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Formal opening 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 to deal with financial and societal crises, it ended with the Third Estate breaking from royal authority and forming a National Assembly.
Necker said that the budget deficit was 56 million, he claimed that new taxes would pay it, Commoners, were dissatisfied with such a mediocre discourse, and decided to take things into their own hands. -
Tennis Court Oath
The deputies of the Third Estate, realizing that in any attempt at reform they would be outvoted by the two privileged orders, the clergy and the nobility, had formed, on June 17, a National Assembly. Finding themselves locked out of their usual meeting hall at Versailles on June 20 and thinking that the king was forcing them to disband, they moved to a nearby indoor tennis court There they took an oath never to separate until a written constitution had been established for France. -
Storming of the Bastille
When revolutionary insurgents attempted to storm and seize control of the medieval armoury, fortress and political prison known as the Bastille. After four hours of fighting and 94 deaths the insurgents were able to enter the Bastille.The prison contained only seven inmates at the time of its storming and was already scheduled for demolition, 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
The decrees of 4 August 1789 were a set of 19 articles passed by the National Constituent Assembly during the French Revolution which abolished feudalism in France and ended the tax exemption privileges of the upper classes.In a state of patriotic fervor,noble deputies renounced their privileges, with others going so far as to demand the abolition of tithes and a new judicial system where all citizens would be equal before the law.Although many of the articles did not immediately go into effect -
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
One of the basic charters of human liberties, it contin the principles that inspired the French Revolution. Its 17 articles, adopted by France’s National Assembly.The basic principle of the Declaration was that all “men are born and remain free and equal in rights”, which were specified as the rights of liberty, private property, the inviolability of the person, and resistance to oppression.All citizens were equal before the lawand were to have the right to participate in legislation. -
The Flight to Varennes
Royal Flight to Varennes during the night of 20–21 June 1791 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 to Montmédy, where the King wished to initiate a counter-revolution by joining up with royalist troops. They escaped as far as the small town of Varennes en Argonne, where they were arrested after being recognized at their previous stop in Sainte-Menehould. -
The Assembly declares war on Austria
After Austria refused to recall its troops from the French border and to back down on the perceived threat of using force, France declared war on Austria and Prussia in the spring of 1792;both countries responded with a coordinated invasion that cause the Battle of Valmy in September.Shortly after, France plunged into Revolution and those same people were either killed or they fled.Rather than being a quick and easy victory,the war developed into a conflict which would engulf the whole of Europe -
Storming of the Tuileries Palace
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.The same year, during the Paris Commune uprising, rioters burned the Tuileries palace down to protest against royal and imperial power. The palace was never rebuilt…but the garden has survived to this day. -
Execution of Louis XVI
Louis XVI, former King of France since the abolition of the monarchy,was publicly executed on 21 January 1793 during the French Revolution at the Place de la Révolution in Paris. At his trial four days prior, the National Convention had convicted the former king of high treason in a near-unanimous vote; while no one voted "not guilty", several deputies abstained. Ultimately,they condemned him to death by a simple majority. The execution by guillotine was performed by Charles-Henri Sanson -
Execution of Robespierre
Robespierre was a French lawyer and statesman, widely recognized as one of the most influential and controversial figures of the French Revolution.The soldiers of the National Convention attacked the Hôtel de Ville and easily seized Robespierre and his followers. In the evening of 10 Thermidor (July 28), the first 22 of those condemned, including Robespierre, were guillotined before a cheering mob on the Place de la Révolution (now the Place de la Concorde).