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the king transformed the royal hunting lodge in Versailles where he played as a boy into a monument of royal opulence. -
at the age of fifteen, Louis-Auguste married the fourteen-year-old Habsburg Archduchess Maria Antonia
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Built to act as the official residence of the French monarchy during the reign of Louis XIV. -
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commitment to a national constitution and representative government, taken by delegates at the Estates-General at Versailles. -
revolutionaries stormed and seized control of the medieval armory, fortress, and political prison known as the Bastille. -
The basic principle of the Declaration was that all “men are born and remain free and equal in rights” -
they ransacked the city armory for weapons and marched to the Palace of Versailles.The crowd besieged the palace, and in a dramatic and violent confrontation, they successfully pressed their demands upon King Louis XVI. -
Ultimately unwilling to cede his royal power to the Revolutionary government, Louis XVI was found guilty of treason and condemned to death. He was guillotined -
period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place -
The Coup of 18 Brumaire brought General Napoleon Bonaparte to power as First Consul of France and in the view of most historians ended the French Revolution. This bloodless coup d'état overthrew the Directory, replacing it with the French Consulate.
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General Napoleon Bonaparte, as the new emperor of France, began the arduous task of revising France's outdated and muddled legal system. He established a special commission -
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Napoleon proclaimed himself emperor, and made Josephine Empress. His coronation ceremony took place on December 2, 1804, -
The invasion of Russia effectively halted Napoleon's march across Europe, and resulted in his first exile, to the Mediterranean island of Elba. -
The Battle of Waterloo, in which Napoleon's forces were defeated by the British and Prussians, marked the end of his reign and of France's domination in Europe. -
Exiled to the island of Elba, he escaped to France in early 1815 and raised a new Grand Army that enjoyed temporary success before its crushing defeat at Waterloo against an allied force under Wellington on June 18, 1815. Napoleon was subsequently exiled to the island of Saint Helena off the coast of Africa.
