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Estates General Meeting
The estates general, a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm: the clergy (First Estate), the nobility (Second Estate), and the commoners (Third Estate). Summoned by King Louis XVI, it was brought to an end when the Third Estate formed into a National Assembly, inviting the other two to join, against the wishes of the King. This signals the outbreak of the French Revolution. -
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Creation of National Assembly
During the French Revolution, the National Assembly, which ran from June 13, 1789 until July 9, 1789, was a revolutionary assembly formed by the representatives of the Third Estate (the common people). -
Tennis Court Oath
On June 20th, 1789, the members of the French Estates-General for the Third Estate, who had begun to call themselves the National Assembly, took the Tennis Court Oath, vowing "not to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established." It was a pivotal event in the early days of the French Revolution. The Estates-General had been called to address the country's fiscal and agricultural crisis. -
Storming of the Bastille
The Storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris, France, on the afternoon of 14 July 1789. The medieval fortress, armory, and political prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the center of Paris. The prison contained just seven inmates at the time of its storming but was a symbol of abuses by the monarchy; its fall was the flashpoint of the French Revolution. In France, July 14th is a public holiday, usually called Bastille Day in English. -
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The Great Fear
The Great Fear was a general panic that took place between 17 July and 3 August 1789, 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' "famine plot" to starve or burn out the population, both peasants and townspeople mobilized in many regions. In response to rumors, fearful peasants armed themselves in self-defense and, in some areas, attacked manor houses. -
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Creation of Legislative Assembly
The Legislative Assembly was the legislature of France from 1 October 1791 to 20 September 1792 during the years of the French Revolution. It provided the focus of political debate and revolutionary law-making between the periods of the National Constituent Assembly and of the National Convention. -
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Creation of the National Convention
The National Convention was the third government of the French Revolution, following the two-year National Constituent Assembly and the one-year Legislative Assembly. Created after the great insurrection of 10 August 1792, it was the first French government organized as a republic, abandoning the monarchy altogether. The Convention sat as a single-chamber assembly from September 20, 1792 to October 26, 1795. -
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The Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror or The Terror (French: la Terreur) is the label given by some historians to a period during the French Revolution.
Several historians consider the "reign of terror" to have begun in 1793, placing the starting date at September 5th, 1792, but there is a general consensus that it ended with the fall of Robespierre in July 1794. Between June 1793 and the end of July 1794, there were 16,594 official death sentences in France, of which 2,639 were in Paris. -
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Creation of Committee of Public Safety
The Committee of Public Safety—created in April 1793 by the National Convention. The Committee of Public Safety succeeded the previous Committee of General Defense and assumed its role of protecting the newly established republic against foreign attacks and internal rebellion. As a wartime measure, the Committee was given broad supervisory powers over military, judicial, and legislative efforts. It was formed as an administrative body to supervise. -
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Napoleon Seizes Power
His power was confirmed by the new "Constitution of the Year VIII", originally devised by Sieyès to give Napoleon a minor role, but rewritten by Napoleon, and accepted by direct popular vote (3,000,000 in favor, 1,567 opposed). The constitution preserved the appearance of a republic but in reality established a dictatorship. He successfully built a large empire that ruled over continental Europe before its final collapse in 1814.