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Jacques Necker
Jacques Necker was a Genevan banker who became a finance minister for Louis XVI and a French statesman. Necker played a key role in French history before and during the first period of the French Revolution -
Jean-Paul Marat
Jean-Paul Marat was a French political theorist, physician and scientist. He was a journalist and politician during the French Revolution. He was a vigorous defender of the sans-culottes and seen as a radical voice. He published his views in pamphlets, placards and newspapers -
Emmanuel-Josephy Sieyes
Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, usually known as the abbé Sieyès, was a French Roman Catholic abbé, clergyman, and political writer who was a chief political theorist of the French Revolution; he also held offices in the governments of the French Consulate and the First French Empire -
Olympe de Gouges
Olympe de Gouges was a French playwright and political activist whose writings on women's rights and abolitionism reached a large audience in various countries. She began her career as a playwright in the early 1780s. As political tension rose in France, Olympe de Gouges became increasingly politically engaged -
Louis XVI
Louis XVI was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as Citizen Louis Capet during the four months just before he was executed by guillotine. In 1765, upon the death of his father, Louis, Dauphin of France, he became the new Dauphin. -
Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria and was the penultimate child and youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I. -
Maximilien François
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre was a French lawyer and statesman who was one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution. -
George Jacques
George Jacques Danton was a leading figure in the early stages of the French Revolution, in particular as the first president of the Committee of Public Safety -
Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French statesman and military leader who led many successful campaigns during the French Revolution and the French Revolutionary Wars, and was Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814 and again briefly in 1815 during the Hundred Days -
Tennis Court Oath
On 20 June 1789, the members of the French Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath, vowing "not to separate and to reassemble wherever necessary, until the Constitution of the kingdom is established". It was a pivotal event in the French Revolution -
attack on bastille
The Storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris, France, on the afternoon of 14 July 1789. The medieval armory, fortress, and political prison known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the centre of Paris -
women's march to 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 -
Flight to Varennes
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 -
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 -
napoleon invades Russia
The French invasion of Russia, known in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812 and in France as the Russian campaign, began on 24 June 1812 when Napoleon's Grande Armée crossed the Neman River in an attempt to engage and defeat the Russian Army.
