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king louis xvlll begins his reign
The grandson of Louis XV and brother of Louis XVI, Louis Stanislas Xavier declared himself King of France in 1795, before officially becoming King Louis XVIII in 1814 at the fall of the Empire. -
Louis XVI calls the estates general
Calling the Estates-General. The Estates-General of 1789 was a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm summoned by Louis XVI to propose solutions to France's financial problems. It ended when the Third Estate formed into a National Assembly, signaling the outbreak of the French Revolution. -
tennis court oath
In the Tennis Court Oath, representatives of the non-clergy and non-nobles of France swore they would not disperse until a constitution was established for France. While the oath-makers were successful, the French Revolution soon tumbled out of control. -
writing the declaration of the rights of men
Who wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen? The Marquis de Lafayette, with the help of Thomas Jefferson, composed a draft of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and presented it to the National Assembly on July 11, 1789. -
Parisians storming the Bastille
storming of the Bastille, iconic conflict of the French Revolution. 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. -
march on Versailles
The mob had gathered in the Marble Courtyard and was demanding a royal appearance. Louis XVI promised to give them bread and to come to Paris. At 1.25 pm the Royal cortege left Versailles. Along the way the crowd proclaimed they were bringing back “the baker with his wife and boy”! -
establishment of the new french constitution
Following the Tennis Court Oath, the National Assembly began the process of drafting a constitution as its primary objective. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, adopted on 26 August 1789 eventually became the preamble of the constitution adopted on 3 September 1791. -
Reign of terror
The Reign of Terror , or simply the Terror (la Terreur), was a climactic period of state-sanctioned violence during the French Revolution (1789-99), which saw the public executions and mass killings of thousands of counter-revolutionary 'suspects' between September 1793 and July 1794. -
Execution of the king and queen
King Louis XVI of France and his wife Queen Marie Antoinette were both beheaded by the guillotine at the Place de la Révolution (now the Place de la Concorde) in Paris, France. Louis XVI was executed on January 21, 1793, and Marie Antoinette was executed on October 16, 1793. -
napoleon builds an empire
Napoleon built his empire through conquest of territories belonging to his enemies. Napoleon greatly assisted in defeating the First Coalition in 1792–1797, in which the newly formed French republic annexed a part of the Rhine and also the formerly Austrian Netherlands, in addition to client states. -
6th coalition occupies paris
The Jardin du Luxembourg park dominates this chic Left Bank district, home to posh boutiques, eateries and the 6th-century Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris's oldest church. Sidewalk booksellers sell vintage titles on the banks of the Seine. Boulevard Saint-Germain draws tourists and literature fans to iconic cafes like Les Deux Magots and Flore, once favored by writers such as Hemingway and Camus. -
napoleon invades Russia
On June 24, 1812, the Grande Armée, led by French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, crossed the Neman River, invading Russia from present-day Poland. The result was a disaster for the French. The Russian army refused to engage with Napoleon's Grande Armée of more than 500,000 European troops. -
napoleon defeated at 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. -
the congress of vienna meets
The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. -
napoleon overthrows the directory
The coup d'état of 18 Brumaire brought Napoleon Bonaparte to power as First Consul of France. In the view of most historians, it ended the French Revolution and led to the coronation of Napoleon as emperor. This bloodless coup d'état overthrew the Directory, replacing it with the French Consulate.