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Period: to
National Constituent Assembly
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Formal opening of the Estates General
On 4 May 1789 the last grand ceremony of the Ancien Régime was held in Versailles: the procession of the Estates General. From all over France, 1,200 deputies had arrived for the event. -
Tennis Court Oath
It was a key moment that set off the French Revolution. On June 20, 1789, the Tennis Court Oath was taken. There, the men of the National Assembly swore an oath never to stop meeting until a constitution had been established. -
Storming of the Bastille
The Storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris, France, when revolutionary insurgents stormed and seized control of the medieval armoury, fortress, and political prison known as the Bastille. At the time, the Bastille represented royal authority in the centre of Paris. The prison contained only seven inmates at the time of its storming, but was seen by the revolutionaries as a symbol of the monarchy's abuse of power; its fall was the flashpoint of the French Revolution. -
The August Decrees
They were nineteen decrees made by the National Constituent Assembly during the French Revolution. There were 18 decrees or articles adopted concerning the abolition of feudalism, other privileges of the nobility, and seigneurial rights. -
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
It is a human civil rights document from the French Revolution. It was set by France´s National Constituent Assembly and it was inspired by Enlightenment philosophers, the Declaration was a core statement of the values of the French Revolution and had a significant impact on the development of popular conceptions of individual liberty and democracy in Europe and worldwide. -
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Legislative Assembly
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The Flight to Varennes
It was a significant event in the French Revolution in which King Louis XVI of France, Queen Marie Antoinette, and their immediate family unsuccessfully attempted to escape from Paris in order to initiate a counter-revolution at the head of loyal troops under royalist officers concentrated at Montmédy near the frontier. They escaped only as far as the small town of Varennes-en-Argonne, where they were arrested after having been recognized at their previous stop in Sainte-Menehould. -
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1st French Republic
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National Convention
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The Asembly declares war on Austria
In April 1792 the Legislative Assembly declared war on Austria-Hungary.
France and Austria had a complicated relationship in the second half of the 1700s. They were allies, but
they were both battling for control over European lands. Austria was keenly aware of the happenings in
France at the rise of the French Revolution. The Austrian emperor, Leopold II—successor to Joseph II and
another of Marie Antoinette’s brothers—was concerned. -
Storming of the Tuileries Palace
It was a defining event of the French Revolution, when armed revolutionaries in Paris, increasingly in conflict with the French monarchy, stormed the Tuileries Palace. The conflict led France to abolish the monarchy and establish a republic. -
Execution of Louis XVI
His remaining credibility as a leader lost, Louis now hoped for a foreign invasion to crush the revolution and restore him to power, but it did not come. In November 1792, a secret cupboard containing proof of Louis’ counter-revolutionary beliefs and correspondence with foreign powers was discovered in Tuileries Palace. He was brought to trail for treason and executed by guillotine. His wife, Mary Antoinette, was executed in the same way nine months later. -
Execution of Robespierre
Although the Austrian and Prussian armies had been temporarily hampered in their attack, the European coalition against France continued to threaten to expand and engulf the Revolution. Paranoid French citizens began to fear suspected conspirators, leading to acts of politically motivated mass killing. Eventually, the monarchy was overthrown and the French Republic was declared. The king, now known as Citizen Louis Capet, is about to stand trial for high treason against France and its people. -
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Directory
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The Napoleonic Era
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Period: to
The Consulate
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The Empire
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Battle of Trafalgar
It was a naval engagement between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars. The allied fleet, under the command of the French admiral, Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, sailed from the port of Cádiz in the south of Spain. They encountered the British fleet under Lord Nelson, recently assembled to meet this threat, in the Atlantic Ocean along the southwest coast of Spain, off Cape Trafalgar. -
Battle of Austerlitz
It was one of the most important and decisive engagements of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle occurred near the town of Austerlitz in the Austrian Empire. The decisive victory of Napoleon's Grande Armée at Austerlitz brought the War of the Third Coalition to a rapid end, with the Treaty of Pressburg signed by the Austrians later in the month. The battle is often cited as a tactical masterpiece, in the same league as other historic engagements like Cannae or Gaugamela. -
Battle of Leipzig
It was fought at Leipzig, Saxony. Napoleon's army contained Polish and Italian troops, as well as Germans from the Confederation of the Rhine. The battle was the culmination of the German Campaign of 1813 and involved 560,000 soldiers, 2,200 artillery pieces, the expenditure of 400,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, and 133,000 casualties, making it the largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars, and the largest battle in Europe prior to World War I. -
Battle of Waterloo
It was fought near Waterloo, at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium. One of these was a British-led coalition consisting of units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of the Duke of Wellington (referred to by many authors as the Anglo-allied army or Wellington's army). The battle marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle was contemporaneously known as the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean.