-
The Estates General meets
a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm: the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners. Summoned by King Louis XVI, it was brought to an end when the Third Estate formed into a National Assembly, inviting the other two to join, against the wishes of the King. This signals the outbreak of the French Revolution. -
3rd Estate declared themselves the “National Assembly”
the members of Third Estate gathered and declared themselves the National Assembly of France. Alarmed at this radical development, King Louis XVI decided to end their deliberations and barred access to the room in Versailles where they had been meeting. Over the next several days, most members of the clergy in the Estates-General and a significant number of the nobility declared their support for the new assembly. -
The Tennis Court Oath
the members of the French Estates-General for the Third Estate, who had begun to call themselves the National Assembly, took the Tennis Court Oath, vowing "not to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established". It was a pivotal event in the French Revolution. -
Storming of the Bastille
a state prison on the east side of Paris, known as the Bastille, was attacked by an angry and aggressive mob. The prison had become a symbol of the monarchy's dictatorial rule, and the event became one of the defining moments in the Revolution that followed. -
National Assembly issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a document of the French Revolution and in the history of human civil rights. The Declaration was drafted by General Lafayette and Honoré Mirabeau. Influenced by the doctrine of "natural right", the rights of males are held to be universal: valid at all times and in every place, pertaining to human nature itself. It became the basis for a nation of free individuals protected equally by the law. -
Women’s March to the Palace of Versailles
On this day in 1789, an angry mob of nearly 7,000 working women. armed with pitchforks, pikes and muskets marched in the rain from Paris to Versailles in what was to be a pivotal event in the intensifying French Revolution. -
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette attempt to flee France
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 at the head of loyal troops under royalist officers concentrated at Montmédy near the frontier. They escaped only as far as the small town of Varennes, where they were arrested after having been recognized at their previous stop in Sainte-Menehould. -
Creation of National Convention (Type of Gov?)
was the first government of the French Revolution, following the two-year National Constituent Assembly and the one-year Legislative Assembly. Created after the great insurrection of 10 August 1792, it was the first French government organized as a republic, abandoning the monarchy altogether. The Convention sat as a single-chamber assembly from 20 September 1792 to 26 October 1795 -
Reign of Terror/Committee of Public Safety
The Committee of Public Safety succeeded the previous Committee of General Defence and assumed its role of protecting the newly established republic against foreign attacks and internal rebellion. As a wartime measure, the Committee was given broad supervisory powers over military, judicial, and legislative efforts. -
Louis XVI is executed
in Paris. The National Convention had convicted the king (17 January 1792) in a near-unanimous vote and condemned him to death by a simple majority. -
Marie Antoinette Executed
After a two-day trial began on 14 October 1793, Marie Antoinette was convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of high treason and executed by guillotine on the Place de la Révolution on 16 October 1793. -
Maximilien Robespierre is executed
in the afternoon, Robespierre was guillotined without trial in the Place de la Révolution. His brother Augustin, Couthon, Saint-Just, Hanriot, and twelve other followers, among them the cobbler Antoine Simon, the jailor of Louis-Charles, Dauphin of France, were also executed. -
France is ruled by the Directory
The Directory was a five-member committee which governed France from 1795, when it replaced the Committee of Public Safety. On 9 November 1799, it was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte in the Coup of 18 Brumaire and replaced by the French Consulate. It gave its name to the final four years of the French Revolution.
