-
It was the new title given on 9 July 1789 to the deputies who had been elected as three separate Estates (Clergy, Nobility, and Third Estate), and by the end of June turned into a Revolutionary national representative body until France's first written constitution was finally completed in 1791. The Constituent Assembly made a Revolutionary reform programme that by during 1791 had
rejected feudalism and the nobility, confirming the rights of the French citizens and reorganised France's structure. -
On 4 May 1789 the last grand ceremony of the Ancien Régime was held in Versailles. 1,200 deputies commoner asisted to the event. The king was surrounded by the most important Officers to the Crown. The procession started at Notre-Dame, crossed the Place d’Armes, and finished at the church of Saint-Louis, where Monseigneur de La Fare, bishop of Nancy, gave his famous speech in which he rebuked the luxury of the Court. For the first time in history a bishop was applauded in a church. -
It was an act of defiance by representatives of the nonprivileged classes of France during the meeting of the Estates-General.
Realizing that in any attempt at reform they would be outvoted by priviledged classes, had formed a National Assembly. Thinking that the king was forcing them to disband, they moved to a indoor tennis court until a written constitution had been established. Louis XVI relented and ordered the clergy and the nobility to join with the Third Estate in the National Assembly. -
On July 14, 1789, fears that King Louis XVI was about to arrest France’s newly constituted National Assembly led a crowd of Parisians to successfully besiege the Bastille, an old fortress that had been used since 1659 as a state prison. As a victory by ordinary Parisians over a prominent representation of the king’s coercive power, the event quickly became a symbol of revolutionary struggle. The episode’s anniversary is now a national holiday in France: Bastille Day. -
The decrees of 4 August 1789, also known as the August Decrees, were a set of 19 articles passed by the National Constituent Assembly during the French Revolution (1789-1799) which abolished feudalism in France and ended the tax exemption privileges of the upper classes. Although not without flaws, the passage of the decrees was a significant achievement of the Revolution. -
It was one of the basic charters of human liberties, containing the principles that inspired the French Revolution. Its 17 articles, adopted between August 20 and August 26, 1789, by the National Assembly, served as the preamble to the Constitution of 1791. Similar documents served as the preamble to the Constitution of 1793 (retitled simply Declaration of the Rights of Man) and to the Constitution of 1795 (retitled Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and the Citizen). -
Legislative Assemble was the national parliament of France during part of the Revolutionary period and again during the Second Republic. The first was created in September 1791 and was in session from Oct. 1, 1791, to Sept. 20, 1792, when it was replaced by the National Convention, marking the formal beginning of the First Republic. During the Second Republic it lasted from May 28, 1849, to Dec. 2, 1851, when Napoleon III dissolved it; the republic itself ended less than one year later.
-
It was a royal family’s failed escape from Paris in June 1791. Dissatisfied with the course of the revolution, particularly its attacks on the Catholic church, King Louis XVI acceded to suggestions that it was time to flee the capital. Though well hatched, the plan failed and the royal family were arrested at Varennes, some 240 kilometres from Paris. Their capture was humiliating both for the king and the moderates who supported a constitutional monarchy, a system that now seemed unworkable. -
It was an assembly that governed France from September 1792 until October 1795, during the most critical period of the French Revolution. The National Convention was elected to provide a new constitution for the country after the overthrow of the monarchy. The Convention numbered 749 deputies, including businessmen, tradesmen, and many professional men. It's early acts were the formal abolition of the monarchy (September 21) and the establishment of the republic (September 22).
-
It was declared a war against Austria. The French Revolutionary Wars would have a profound effect on the new society. They would change the course of European history, these wars rolling one into the other and lasting a decade. if one counts the Napoleonic Wars that followed. At various times, the French Revolutionary Wars would involve almost every significant European power. Inside France, the new regime came to be defined by war and the problems, that it created. -
Also commonly known as the Insurrection of 10 August, was a defining moment in the French Revolution (1789-99) that saw the armed revolutionaries of Paris invade the residence of King Louis XVI of France and massacre his Swiss Guards because of the pollitical, social and the upbringing war. The event effectively abolished France's monarchy, being a new phase in the Revolution. -
After voting unanimously to find the King guilty, the deputies had separate vote on his punishment. By a single vote, Louis was sentenced to death. For the first time in a thousand years, the French people were not ruled by a monarch. The passage below, from a letter by Philippe Pinel, describes the execution and shows great admiration for Louis’s serenity in the face of a humiliating, public death. -
Maximilien Robespierre lost his head literally. On July 27, 1794, Robespierre and a number of his followers were arrested at the Hôtel de Ville in Paris. The next day Robespierre and 21 of his followers were taken to the Place de la Révolution (now the Place de la Concorde), where they were executed by guillotine before a cheering crowd. -
It was the government of France for a period that spanned the last four years of the French Revolution (1789-1799). The Directory was unpopular, despite military successes, and faced economic crises and social unrest. It was ultimately toppled in the Coup of 18 Brumaire.
Established in response to the chaotic and bloody Reign of Terror (1793-94), the Directory sought to restore stability to France by resurrecting the initial revolutionary principles of 1789. -
Government established during the Revolution. It created an executive made up of three consuls, but the First Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, obtained all power, while the other two, Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès and Pierre-Roger Ducos , were figureheads. The principles of representation and legislative supremacy were discarded. The executive branch was given the power to draft new laws, and the legislative was like a rubber stamp. Napoleon abolished the Consulate when he declared himself emperor in 1804.
-
It was the first French Empire, historical empire established on May 18, 1804, with the creation of Napoleon I as emperor of the French. The Napoleonic empire persisted until the restoration of Louis XVIII on May 3, 1814. It enjoyed a brief resurrection during the Hundred Days but concluded with Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, then, exiled to St. Helena, and the second restoration of Louis XVIII to the throne.
-
It was the first engagement of the War of the Third Coalition and one of Napoleon’s greatest victories. The battle took place at Austerlitz in Moravia. Napoleon’s 68,000 troops defeated almost 90,000 Russians and Austrians nominally under Gen. Mikhail Kutuzov, forcing Austria to make peace with France (Treaty of Pressburg) and keeping Prussia temporarily out of the anti-French alliance. -
It was a naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars, which established British naval supremacy for more than 100 years. A fleet of 33 ships under Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve fought a British fleet of 27 ships under Admiral Horatio Nelson.
At the end of September 1805, Villeneuve had received orders to leave Cádiz. On October 19–20 his fleet slipped out of Cádiz, hoping to get into the Mediterranean Sea without giving battle. Nelson caught him off Cape Trafalgar on October 21. -
Was a decisive defeat for Napoleon. The battle was fought at Leipzig, between 185,000 troops under Napoleon, and 320,000 allied troops. After his retreat from Russia, Napoleon mounted a new offensive in Germany. His armies failed to take Berlin. He was forced to concentrate his forces in that city. On October 16 he successfully thwarted the attacks of Schwarzenberg’s and Blücher’s, but he failed to defeat. They surrounded him and Bennigsen and Bernadotte arrived. -
It was Napoleon’s final defeat, ending 23 years of recurrent warfare between France and the other powers of Europe. It was fought during the Hundred Days of Napoleon’s restoration, south of Waterloo village and south of Brussels. Battle between Napoleon’s 72,000 troops and the combined forces of the duke of Wellington’s allied army of 68,000 (with British, Dutch, Belgian, and German units) and about 45,000 Prussians, the main force of Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher’s command.