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Meeting of the Estates General
The Estates General were reluctantly summoned by King Louis XVI in May of 1789 with an aim to solve the monarchy’s financial crisis. There were three classes represented by the Estates General: the nobles, clergy and the rest of the population or the so-called Third Estate. Each estate had only one vote. As a result, the nobility and clergy could always overrule the Third Estate. Fearing they would be forced to bear the burden of the financial crisis, the members of the Third Estate decided to f -
Storming of the Bastille
This event is where people went to Bastille, a prison, and tore it down brick by brick.This event essentially started off the entire French revolution and in quite a brutal way. The rebels killed everyone, and impaled their heads on sticks. -
The Great Fear of the Countryside
This event went on for a very long time. It lasted for about a month. People were afraid that the king would kill them on the spot at any time of any day. They were paranoid. -
THe Bread March on Versailles
The Bread March on Versailles was like the seige of Bastille except this time it was mostly women. They believed that the price of bread was too high and that there wasn't enough of it. -
Flight to Varennes
On June 1791, King Louis XVI and queen Marie Antoinette left their palace disguised as servants. In a small town of Varennes, close to the border with the Austrian Netherlands, the king and queen were stopped by the townspeople. They were forced to say their real identity and to return back to Paris. As soon as Louis, Marie and their family were sent to the French National Assembly. They both lost their crowns a year later. The king and queen were killed by the guillotine in 1793. -
The National Assembly adopts the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen"
This event was more civilized than much of the other events. It was much like the signing of the Declaration of Independence in the American Revolution. Irt was a document stting the rights of each citizen. -
Attack on the Tuileries Palace
The royal family had been under house arrest in the Tuileries Palace. An angry mob insulted the king, he willingly put on the red cap of liberty,symbolizing revolution, as the mob insisted. He refused to give his position as the minister of church. King Louis XVI gave his veto to punish priests who refused to accept the changes of the church. The mob had left without any extermination, but then the mob came back. This time the royal family nearly survived they fled to the protection of Assembly. -
Declaration of the Republic and the Trial of Louis
Following the arrests of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the Legislative Assembly disbanded and replaced itself with a new political body named the National Convention. The first act of the latter was to declare France as a republic on September 21, 1792. Meanwhile, the French military had halted the foreign invasion and pushed back the Austrians and Prussians. Louis was charged with treason. The vote at the end of the trial was unanimous: Louis was guilty. The vote on the death penalty was much -
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Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror began in 1793 after the death of Louis XVI. The purpose of it was to purge France of enemies of the Revolution to protect the country. From 1793-1794 France was governed by Committee of Public Safety. Throughout those nine months 16,000 people were executed by guillotine.The army of France was successful against their enemies that meant the Terror had ended in 1794. Robespierre continued the Terror and ended it in July 28,1794. -
Directory and the Rise of Napoleon
After the dramatic fall of Robespierre, the National Convention created a new constitution for France that was implemented in 1795. Leading the new government was the Directory consisting of an executive council of five members. Almost from the start, the Directory became mired in corruption, political conflict, financial problems and depended on the army to remain in power. In 1799, a successful military commander named Napoleon Bonaparte returned from a military expedition in Egypt and ousted
