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The Clergy and the Nobles had dominated the Estates-General throughout the Middle Ages and expected to do so in the 1789 meeting.
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The Third Estate delegates found themselves locked out of their meeting room. They broke down a door to an indoor tennis court, pledging to stay untill they had drawn up a new constitution.
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A Mob searching for gun powder and arms stormed the Bastille, a very iconic paris prison.
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Noblemen made grand speeches, declaring their love of liberty, and equality, they also joined other members of the National Assembly in sweeping any of the Feudal privileges of the First and Second estaees. By morning, the old Regime was dead.
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Three weeks later after the old regime was banished, the National Assembly adopted a statement of revolutionary ideas, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
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Thousands of Parisian women rioted over the rising price of bread. Brandishing knives, axes, ans other weapons, the women marched on Versailles
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The Assembly took over Church lands, and declared that Church officials and priests were to be Elected, and paid as state officials.
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The royal family tried to escape from France unsafe, and Left the Country. As they neared the border, they were arrested, and taken back to Paris.
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The National Assembly completed the new constitution, which King Louis reluctantly approved.
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Austria and Prussia urged the French to restore Louis to his posistion as an absolute Monarch. The Legislative Assembly responded by declaring war in April, 1792
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The Prusian commander threatened to destroy Paris if the revolutionaries harmed any member of the royal family.
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About 20,000 men and women invaded the Tuileries, the palace where the royal family stayed.
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Most of the people invilved in the governmental changes in September 1792 were members of a radical political organization, the Jacobins.
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This new governing body, the National Convention, took office on September 21. It quickly abolished the monarchy, and declared France a republic.
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On January 21, 1793, the former king walked with calm dignity up the steps of scaffold to be beheaded by a machine called the Guillotine.
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The Convention ordered a draftof 300,000French citizens between the ages of 18 and 40.
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Robespierre became leader of the Comittee of Public Safety. For the next year, Robespierre governed France virtually as a dictator, and the pariod of his rue was called the Reigh of Terror,
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In July, 1794, fearing for their own safety, some members of the National Convention turned on Robespierre. They demanded his arrest and execution. The Reign of Terror, the radical phase of the french revolution ended on July 28, 1794, when Robespierre went to the Guillotine.
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In 1795, moderate leaders in the National Convention drafted a new plan of government, the third since 1789. It is known as the Directory.
