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Louis XVI calls the Estates General
King Louis XVI called a meeting of the Estates General to address France's financial crisis. The political and financial situation in France had grown rather bleak, forcing Louis XVI to summon the Estates General. This assembly was composed of three estates – the clergy, nobility and commoners – who had the power to decide on the levying of new taxes and to undertake reforms in the country. -
Tennis Court Oath
The Tennis Court Oath was an important part of the French Revolution because it represented the power of the people. The oath itself was a clear challenge to the authority of the king, asserting that political authority derived from the people and their representatives rather than from the monarchy. -
Writing of the Declaration of the Rights of Men
The Marquis de Lafayette, with the help of Thomas Jefferson, composed a draft of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and presented it to the National Assembly on July 11, 1789. In its preamble and its 17 articles, it sets out the “natural and inalienable” rights, which are freedom, ownership, security, resistance to oppression; it recognizes equality before the law and the justice system, and affirms the principle of separation of powers. -
Parisians storming the Bastille
On the morning of July 14, 1789, hundreds of Parisians stormed the Bastille, a state prison, seizing 250 barrels of gunpowder and freeing its prisoners. The storming of the Bastille was a pivotal moment in the French Revolution, the violent result of a multitude of social, economic, and political crises. -
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Establishment of the New French Constitution
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen came into existence in the summer of 1789, born of an idea of the Constituent Assembly, which was formed by the assembly of the Estates General to draft a new Constitution, and precede it with a declaration of principles. There were many proposals. Men are born free and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions can be based only on public utility. -
March on Versailles
The Women's March on Versailles was a riot that took place during this first stage of the French Revolution. It was spontaneously organized by women in the marketplaces of Paris, on the morning of October 5, 1789. They complained over the high price and scant availability of bread, marching from Paris to Versailles. -
King Louis XVIII Begins His Reign
On 21 September 1792, the National Convention abolished the monarchy and deposed Louis XVI, who was later executed by guillotine. When his young nephew Louis XVII died in prison in June 1795, the Count of Provence proclaimed himself king under the name Louis XVIII. -
Execution of the King
Louis was informed that he would be executed within 24 hours. The next day he was taken to the place of his execution, where 130,000 men lined the streets. Louis's beheading did not go smoothly as a result of his neck being too fat to fit into the grove properly. He died on January 21, 1793. Ultimately unwilling to cede his royal power to the Revolutionary government, Louis XVI was found guilty of treason and condemned to death. -
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Reign of Terror
The cruel and bloody actions as well as the people's rights being denied was a cause of the Terror. Finally, the Reign of Terror violated many of the things that the Constitution of the Rights of Man had stood for. The Reign of Terror was a period of the French Revolution when a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervor, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety. -
Execution of Queen
Eight months after her husband's execution, Marie Antoinette was herself tried, convicted by the Convention for treason to the principles of the revolution, and executed by guillotine on 16 October 1793. After 10 weeks in the Conciergerie, the queen's incarceration was coming to an end. The verdict of the jury was affirmative. It was 4.30am when she heard her sentence: death by guillotine. -
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Napoleon Overthrows the Directory
Despite defeats in Egypt, Napoleon returned to a hero's reception. Outmanoeuvring the government and supported by his army he collaborated in a coup d'état to overthrow the Directory and establish the Consulate. By 1800 Napoleon had become the First Consul of France, and was now in a position of total power. Directory in France and substituted the Consulate, making way for the despotism of Napoleon Bonaparte. The event is often viewed as the effective end of the French Revolution. -
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Napoleon Builds an Empire
Napoleon built his empire through conquest of territories belonging to his enemies. Napoleon greatly assisted in defeating the First Coalition in which the newly formed French republic annexed a part of the Rhine and also the formerly Austrian Netherlands, in addition to client states. Napoleon gained success by defending France and effectively defeating the Coalition armies from 1792-1802. Napoleon became the First Consul in France by 1800 and led the French Empire into a new and powerful era. -
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Napoleon Invades Russia
Napoleon's armies marched into Russia in 1812 in an attempt to force Tsar Alexander I to cease trading with Britain. 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. -
6th Coalition Occupies Paris
After the disastrous French invasion of Russia of 1812 in which they had been forced to support France, Prussia and Austria joined Russia, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Portugal, and the rebels in Spain who were already at war with France. -
The Congress of Vienna Meets
The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. -
Napoleon Defeated at Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on 18 June 1815 between Napoleon's French Army and a coalition led by the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Blücher. The decisive battle of its age, it concluded a war that had raged for 23 years, ended French attempts to dominate Europe, and destroyed Napoleon's imperial power forever.