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French Deficit
Jaques Necker
In the years leading up to 1789, the previous rulers had continued spending money on themselves and luxories instead of the country France. When Louis XVI came to rule, he realized the dept France was in and hired Jacques Necker to be his financial advisor and help get France back on its feet. The economic reform starts when Jacques Necker advises the king to reduce extragent court spending, reform government, and abolish burdensome tariffs on internal trade -
Call of the Estates General
The King had asked every estate to prepare cahiers of greivences. When the estates met and took their votes to fix their problems, the third estate was always out numbered 2-1. When Louis XVI did nothing about this, the third estate swore to keep meeting until their grievences where heard, no matter where the meetings took place. -
Parisians storm the Bastille
More than 800 Parisians assemblemed outside the Bastille and demanded weapoens and gun powder. When refused, the crowd broke through defenses, killed the comander but found no weapons. The fall pf Bastille was a wake up call to the King that something had to be done. -
National Assembly Acts
Feudalism is abolished in France and now the assembly issued a Decleration of the rights of man as their first step to writing a consitution. The Decleration further proclaimed that all male citizens were euqal before the law. Many women though, wanted equal rights but did not succeed in recieving them. Instead, many were imprison and executed. -
Threats from Abroad
The King had been taken back to Paris and forced to go along with the new ruling system. But when the King failed to escape, the Prussian and Austrian rulers issued a document called the Decleration of Pilnitz. Although the threat of thier intervening to protect the French monarchy was a bluff, the French independece prepared fo war. -
Civil War
Ward of words soon broke out on the battlefield between French Revolutionaries and European Monarchs. The legislative assembly was eager to spread revolution and declared was on Austria, Prussia, Britian, and other states. Even though the greater powers had expected to win easyily, the fighting lasted on and off for years. -
Monarchy is abolished
A convention met that was made up more by a radical body that earlier assemblies. By vote, Monarchy was abolished and the French Republic was formed. A new constitution was formed as well and people of the republic set out to seize all traces of the old ways. Less than a year later, Louis XVI (former king) was executed along with his wife Maria Antoinette. -
The spread of Nationalism
The revolution and war gave french citizens a sense of pride in themselves and in their country. Instead of putting loyalty in their king and queen, it now lied within the people. The people of France, celbrated their country with festivals and songs and dances. France was finally a nation of arms and had control of itself all due to the revolution. -
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Robespierre and the reign of terror
GuillontineDuring this time, Robespierre believed that liberty could not be restored unless there was death to traitors. Almost 300,000 people were arrested and 17000 were executed. Within time, terror started rising quickly and people of the convention even feared for their lives. So they turned on the Commitee of Public Safety, executed Robespierre and other radicals. Afters this, executions slowed dramatically. -
Third stage of revolution
Another new constitution was created and this one set up a five man directory and a two house legislature elected by male citizens who owned property. At this time, middle class and prfessional people of the bourgeoisie were the dominant force. But the directory faced growing discontent and failed to fix their problems. Riots started accuring so the directory put thier faith in Napoleon Bonapart
