French Revolution

By grafffam@msn.com

  • King Louis XVI calls Estates General to tax nobility

    France was in much debt and Louis needed new ideas to help supprt their struggling economy.
  • Period: to

    French Revolution

  • 3rd Estate forms National Assembly.

    This was the New Regime filled with the majority of 3rd Estate, and some clergy and nobles.

  • Tennis Court Oath

    Members of the 3rd Estate meet on a Tennis Court and demand a new constituition.

  • Great Fear begins as peasants revolt in France.

    Rumors spread around France as tensions rose between the peasants and the old regime.

  • Declaration of Rights of Man and the Citizen

    National Assembly decrees this document to give men their basic rights.

  • National Assembly abolishes nobility

    This made the playing field level for all 3 estates

  • King Louis formally accepts new constitution

    This became the new law of the land

  • Legislative Assembly commences

    The new Assembly would discuss new laws and the future of the government.

  • The National Convention commences.

    Their first action was to abolish monarchy.

  • King Louis XVI is executed

    This event makes the shift in power symbolically complete.

  • France declares war against Britain, Holland, and Spain.

    This would lead to much more debt for the French.

  • Food riots rage in Paris as the price of bread rises.

    France still faced starvation

  • The commune of Paris rises to power.

    They expel the Girondist party.

  • Jacobin constitution accepted by the National Convention

    This document explained the new laws and rights of citizenship.

  • The Law of Suspects is decreed.

    This initiates the Reign of Terror.

  • Robespierre announces himself the dictator of France.

    This was yet another change in leadership in Revolutionary France.

  • Robespierre is removed from office.

    Members of the Assembly feared he was becoming too powerful.

  • The National Convention is now more in favor of a dictatorship.

    The Convention was against monarchy and dictatorship.

  • Napoleon wages war in Battle of Lodi.

    Napoleon wanted to convert other countires to be a republic like France.

  • Napoleon becomes dictator of France.

    This event would lead to the Napoleonic era where, Napoleon would give citizens more rights while running a dictatorship.