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calling himself the 'sun king' he built France into a stable and powerful state centred on one man's authority, punishing or sending away the liberal thinkers who challenged his power.
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a tax inspector as well as a nobleman , Lavoisier is an outstanding scientist in Europe. He isolated oxygen and hydrogen. Later french scientists invented the international system of metre and litre and kilo, which the revolutionaries spread over the world. Because of his connections with the former kings, Lavoisier was killed in 1793 at the guillotine.
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Angry about the suffering in France’s wars, Voltaire writes his book ‘Candide’. The king forbids him to print it, and it goes around the world.
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a book appears by a french author from Geneva about sharing power between the people and the King. Rousseau's ideas filled the minds of liberals all over Europe, giving them boldness to challenge the power of kings.
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With help from France, The USA wins a war and becomes independent of
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– The brothers Montgolfier invent the world’s first manned flying machine – a hot-air balloon - and two men fly for 9 kilometres before the fabric catches fire ; they are forced to land. Manned flight has begun.
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King Louis 16 needed more money, and decided to summon all the nation in the 'estates general' for the first time in 175 years . But, desperate for food after the poor harvest, the poorer people refused to pay taxes especially as the nobles and priests paid nothing. Louis threw them out, so they formed their own National Assembly at the 'Tennis court oath'
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France enters 10 years of revolution and violent change.
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a statement about people's rights. People are not 'subjects' controlled by the king, but 'citizens' with their own duties as well as freedoms. The King from now on was under the National Assembly. In the next ten years that Assembly had to protect these rights against the nobles, and to reduce the power of the priests.
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Asking for grain to make bread, armed women forced King & Queen to leave Versailles and be like prisoners in a palace in Paris.
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To protect the King, and his wife who was Austrian, Austria starts a war against the French. French noble families hope to get control of the government; but the french people are loyal to the revolution and rise up to defeat the austrians' ally, Prussia in 1792 at Valmy.
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French troops at first defeat then invade large parts of western Europe as the kings resist the revolutionaries.
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the revolutionaries insisted that their prisoner, the King must die to prove the power of the republic. His wife was murdered a few months later
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known as the 'Committee of public safety', a series of 'Jacobin' leaders led by Robespierre murder any person accused under a law called the 'law of suspects', of being against the virtues of the revolution. In Paris there were 2,639 death sentences. The judges decided in one day both to arrest and to try for treason.
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Daring to attack Egypt and Italy, defeating Austria, General Napoleon became a national hero and ended the ten-year rule of politicians in Paris.
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A group of lawyers replaced the divine right of kings and nobles with a system including freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free markets, civil rights, democratic societies, secular governments. In all the lands Napoleon's soldiers occupied it was admired as a radical new system.The full set of laws is carved in stone at Napoleon's tomb in Paris. by 1960, over seventy different countries had based their law on Napoleon's.
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the senate chose as their leader a popular, hard-driving soldier. Napoleon used his influence to spread French ideas of democracy, new science, and rights of man in each country he conquered. He was placed his family as kings on the throne of Italian states; the German 'HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE' ceased to exist in 1809 France became the 'empire of the French'.
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while the aristocratic officers have run away,France has a chance to reform military organisation and to count on the enthusiasm of ordinary soldiers to fight for their revolution. Older armies could not be pushed too hard, this one was founded on forced enrolment and one year later counted half a million extra men.
