King decided to leave France and seek refuge in Austria, hoping to eventually be reinstated on the throne as absolute monarchs. Before leaving, Louis wrote a manifesto denouncing the Revolution. On June 20, 1791, the royal family quietly left Paris. He managed to get within a few miles of the border before being recognized in the town of Varennes and forced to go back. -
Dissolution of the National Assembly
The long awaited constitution finally came into effect on September 30, 1791. France was proclaimed a constitutional monarchy, while the National Assembly was dissolved and replaced by a new political body named the Legislative Assembly. No member of the National Assembly was elected to the new legislative body. The result was the loss of everyone with valuable political experience. -
War
The issue of war dominated the debate in the new Legislative Assembly. In France, the support for war was growing as well. Louis XVI and hard line monarchists wanted war because they believed that foreign armies would easily overthrow the new government. The revolutionaries, on the other hand, 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
In the summer of 1792, the French government found itself in a very difficult situation. The Austrian army and its Prussian allies started advancing into the French territory. Economic stagnation continued throughout the country. The King was widely viewed as a traitor for trying to flee the country. 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. -
Declaration of the Republic
Following the arrests of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the Legislative Assembly disbanded and replaced itself with a new political body named the National Convention. The first act of the latter was to declare France as a republic on September 21, 1792. Meanwhile, the French military had halted the foreign invasion and pushed back the Austrians and Prussians. Louis was charged with treason. -
Trial of Louis
The vote at the end of the trial was unanimous: Louis was guilty. The vote on the death penalty was much closer but it passed. On January 21, 1793, Louis was driven through the streets of Paris to a guillotine and decapitated. Marie Antoinette had a short trial next. She was accused of numerous crimes, many of them based on rumors. On October 16, she too was found guilty and guillotined the same day. -
Reign of Terror
The new National Convention was dominated by the Committee of Public Safety. Maximilian Robespierre came to establish himself as the leader of the so-called Reign of Terror. Robespierre wanted to rid France of all enemies of the Revolution. From September 1793 to July 1794, an estimated 16,000 people were guillotined. Most leaders of the French Revolution were now either dead or had fled the republic. . On July 27, 1794, Robespierre was arrested. He was guillotined the following day. -
Directory and the Rise of Napoleon
The National Convention created a new constitution for France that was implemented in 1795. Leading the new government was the Directory consisting of an executive council of five members. In 1799, a successful 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.