French Revolution

By Vinefeather

  • Opening of the État-général at Versailles

  • National Assembly declares itself Constituent Assembly

  • Armed citizens storm and capture the Bastille

  • National Assembly decrees abolition of feudalism

  • Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen

  • Expropriation of Church property

  • Suppression of religious orders and vows

  • Abolition of nobility and titles

  • Civil Constitution inaugurated by Louis XVI

    Subordinating the Church to the civil government

  • First counter-revolutionary assembly at Jalès

  • Mirabeau elected President of the French Assembly

  • Abolition of Royal guilds and monopolies

  • Black citizens of French colonies granted equal rights

  • Louis XVI attempts to flee to Varennes

    But is recognised and forcibly returned to Paris

  • Assembly declares King inviolable and restores his prerogatives

    Declares king "inviolable" and restores prerogatives

  • King formally accepts Constitution

  • Constituent Assembly dissolves

  • Legislative Assembly commences

  • Assembly orders all émigrés to return under pain of death

    Failure to comply was met by threat of death

  • Civil marriage and divorce instituted

  • King vetoes Assembly’s ruling on émigrés

  • Property of émigrés forfeited

  • Jacobin Insurrection

    Jacobin Insurrection, again thwarted by gestures by the King, but Jacobins continue to defy the Assembly

  • Jacobin masses storm the Tuileries Palace, King imprisoned

    King is captured

  • Convention elected by the Legislative Assembly commences

  • Convention abolishes monarchy

  • Trial of the king begins

  • Louis XVI executed

  • Committee of Public Safety established

  • Uprising of Paris Commune against the Convention

  • Expulsion of the Girondists from all offices

  • Jacobin Constitution accepted by the Convention

  • Levée en masse (conscription) decreed

  • “Law of Suspects” initiates the Terror

  • Marie-Antoinette tried and executed

  • Republican Calendar decreed

  • Hébertists and Dantonists falsely charged, executed

    Robespierre, the Committee of Public Safety and the Jacobin Club create charges to accuses the Hébertists and Dantonists of in order to eliminate them.

  • Procedures for mass trial and execution implemented

  • Convention calls for arrest of Robespierre

  • Terror is over

  • Jacobin Club is suppressed by the Convention

  • Dauphin dies in prison

  • Comte de Provence assumes title of Louis XVIII

  • Constitution of Year III approved, establishing Directory

  • Royalists attempt a coup

    Napoleon Bonaparte makes his name suppressing the move with grapeshot

  • Convention dissolves itself in favour of the Directorate