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Coup D'État of Thermidor
A 1794 coup d'état within the French Revolution against the leaders of the Jacobin Club that dominated the Committee of Public Safety. It was triggered by a vote of the National Convention to execute Maximilien Robespierre, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, and several other leaders of the revolutionary government. -
Beginning of the Estates General
The Estates-General of 1789 was a meeting of the three estates of pre-revolutionary France: clergy, nobility, and commons. Summoned by King Louis XVI of France (r. 1774-1792) to deal with financial and societal crises, it ended with the Third Estate breaking from royal authority and forming the National Assembly. -
Storming of the Bastille
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. -
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen, adopted August 26, 1789) is an expression of universal human rights—those rights that are true at all times and in all places—that served as one of the foundational documents of the French Revolution. -
Declaration of the Rights of the Woman and the Citizen
The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, also known as the Declaration of the Rights of Woman, was written on 14 September 1791 by French activist, feminist, and playwright Olympe de Gouges in response to the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. -
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The Terror
The Reign of Terror (French: la Terreur) was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervour, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety. -
Execution of Louis XVI.
Louis XVI. was put to death for high treason. He was accused of inciting an invasion of France by other European kingdoms, such as Austria, to put an end to the Revolution and reclaim power. Attempts to reorganize the French government in conformity with Enlightenment concepts dominated the first half of his reign. -
The Directory
The Directory (also called Directorate; French: le Directoire) was the governing five-member committee in the French First Republic from 26 October 1795 until November 1799, when it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup D'État of Brumaire and replaced by the Consulate. -
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Napoleonic Empire
The Napoleonic era from 1799 to 1815 was marked by Napoleon Bonaparte's rise to power in France. He crowned himself as the first French Emperor in 1804 and sought to expand French influence across Europe. Major events include the Napoleonic Wars, the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, and Napoleon's exile to Elba and later to Saint Helena. -
Coup D'État of Brumaire
The Coup of 18 Brumaire (9-10 November 1799) was a bloodless coup d'état in France that overthrew the government of the French Directory and replaced it with the French Consulate. The coup brought Napoleon Bonaparte to power and, in the view of many historians, marked the end of the French Revolution (1789-1799). -
The Consulate
The Consulate (French: Consulat) was the top-level government of the First French Republic from the fall of the Directory. The new regime was ratified by the adoption of the Constitution of the Year VIII on 24 December 1799 and headed by Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul, with Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès and Charles-François Lebrun serving as Second and Third Consuls respectively. The Three Consuls. -
Battle of Austerlitz
The Battle of Austerlitz, also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of the most important military engagements of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle occurred near the town of Austerlitz in the Austrian Empire. Around 158,000 troops were involved, of which around 24,000 were killed or wounded. The conflict came to an end with the French victory -
Napoleon's 1st Exile (Elba)
Napoleon's exile on Elba—an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea just 10 miles from the Italian mainland— took place due to him having suffered heavy defeats as well as victories, such as the disastrous Russian campaign and the defeat at Leipzig. It lasted until March of 1815, when he escaped on a brig. -
Napoleon's 2nd Exile (St. Helena)
Following his defeat in the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon Bonaparte was forced into exile on St. Helena in 1815 where he was guarded by members of the 53rd (Shropshire) Regiment of Foot. He remained here until his death in 1821. -
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on 18 June 1815 between Napoleon's French Army and a coalition led by the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Blücher. The decisive battle of its age, it concluded a war that had raged for 23 years, ended French attempts to dominate Europe, and destroyed Napoleon's imperial power forever. -
Napoleon's Death
he physicians who conducted Napoleon's autopsy concluded that his death was from stomach cancer, exacerbated by bleeding gastric ulcers, after a huge dose of calomel – a compound containing mercury that was used as a medicine – was administered to him on the day before he died at the age of 51.