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Citizens attack Paris prison
On 14 July 1789, a state prison on the east side of Paris, known as the Bastille, was attacked by an angry and aggressive mob. The prison had become a symbol of the monarchy's dictatorial rule, and the event became one of the defining moments in the Revolution that followed. -
Declaration of the Rights of Man
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human civil rights document from the French Revolution. The Declaration was originally drafted by the Marquis de Lafayette, in consultation with Thomas Jefferson. -
Estates General meets
In 1789, King Louis XVI called a meeting of the Estates-General. It was the first meeting of the Estates-General called since 1614. He called the meeting because the French government was having financial problems. -
Great Fear sweeps France
In the French Revolution, a period of panic and riot by peasants and others amid rumors of an “aristocratic conspiracy” by the king and the privileged to overthrow the Third Estate. -
National Assembly is formed
The National Assembly existed from June 13, 1789, to July 9, 1789. It was a revolutionary assembly formed by the representatives of the Third Estate of the Estates-General. This Assembly called itself the "National Assembly" since they represented at least 96% of the nation. -
Poor women of Paris march on Versailles
Concerned over the high price and scarcity of bread, women from the marketplaces of Paris led the March on Versailles on October 5, 1789. This became one of the most significant events of the French Revolution, eventually forcing the royals to return to Paris. -
Civil Constitution of the Clergy is adopted
Was a law passed on 12 July 1790 during the French Revolution, that caused the immediate subordination of the Catholic Church in France to the French government. Lastly, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy made bishops and priests elected. -
Constitution creates a limited monarchy
In September 1791, the National Assembly released its much-anticipated Constitution of 1791, which created a constitutional monarchy, or limited monarchy, for France. ... The constitution also succeeded in eliminating the nobility as a legal order and struck down monopolies and guilds. -
Royal Family attempts to flee France
The royal Flight to Varennes during the night of 20–21 June 1791 was a significant episode in the French Revolution in which King Louis XVI of France, his queen Marie Antoinette, and their immediate family unsuccessfully attempted to escape from Paris in order to initiate a counter-revolution. -
Royal Family confined to Tuileries
The royal family was confined to the Tuileries Palace. From this point forward, the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic became an ever-increasing possibility. The credibility of the king as a constitutional monarch had been seriously undermined by the escape attempt. -
France becomes a Republic
The First Republic following the aftermaths of the Revolution of 1789 and the abolishment of the monarchy, the First Republic of France is established on September 22 of 1792. -
Paris mob invades Tuileries palace
The Insurrection of 10 August 1792 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. -
Committee of Public Safety is created
The Committee of Public Safety was set up on April 6, 1793, during one of the crises of the Revolution, when France was beset by foreign and civil war. -
Louis XVI beheaded
One day after being convicted of conspiracy with foreign powers and sentenced to death by the French National Convention, King Louis XVI is executed by guillotine in the Place de la Revolution in Paris. -
Marie Antoinette is beheaded
Marie Antoinette's trial began on 14 October 1793, and two days later she was convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of high treason and executed, also by guillotine, on the Place de la Révolution. -
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Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror, commonly The Terror, was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First French Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place. -
Third Constitution is adopted
The Constitution of the Year III is the constitution that founded the Directory. Adopted by the convention on 5 Fructidor Year III and approved by plebiscite on 6 September. Its preamble is the Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and of the Citizen of 1795. -
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Directory takes power
Between 12 and 21 October 1795, immediately after the suppression of the royalist uprising in Paris, the elections for the new Councils decreed by the new Constitution took place. 379 members of the old Convention, for the most part, moderate republicans, were elected to the new legislature. -
Napoleon invades Egypt
In 1798, Napoleon led the French army into Egypt, swiftly conquering Alexandria and Cairo. However, in October of that year, discontent against the French-led to an uprising by the people of Cairo. The Ottoman peasants had common cause with those rising against the French in Cairo – the whole region was in revolt. -
Concordat with the Catholic Church
The Concordat of 1801 was an agreement between Napoleon and Pope Pius VII, signed on 15 July 1801 in Paris. It remained in effect until 1905. -
Napoleon becomes 1st Consul
In August 1802, Napoleon proclaimed himself First Consul for Life. A new constitution of his own devising legislated a succession to rule for his son and he had taken the major steps in creating a new regime in his own image. -
Napoleon named Consul for life
In August 1802, Napoleon proclaimed himself First Consul for Life. A new constitution of his own devising legislated a succession to rule for his son (even though he had not yet fathered any children) and he had taken the major steps in creating a new regime in his own image -
Napoleon becomes Emperor
On May 18, 1804, Napoleon proclaimed himself emperor and made Josephine Empress. His coronation ceremony took place on December 2, 1804, in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris, with incredible splendor and at considerable expense. ... Instead, he placed the crown on his own head and then crowned Josephine Empress. -
Napoleonic Code
It codified several branches of law, including commercial and criminal law, and divided civil law into categories of property and family. The Napoleonic Code made the authority of men over their families stronger, deprived women of any individual rights, and reduced the rights of illegitimate children. -
Napoleonic Code adopted
Napoleonic Code, French Code Napoléon, French civil code enacted on March 21, 1804, and still extant, with revisions. It was the main influence on the 19th-century civil codes of most countries of continental Europe and Latin America. -
Battle of Austerlitz
also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of the most important and decisive engagements of the Napoleonic Wars. -
Battle of Trafalgar
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. -
Napoleon invades Spain
On February 16, 1808, under the pretext of sending reinforcements to the French army occupying Portugal, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Spain. Thus began the Peninsular War, an important phase of the Napoleonic Wars that were fought between France and much of Europe between 1792 and 1815. -
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 retreats from Russia
The French invasion of Russia, known in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812 and in France as the Russian campaign, was begun by Napoleon to force Russia back into the Continental blockade of the United Kingdom. -
Battle of Leipzig
contemporaneously called the Battle of Leipsic and later the Battle of the Nations was fought from 16 to 19 October 1813 at Leipzig, Saxony. -
Napoleon abdicates the thrown & Louis
On April 11, 1814, Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France and one of the greatest military leaders in history, abdicates the throne, and, in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, is banished to the Mediterranean island of Elba. By 1799, he had established himself at the top of a military dictatorship. -
XVIII takes the thrown
Louis XVIII fled, and a Seventh Coalition declared war on the French Empire, defeated Napoleon again, and again restored Louis XVIII to the French throne. -
Napoleon is exiled to Elba
In 1814, Napoleon's broken forces gave up and Napoleon offered to step down in favor of his son. When this offer was rejected, he abdicated and was sent to Elba. He abdicated for a second time and was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena, in the southern Atlantic Ocean, where he lived out the rest of his days. -
Battle of Waterloo
Was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815, near Waterloo in Belgium, part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands at the time. -
Napoleon exiled to St. Helena
Napoleon was subsequently exiled to the island of Saint Helena off the coast of Africa. Six years later, he died and in 1840 his body was returned to Paris, where it was interred in the Hotel des Invalides. -
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Napoleon returns from Elba
The Hundred Days War, also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition, marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815. -
Napoleon dies
Napoleon Bonaparte, the former French ruler who once ruled an empire that stretched across Europe, dies as a British prisoner on the remote island of Saint Helena in the southern Atlantic Ocean.