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Meeting with the estates-general
This assembly was composed of three estates – the clergy, nobility and commoners – who had the power to decide on the levying of new taxes and to undertake reforms in the country. -
Tennis court oath
Finding themselves locked out of their usual meeting hall at Versailles on June 20 and thinking that the king was forcing them to disband, they moved to a nearby indoor tennis court (salle du jeu de paume). There they took an oath never to separate until a written constitution had been established for France. -
storming of the bastille
On July 14 1789 the Paris mob, hungry due to a lack of food from poor harvests, upset at the conditions of their lives and annoyed with their King and Government, stormed the Bastille fortress (a prison). This turned out to be more symbolic than anything else as only four or five prisoners were found. -
Declaration of the Rights of Man
In its preamble and its 17 articles, it sets out the “natural and inalienable” rights, which are freedom, ownership, security, resistance to oppression; it recognizes equality before the law and the justice system, and affirms the principle of separation of powers. -
Women's March on Versailles
Concerned over the high price and scarcity of bread, women from the marketplaces of Paris led the March on Versailles on October 5, 1789. This became one of the most significant events of the French Revolution, eventually forcing the royals to return to Paris. -
Execution of King Louis XVI
In November 1792, a secret cupboard containing proof of Louis' counter-revolutionary beliefs and correspondence with foreign powers was discovered in Tuileries Palace. He was brought to trail for treason and executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793. -
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Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror , or simply the Terror (la Terreur), was a climactic period of state-sanctioned violence during the French Revolution (1789-99), which saw the public executions and mass killings of thousands of counter-revolutionary 'suspects' between September 1793 and July 1794. -
Maximillian Robespierre's execution
Maximilien Robespierre, in full Maximilien-François-Marie-Isidore de Robespierre, (born May 6, 1758, Arras, France—died July 28, 1794, Paris), radical Jacobin leader and one of the principal figures in the French Revolution. In the latter months of 1793 he came to dominate the Committee of Public Safety, the principal organ of the Revolutionary government during the Reign of Terror, but in 1794 he was overthrown and executed in the Thermidorian Reaction. -
Napoleonic Code is established
Enacted on March 21, 1804, the resulting Civil Code of France marked the first major revision and reorganization of laws since the Roman era. The Civil Code (renamed the Code Napoleon in 1807) addressed mainly matters relating to property and families. But these areas of law greatly affected people's lives. -
Napoleon Crowns himself emperor
By crowning himself, Napoleon symbolically showed that he would not be controlled by Rome or submit to any power other than himself. This was very important, both as a show of strength to reassure his allies and to quell any potential uprisings or anarchy by proclaiming himself the highest authority in France. -
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Peninsular War
Between 1808 and 1814, the British Army fought a war in the Iberian Peninsula against the invading forces of Napoleon's France. Aided by their Spanish and Portuguese allies, the British held off superior French numbers before winning a series of victories and driving them out. -
Napoleon and his men march on Russia
Through a series of long forced marches, Napoleon pushed his army of almost half a million people rapidly through Western Russia, now Belarus, in an attempt to destroy the separated Russian armies of Barclay de Tolly and Pyotr Bagration who amounted to around 180,000–220,000 at that time. -
Napoleon is exiled to Elba
After Napoleon Bonaparte's disastrous campaign in Russia ended in defeat, he was forced into exile on Elba. He retained the title of emperor — but of the Mediterranean island's 12,000 inhabitants, not the 70 million Europeans over whom he'd once had dominion. -
Napoleon dies
The physicians who conducted Napoleon's autopsy, on May 6, 1821, concluded that his death was from stomach cancer, exacerbated by bleeding gastric ulcers, after a huge dose of calomel – a compound containing mercury that was used as a medicine – was administered to him on the day before he died.