-
The tennis court oath
the members of the French Estates-General or the Third Estate, who had begun 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 pivotal event in the French Revolution. -
Calling of the states-general
The estates general was a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm: the clergy (First Estate), the nobility (Second Estate), and the commoners (Third Estate). -
Storming of the bastille
The medieval fortress, armory, and political prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the centre of Paris. The prison contained just seven inmates at the time of its storming, but was seen by the revolutionaries as a symbol of the monarchy's abuses of power; its fall was the flashpoint of the French Revolution. -
Declaration of the rights of man and citizen introduced
The Declaration was drafted by General Lafayette (sometimes with Thomas Jefferson) and Honoré Mirabeau. Influenced by the doctrine of "natural right", the rights of man are held to be universal: valid at all times and in every place, pertaining to human nature itself. -
Royal family attempts to flee France
The intended goal of the unsuccessful flight was to provide the king with greater freedom of action and personal security than was possible in Paris. -
Begin of terror
There was a sense of emergency among leading politicians in France in the summer of 1793 between the widespread civil war and counter-revolution. -
The royal family guillotined
With Louis dead, the fates of the rest of the family were uncertain. His young son, Louis-Charles, would have, by default, become the new King of France upon his father’s death, but the monarchy had been abolished -
Begin of terror
finished in 1794 -
Robespierre and 21 other executed.
In the period after the king's execution, tensions in the convention resulted in a power struggle between the Jacobins and the more moderate Girondins. The Jacobins used the power of the mob to take control and the Girondin leaders were arrested. Control of the country passed to the Committee of Public Safety, of which Robespierre was a member. -
The directory rule
They made a revolution!
