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The Estates General meets
an assembly representing the French estates of the area: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners. Summoned by King Louis XVI, it was brought to an end when the Third Estate formed into a National Assembly, inviting the other two to join, against the wishes of the King. This signals the outbreak of the French Revolution. -
3rd Estate declared themselves the “National Assembly”
members of the third estate met and announced themselves the National Assembly. King Louis XVI then decided to end there meetings and banned access to the room in Versailles. The next couple of days a large number of nobility announced there support for there new system. -
Storming of the Bastille
The prison Bastille was attacked by a mob and torn down brick by brick. It then became a symbol of the revolution that followed it. -
National Assembly issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
It was Frances version of the "Declaration of independence". Influenced by the doctrine of "natural right" the rights of males are universal. It became the basis for a nation of free individuals protected equally by the law. -
The Tennis Court Oath
the members of the French Estates-General for the Third Estate, who had began to call themselves the National Assembly, took the Tennis Court Oath, vowing "not to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established". It was a important event in the French Revolution. -
Women’s March to the Palace of Versailles
On this day in 1789, an angry mob of nearly 7,000 working women. armed with pitchforks, pikes and muskets marched in the rain from Paris to Versailles in what was to be a pivotal event in the intensifying French Revolution. -
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette attempt to flee France
King Louis XVI of France, his queen Marie Antoinette, and their 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 about as farthe small town of Varennes, where they were arrested after having been recognized at their previous stop in Sainte-Menehould. -
Creation of National Convention
It was the first government of the french revolution after the National Constituent Assembly and the one-year Legislative Assembly. Created after the great insurrection of 10 August 1792, it was the first French government organized as a republic, abandoning the monarchy altogether. The Convention sat as a single-chamber assembly from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 -
Reign of terror/ committee of public safety
The Committee of Public Safety succeeded the previous Committee of General Defence and assumed its role of protecting the newly established republic against foreign attacks and internal rebellion. As a cause of wartime, the Committee was given a very wide supervisory powers over military, judicial, and legislative efforts. It was created as an administrative body to watch and take over the work of executive bodies of the Convention and of the government ministers appointed by the Convention. -
Louis XVI is executed
in Paris. The National Convention had convicted the king (17 January 1792) in a vote and convicted him to death by a simple majority. He was killed by the guillotine -
Marie Antoinette Executed
After a two-day trial began on 14 October 1793, Marie Antoinette was convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of high treason and executed by guillotine on the Place de la Révolution on 16 October 1793. -
Maximilien Robespierre is executed
Robespierre was executed by guillotine without trial in the Place de la Revolution. Along with 16 of his followers -
France is ruled by the Director
The Directory was a 5 member committee which governed France from 1795, when it replaced the Committee of Public Safety. On 9 November 1799, it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire and replaced by the French leader. It gave its name to the final four years of the French Revolution.
