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Jacques Necker
Jacques Necker was a Genevan banker who became a finance minister for Louis XVI. His efforts to reform French institutions prior to 1789 and to compromise with the Estates General after the start of the Revolution failed. -
Jean-Paul Marat
He was a journalist and politician during the French Revolution. His death was famous because he was assassinated in his bath. However his death became a symbol of the French Revolution for Jacobin supporters. -
Olympe de Gouges
Olympe de Gouges was a French playwright and political activist whose writings on women's rights.In 1793, she was executed for crimes against the government. She also campaigned for civil partnerships and against slavery. -
Louis XVI
Louis was the last king of France and was married to Marie Antoinette before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was executed by guillotine. -
Marie Antoinette
Antoinette was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She helped provoke the popular unrest that led to the French Revolution and to the overthrow of the monarchy in August 1792. In July 1793, she lost custody of her young son, who was forced to accuse her of sexual abuse and incest before a Revolutionary tribunal. In October, she was convicted of treason and sent to the guillotine. -
Marquis De Lafayette
French aristocrat and military officer who fought in the American Revolutionary War, commanding American troops in several battles, -
Maximilien Robespierre
He was a French lawyer and statesman who was one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution. As a member of the Constituent Assembly and the Jacobin Club, he campaigned for slavery. -
Formation of the National Assembly
It was a revolutionary assembly formed by the representatives of the Third Estate of the Estates-General.The National Assembly played a major role in the French Revolution. It represented the common people of France and demanded that the king make economic reforms to insure that the people had food to eat. -
Attack on Bastille
The Bastille was rumored to be full of political prisoners and had stores of gunpowder that the revolutionaries needed for their weapons. The prison contained only seven inmates at the time of its storming but was seen by the revolutionaries. It served as a symbol of the monarchy's abuse of power; its fall was the flashpoint of the French Revolution. -
Great Fear
The Great Fear was a period of panic and riot by peasants and others amid rumors of an “aristocratic conspiracy” by the king and the privileged to overthrow the Third Estate. -
Women's march to Versailles
Because of the high price and scarcity of bread, women from the marketplaces of Paris led the March on Versailles on October 5, 1789. The King agreed to meet with some of the women and promised to distribute all the bread in Versailles to the crowd.This became a significant events of the French Revolution -
Tennis court oath
The oath stated "not to separate and to reassemble wherever necessary, until the Constitution of the kingdom is established". This was the pilot point in the French Revolution. the oath showed it showed the growing unrest against Louis XVI. -
Flight to Varennes
King Louis XVI of France, his queen Marie Antoinette, and their immediate family unsuccessfully attempted to escape from Paris in order to initiate a counter-revolution. They escaped only as far as the small town of Varennes-en-Argonne, where they were arrested after having been recognized at their previous stop in Sainte-Menehould. -
Execution of Louis XVI
Louis was convicted of conspiracy with foreign powers and sentenced to death by the French National Convention, King Louis XVI is executed by guillotine in the Place de la Revolution in Paris. Louis was forced to accept the constitution of 1791, which reduced him to a mere figurehead. -
Reign of Terror
The reign of 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.It began with the overthrow of the Girondins and the ascendancy of the Jacobins under Robespierre.Almost 17,000 people were killed by official executions during the Reign of Terror, but historians suggest more.
