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Jacques Necker
The French financer and statesmen Jacques Necker served king Louis XVI as director general of finances. His efforts to reform French institutions prior to 1789 and to compromise with the estates general after the start of the revolution failed. Necker sought out to reduce public expenditures by such measures s abolishing unnecessary positions and by demanding larger payments from the private companies that had purchased the right to collect indirect taxes. -
Olympe de Gouges
Olympe is considered a feminist pioneer, de gouges was an advocate of women's rights. her most famous work was the declaration of women's rights, even in revolutionary France, feminist ideas were considered radical. in 1793, she was executed for crimes against the government. -
Louis XVI
He was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French revolution. Louis XVI approved French military support for the American colonies in their successful struggle against the British, but the expense nearly bankrupted the country. Louis convened the estates general in an effort to solve his budget crisis, but by doing so he unwittingly sparked the French revolution. -
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette was the last queen of France before the French revolution. She became dauphine of France in may 1770 at age 14 upon her marriage to louis XVI. on may 10 1774, her husband ascended the throne and she became queen. She became known as Madame deficit because the country's financial crisis was blamed on her lavish spending. -
Maximilien Robespierre
Maximilien was a French lawyer and statesmen who was one of the best known and most influential figures of the French revolution. He was the architect of the reign of terror, he was overthrown and arrested by the national convention. as the leading member of the committee of public safety from 1793, Robespierre encouraged the execution, mostly by guillotine, of more than 170,000 enemies of the revolution. -
Charlotte Corday
Charlotte Corday was a figure of the French revolution. She was sent to the guillotine for the assassination of Jacobin leader jean-Paul Marat, she blamed Marat for the more extreme course the revolution had taken. He played a large role in the takedown of the Girondins. Corday believed in the Girondins cause. -
Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon created the lycee system of schools for universal education, built many colleges, and introduced new civic codes that gave vastly more freedom to the French than during the monarchy, thus supporting the revolution. -
Tennis court Oath
The third estate and the newly created national assembly moved to the nearby tennis court in order to carry out their own discussion's. The representatives of the third estate were angered with the inaction of the estates general and upset with their position in the French society. The new revolutionary government pledged to not separate, and reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established. -
Marquis de Lafayette
He was elected as a representative of the nobility to the estates general that convened in may 1789, Lafayette supported the maneuvers by which the bourgeois deputies of the third estate gained control of the estates general and converted it into revolutionary national assembly. With Jefferson's help, he composed a daft of the declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen, which he presented to the assembly on July 11. -
Attack on the Bastille
A state prison on the east side of Paris, known as bastille, was attacked by an angry and aggressive mob. when the prison was attacked it actually only held seven prisoners, but the mob had no gathered for them. They came to demand the huge ammunition stores held within the prison walls. -
Great fear
The great fear was a general panic that took place at the start of the French revolution. Rural unrest had been present in France since the worsening grain shortage of the spring, and fueled by rumors of an aristocrats to starve or burn out the population, both peasants and townspeople mobilized in many regions. -
Execution of Louis XVI
The execution of Louis XVI by guillotine, a major event of the French revolution, took place publicly at the place de la revolution. The national convention had convicted the king of high treason in a near unanimous vote, while no one voted not guilty. Ultimately they condemned him to death by a simple majority. The execution was performed four days late by Charles henri sanson. -
Reign of Terror
A period of violence during the French revolution where at least 300,000 suspects were arrested. 17,000 were officially executed, and perhaps 10,000 died in prison or without trial. -
The directory is formed
Directory, French directoire, the French revolutionary government set up by the constitution of the year III, which lasted four years. it included a bicameral legislature known as the corps legislatif. The directory suffered from widespread corruption. its policies aimed at protecting the positions of those who had supported the revolution and preventing the return of the bourbons. -
Napoleon invades Russia
The first wave started June 24 1812, through a series of long marches, napoleon pushed his army rapidly through western Russia in a futile attempt to destroy the retreating Russian army. Winning just the battle of Smolensk in august, under its new commander in chief Mikhail Kutuzov, the Russian army continued to retreat, employing attrition warfare against napoleon forcing the invaders to rely on a supply system that was incapable of feeding their large army in field
