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the estates general meeting
On the first days of the meeting, the King and his delegates announced the principles of the meeting and the Third Estate discovered that the double representation was in fact a sham. It was decided that the votes will be hold by orders, 1 vote for each estate and not by head. The double representation was a fallacy. -
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National Assembly
it was the name of the revolutionary assembly formed by representatives of the Third Estate. It existedfrom June 17 to July 9 and was a transitinal body between the estates general ad the natinal constituent assembly. -
tennis court oath
Finding themselves locked out of their usual meeting hall at Versailles on June 20 and thinking that the king was forcing them to disband, they moved to a nearby indoor tennis court. They werent aloud to leave the tennis court until the new Constitution was writen. -
Storming of the bastille
On the morning of July 14th, 1789, a group formed of craftsmen and salesmen decided to fight back and ran to the Invalides to steal some weapons. The mob stole 28,000 riffles there, however no powder was to be found. The crowd knew that a pile of powder was stocked in the Bastille, a prison that was a symbol of the King's absolute and arbitrary power. So they decided to attack it. -
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Jacobin takes control
The group was reconstituted, probably in December 1789, after the National Assembly moved to Paris, under the name of Society of the Friends of the Constitution, but it was commonly called the Jacobin Club because its sessions were held in a former convent of the Dominicans, who were known in Paris as Jacobins. Its purpose was to protect the gains of the Revolution against a possible aristocratic reaction. -
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Louis tries to escape
Paris on October 6. Yet he made still more mistakes, refusing to follow the secret advice tendered to him after May 1790 by the comte de Mirabeau, abdicating his responsibilities, and acquiescing in a disastrous attempt to escape from the capital to the eastern frontier on June 21, 1791. Caught at Varennes and brought back to Paris, he lost credibility as a constitutional monarch. -
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legislative assembly
The Legislative Assembly was the governing body of France between October 1791 and September 1792. The Legislative Assembly replaced the National Constituent Assembly, which by September 1791 had completed most of the work for which it was convened. Its deputies had drafted a constitution they believed reflected the aims of the revolution. -
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National convention
The struggles between two opposing Revolutionary factions, the Montagnards and the Girondins, dominated the first phase of the Convention (September 1792 to May 1793). -
Robespierre assumes control
In July 1793, Robespierre became leader of the committee of public safety. The committee of public safety's chief task was to protect the revolution from its enemy's. -
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Committee of Public Safety/Reign of Terror
The Committee of Public Safety was set up on April 6, 1793, during one of the crises of the Revolution, when France was beset by foreign and civil war. The new committee was to provide for the defense of the nation against its enemies, foreign and domestic, and to oversee the already existing organs of executive government. -
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The Directory
It included a bicameral legislature known as the Corps Législatif. The lower house, or Council of Five Hundred (Conseil de Cinq-Cents), consisted of 500 delegates, 30 years of age or over, who proposed legislation; the Council of Ancients (Conseil des Anciens), consisted of 250 delegates, 40 years of age or over, who held the power to accept or veto the proposed legislation. -
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Reforms of Napoleon
it was to play an important part both as the source of the new legislation and as an administrative tribunal. At the head of the administration of the départements were the prefects, who carried on the tradition of the intendants of the ancien régime, supervising the application of the laws and acting as the instruments of centralization. -
Coup d’etat
A small group of people trying to take over the govenment usally with violence -
Napoleon Becomes Emperor
Napoleon Bonaparte was a military general who became the first emperor of France. His drive for military expansion changed the world. -
Battle of Trafalgar
naval engagement of the Napoleonic Wars, which established British naval supremacy for more than 100 years; it was fought west of Cape Trafalgar, Spain, between Cádiz and the Strait of Gibraltar. A fleet of 33 ships (18 French and 15 Spanish) under Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve fought a British fleet of 27 ships under Admiral Horatio Nelson. -
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Continental System
The Continental System hurt English industries and helped spur the Luddite protest movement against unemployment in England. Although it stimulated manufacturing in some parts of France, the system damaged regions dependent on overseas commerce. Because the British had an overwhelming superiority at sea, though, enforcing the system proved disastrous for Napoleon. -
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Peninsular War
was a military conflict between Napoleon's empire and the allied powers of Spain, Britain and Portugal for control of the Iberian Peninsula during the Napoleonic Wars. -
Invasion of Russia
all of continental Europe was under his control, and the invasion of Russia was an attempt to force Tsar Alexander I to submit once again to the terms of a treaty that Napoleon had imposed upon him four years earlier. -
Napoleon defeated and exiled to Elba
The Elbans seemed to think as highly of their short-lived emperor as he did of himself. They still have a parade every year to mark the anniversary his death (on May 5, 1821, while imprisoned on his other exile island). -
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100 days
in French history, period between March 20, 1815, the date on which Napoleon arrived in Paris after escaping from exile on Elba, and July 8, 1815, the date of the return of Louis XVIII to Paris.