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Storming of the Bastille
The medieval fortress and prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the center of Paris. On this day, an angry mob attacked the prison, not to free the seven prisoners held, but to take the ammunition held there. The event marks the symbolic start of the French Revolution. -
March on Versailles
While the people in Frnace were hungry and unemployed, the royal family lived in luxury. A crowd marched on the royal palace Versailles demanding bread and for the royal family to leave. King Louis and his wife, Marie Antoinette, left, believing it would be temporary. -
Flight of Louis XVI
The King and Queen hoped to leave France and seek refuge in Austria, hoping to one day be reinstated as monarchs. The royal family quietly left Paris, only to go a few miles before being recognized and forced back. -
Dissolution of the National Assembly
France was proclaimed a constitutional monarchy, the National Assembly dissovled and replaced by the Legislative Assembly. -
War on Austria
Reactionaries and the monarchy wanted war because they thought that the new government would be easily defeated by foreign powers. This would pave the way for a return to the old regime, with Louis at the head of government. Revolutionaries wanted war because they thought war would unify the country, and wanted to spread the ideas of the Revolution to all of Europe. -
Attack on the Tuileries Palace
A crowd of 20,000 people attacked the royal palace by the radicals. The King and Queen had sxcaped and placed themselves under the protection of the Legislative Assembly, who put them under arrest. -
Abolition of the Monarchy
The Legislative Assembly voted to abolish the monarchy and establish the First Republic. The measure came one year after King Louis XVI reluctantly approved a new constitution that stripped him of much of his power. -
Execution of Louis XVI
Louis ws charged with treason and driven through the streets of Paris to a guillotine and decapitated. Marie Antoinette had a short trial nex and was executed on October 16. -
Period: to
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror was designed to fight the enemies of the revolution, although most executed were not aristocrats, but ordinary people. Many went to the guillotine for saying something critical of the revolutionary government. If an informer happened to overhear, that was all the tribunal needed to execute them. -
Rise of Napoleon
The National Convention created a new constitutiona for France in 1795. That was ousted in 1799 by Napoleon.
