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Louise XVI Calls Estates General
Louise called a large assembly to represent: The Church/Clergy, Noblity, and the Peasants/common people. It was held in order to find ideas that would help solve France's financial woes. -
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Eve of Revolution
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Establishment of the National Assembly
The National Assembly was a transitional body between the Estates-General and the National Constituent Assembly. -
Tennis Court Oath
The members of the Third Estate delagates were one day, locked out of the gaurded room where the Estates usually had gone about meeting. They then went and moved to a nearby tennis court and made an oath to not stop meeting until a 'just and fair' government was created. -
Storming the Bastille
This was the spark that lit the fire that became the French Revolution. On the morning of 14 July 1789, the city of Paris was in a state of alarm. The demonstrators were mainly seeking to acquire the large quantities of arms and ammunition stored at the Bastille. On the 14th there were over 30,000 lbs. of gunpowder in store. -
The Great Fear
Rural unrest had been present in France since the worsening grain shortage of the spring, and the grain supplies were now guarded by local militias due to rumors that bands of armed men were roaming the countryside. In response to rumors, fearful peasants armed themselves in self-defense and, in some areas, attacked manor houses. The content of the rumors differed from region to region – in some areas it was believed that a foreign force were burning the crops in the fields. -
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Great Fear
Rural unrest had been present in France since the worsening grain shortage of the spring, and the grain supplies were now guarded by local militias due to rumors that bands of armed men were roaming the countryside. In response to rumors, fearful peasants armed themselves in self-defense and, in some areas, attacked manor houses. The content of the rumors differed from region to region; some areas it was believed that a foreign force were burning the crops. -
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Early Revolution
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Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
The National Assembly used the ideas of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen as their reasom for fighting in the French Revolution. The Declaration was about,"liberty, equality, and fraternity". The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was inspired by the American Declaration of Independence, and the ideas of famous Enlightenment Philosophers. -
Womans March on Versailes
The march began among women in the marketplaces of Paris who, on the morning of 5 October 1789, were near rioting over the high price and scarcity of bread. Their demonstrations quickly became intertwined with the activities of revolutionaries who were seeking liberal political reforms and a constitutional monarchy for France. The market women and their various allies grew into a mob of thousands and, encouraged by revolutionary agitators, they ransacked the city armory for weapons and marched t -
Civil Constitution in Clergy
A law was passed that limited the Roman Catholic Churches power in government. It made preists and other religious figures in the church elected, salaried officials. The Pope had condemned it and the preists had greatly disagreed with it. ALso, the French peasants did not want anything to do with it. -
Louise XVI Failed Escape
Louise had been told to flee, as he had angered his people. Later in time, he and his immediate family all dressed as people of the Bourgeoisie. They had later become discovered somewhere in the town of Varannes, when someone had held up some currency with the King's face on it. It was at which point that the family was escorted back to Paris by soldiers. When the royal family finally returned under guard to Paris, the revolutionary crowd met the royal carriage with uncharacteristic silence. -
Declaration of Pillnitz
The King of Prussia and Austrian Emperor, also Marie Antoinette's brother, had signed this bill that threatened to interveine to protect the French Monarchy if needed. Mostly this was bluff, but the revolutionaries had taken it very seriously. This was when the revolutionaries has started begging to become more radical. -
Constitution of 1797
The National Assembly had accomplished their goal of successfully creating a constitution. They had set up a limited monarchy with a Legislative Assembly, similiar to the goverment recently set up in the USA. The Legislative Assembly had made laws, decided on issues of law, collected taxes, and representatives were elected by a 25 year old male citizen. -
Sans-Culottes and Jacobins Radical Action
In Paris and other cities, working class men and women, called the sans-culottes, pushed the revolution into a more radical direction. By 1791, sans-culottes were demanding a republic. In the Legislative Assembly the sans-culottes found support among the Jacobins, middle class lawyers or intellectuals. They used pamphlets and sympathetic newspaper editors a to advance republican cause. In April 1792, the war of words between the Revolutionaries and the European monarchs moved to the battlefield. -
Jacobins Vs. Girondins
During the times of the French Constitutional Monarchy two prominent radical groups fought for power: theGirondins and the Jacobins. Of the twogroups, though both were radical, the Girondins were less radical and became arising power in 1791. During this time the group hoped to pass legislation allowing all blacks equal freedoms. The group also wanted to go to war with Austria in 1792 in hopes of showing power over the king. -
National Convention Formed
The National Convention was elected to provide a new constitution for the country after the overthrow of the monarchy (August 10, 1792). The Convention numbered 749 deputies, including businessmen, tradesmen, and many professional men. Among its early acts were the formal abolition of the monarchy (September 21) and the establishment of the republic (September 22). -
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Radical Days of the Revolution
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Execution of King Louise XVI
The execution of Louis XVI by means of the guillotine took place on 21 January 1793 at the La Place de la Concorde in Paris. It was a major event of the French Revolution. After events on the 10 August 1792, which saw the fall of the monarchy after the attack on the Tuileries by insurgents, Louis was arrested, interned in the Temple prison with his family, tried for high treason before the National Convention. found guilty by almost all (and 'not guilty' by none), and condemned to death. -
Committee of Public Safety
Created to deal with threats to France, the 12 member committee had almost absolute power as it battled to save the revolution. the Committee prepared France for an all-out war, issuing a 'levee en masse, or a mass levy that required all citizens to contribute to the war effort. Soo, French Armies overran the Netherlands, Then later Italy. At home they crushed peasant revolts. European monarchs shuddered as 'Freedom Fever spread among conqured lands by the revolutionaries. -
Reign of Terror
Period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of the revolution." The death toll ranged in the tens of thousands, with 16,594 executed by guillotine (2,639 in Paris), and another 25,000 in summary executions across France -
Social Reform
Revolutionaries pushed for social reform and religious tolerance. They set up state schools to replace religious ones, and organized systems to help the poor, old soldiers, and war widows. With a major slave revolt in Haiti, the government also abolished slavery in their Carribean colonies. The Convention tried to De-Christianized France. It created a secular calander, and banned religious festivals. Public ceremonies boosted nationalism and Republican support. -
Execution of Marie Antoinette
Her hair was cut off and she was driven through Paris in an open cart, wearing a simple white dress. At 12:15 p.m., two and a half weeks before her thirty-eighth birthday, she was beheaded at the Place de la Révolution (present-day Place de la Concorde).Her last words were "Pardon me sir, I meant not to do it", to Henri Sanson the executioner, whose foot she had accidentally stepped on after climbing the scaffold. Her body was thrown into an unmarked grave in the Madeleine cemetery. -
Execution of Robspierre
Having carried the day in the Jacobin Club, Robespierre rose to speak the next day in the Convention, where he attacked members of the Committee of Public Safety and Committee of General Security, until now his closest collaborators, for their extreme use of the Terror. He also hinted that such "terrorists" should be purged from the Convention. Fearing for their own safety, some members of those committees, a number of deputies noted for their harsh repressive measures. -
Nationalism
Of a handful of modern ideologies, one of the most monumental events in human history, the French Revolution, generated one: nationalism. Nationalism is the devotion to the interest or culture of a particular nation. Although in its extreme form it could go as far as some radical measures such as ethnic cleansing, the patriotic feeling that nationalism brings about has been a major momentum that binds a nation together. Prior the the French Revolution, France was divided by various regions. -
Constitution of 1795
It established the Directory, and remained in effect until the coup of 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799) effectively ended the Revolution and began the ascendancy of Napoleon Bonaparte. It was more conservative than the abortive democratic French Constitution of 1793. The Constitution of 1795 established a liberal republic with a franchise based on the payment of taxes, similar to that of the French Constitution of 1791. -
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Reaction to the Radical Days
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Reforms of the Directory
Barras, Rewbell, and La Révellière-Lépeaux got help from the armies. Although Royalists formed but a petty fraction of the majority, they accused that fraction of seeking to restore monarchy and to undo the work of the Revolution. Hoche, then in command of the Army of Sambre-et-Meuse, visited Paris and sent troops. -
Rise of Napoleon
People were sick of the revolution because there was still something like a civil war, foreign armies threatening the French borders and economical difficulties. Napoléon became famous during the italian campaigns and egyptian campaigns when he was only the général Bonaparte. When he came back to France he knew it was the good time to take the power because the French wanted peace, order, etc, and he made them believe he could offer them all this. He was the "homme providentiel".
