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Louis XVI calls 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
King Louis, locked them out of their meeting hallt hey gathered on a tennis court meant for use by the Versailles Palace and took the aptly named Tennis Court Oath: that they would not stop meeting until France had a constitution. -
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 -
Parisians storming the Bastille
people feared that King Louis XVI was about to arrest France's newly constituted National Assembly that led a crowd of Parisians to successfully besiege the Bastille, an old fortress that had been used since 1659 as a state prison. -
March on Versailles
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. -
Establishment of the New French Constitution
French Constitution of 1791 was the first written constitution in France, created after the collapse of the absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime. -
Execution of the King and Queen
King Louis XVI of France and his wife Queen Marie Antoinette were both beheaded by the guillotine at the Place de la Révolution -
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror was a time of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervour, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety. -
Napoleon Overthrows the Directory
coup d'état that overthrew the system of government under the Directory in France and substituted the Consulate, making way for the despotism of Napoleon Bonaparte. -
Napoleon builds an empire
Napoleon gained success during the French Revolutionary Wars by defending France and effectively defeating the Coalition armies -
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Napoleon Invades Russia
the Grande Armée, led by French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, crossed the Neman River, invading Russia from present-day Poland. -
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6th Coalition Occupies Paris
With their armies reorganized, the allies drove Napoleon out of Germany in 1813 and invaded France in 1814. The Allies defeated the remaining French armies, occupied Paris, and forced Napoleon to abdicate and go into exile. -
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King Louis XVIII begins his reign
Louis Stanislas Xavier declared himself King of France in 1795, before officially becoming King Louis XVIII in 1814 at the fall of the Empire. -
The Congress of Vienna Meets
It gathered in 1814 following the first defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France and namesake of the Napoleonic Wars. -
Napoleon defeated at Waterloo
it concluded a war that had raged for 23 years, ended French attempts to dominate Europe, and destroyed Napoleon's imperial power forever.