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Establishment of the New French Constitution
The current Constitution of France was adopted on 4 October 1958. -
Parisians storming to bastille
On the morning of July 14, 1789, hundreds of Parisians stormed the Bastille, a state prison, seizing 250 barrels of gunpowder and freeing its prisoners. The storming of the Bastille was a pivotal moment in the French Revolution, the violent result of a multitude of social, economic, and political crises. -
Louis XVI calls the Estate General
Louis XVI opened the session with a speech in which he reviewed the circumstances that had led to the convocation, and what he expected from the Estates General. The budget deficit was 56 million. Necker claimed that new taxes would be enough to make up for the deficit, but the Commoners, who were only too aware of the country’s expectations, were dissatisfied with such a mediocre discourse, and decided to take things into their own hands. The Revolution had begun… -
Tennis Court Oath
On June 20, 1789, the Tennis Court Oath was taken. There, the men of the National Assembly swore an oath never to stop meeting until a constitution had been established. -
Writing of the declaration of the right of men
Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on considerations of the common good. The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of Man. These rights are Liberty, Property, Safety and Resistance to Oppression. -
March on Versailles
On 5 October 1789, a procession of women, accompanied by a few men, met at Versailles. At this time, the king was hunting at Meudon, while Marie-Antoinette was walking on the Trianon estate. News of the march spread quickly through the town, and the gates of the Palace were shut. -
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror (French: la Terreur) was a period 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. -
Execution of the King and Queen
Louis was sent to the guillotine on January 21, 1793. Nine months later, Marie Antoinette was also convicted of treason and beheaded on October 16 -
Napoleon Builds an Empire
Napoleon built his empire through conquest of territories belonging to his enemies. Napoleon greatly assisted in defeating the First Coalition in 1792–1797, in which the newly formed French republic annexed a part of the Rhine and also the formerly Austrian Netherlands, in addition to client states. -
Napoleon Overthrows the Directory
Napoleon drew together an alliance with a number of prominent political figures and they overthrew the Directory by a coup d'état on November 9, 1799 (Coup of 18th Brumaire). -
The Congress of Vienna Meets
The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. -
6th Coalition Occupies Paris
Following Napoleon's retreat from Russia and the subsequent defeat of his army by the Sixth Coalition at Leipzig (1813), the armies of the Sixth Coalition invaded France and advanced toward Paris, which capitulated on March 31, 1814. -
Napoleon Invades Russia
On June 24, 1812, the Grande Armée, led by French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, crossed the Neman River, invading Russia from present-day Poland. The result was a disaster for the French. The Russian army refused to engage with Napoleon's Grande Armée of more than 500,000 European troops. -
Napoleon Defeated at Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on 18 June 1815 between Napoleon's French Army and a coalition led by the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Blücher. The decisive battle of its age, it concluded a war that had raged for 23 years, ended French attempts to dominate Europe, and destroyed Napoleon's imperial power forever. -
King Louis XVIII Begins His Reign
King of France and Navarre 1755 – 1824
The grandson of Louis XV and brother of Louis XVI, Louis Stanislas Xavier declared himself King of France in 1795, before officially becoming King Louis XVIII in 1814 at the fall of the Empire.