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National assembly
During the French Revolution, the National Assembly, which existed from 13 June 1789 to 9 July 1789, was a revolutionary assembly formed by the representatives of the Third Estate of the Estates-General. -
Tennis court oath
Tennis Court Oath, French Serment du Jeu de Paume, dramatic act of defiance by representatives of the nonprivileged classes of the French nation during the meeting of the Estates-General at the beginning of the French Revolution. -
Storming Bastille
The Storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris, France, on the afternoon of 14 July 1789. The medieval fortress, armory, and political prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the centre of Paris. -
Legislative assembly
The Legislative Assembly was the legislature of France from 1 October 1791 to 20 September 1792 during the years of the French Revolution. -
Attack on the Tuileries Palace
The Austrian army and its Prussian allies started advancing into the French territory. Economic stagnation continued throughout the country. The King was widely viewed as a traitor for trying to flee the country. The Legislative Assembly was divided and Paris was getting increasingly radicalized. -
Execution of Louis XVI
In December 1792 the National Convention placed the deposed Louis XVI on trial.On January 21st 1793 Louis Capet, as he was then officially known, was carted to the guillotine and decapitated before thousands of his former subjects. -
National Convention
The National Convention was the first government of the French Revolution, following the two-year National Constituent Assembly and the one-year Legislative Assembly. -
Reign of Terror
The new National Convention was dominated by the Committee of Public Safety. One man in particular, Maximilien Robespierre came to dominate the Committee and established himself as the leader of the so-called Reign of Terror. Robespierre wanted to rid France of all enemies of the Revolution and to protect the “virtue” of the nation. -
Directory and the Rise of Napoleon
In 1799, a successful military commander named Napoleon Bonaparte returned from a military expedition in Egypt and ousted the Directory. Napoleon established what he called the Consulate and himself as the First Consul. -
Directory
The Directory or Directorate was a five-member committee which governed France from 1795, when it replaced the Committee of Public Safety. -
Food Shortage
The food supply for the population, and particularly for the Parisians, was a major economic and political problem before and during the Revolution; it had led to food riots in Paris and attacks on the Convention. To assure the supply of food to the sans-culottes in Paris, the base of support of the Jacobins, the Convention had strictly regulated grain distribution and set maximum prices for bread and other essential products. -
Rise of the Royalists and a Coup d'État
The first elections held after the formation of the Directory were held in March and April 1797, in order to replace one-third of the members of the Councils. The elections were a crushing defeat for the old members of the Convention; 205 of the 216 were defeated. Only eleven former deputies from the Convention were reelected, several of whom were royalists.
