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King Louis XVIII Begins His Reign
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. -
Louis XVL calls the Estate General
a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm. Summoned by King Louis XVI to propose solutions to his government's financial problems -
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 on July 11, 1789. -
Parisians storming the 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. -
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. -
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. -
Establishment of the New French Constitution
Following the Tennis Court Oath, the National Assembly began the process of drafting a constitution as its primary objective. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, adopted on 26 August 1789 eventually became the preamble of the constitution adopted on 3 September 1791 -
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, -
Reign of Terror
The cruel and bloody actions as well as the people's rights being denied was a cause of the Terror. Finally, the Reign of Terror violated many of the things that the Constitution of the Rights of Man had stood for. -
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 (now the Place de la Concorde) in Paris, France. Louis XVI was executed on January 21, 1793, and Marie Antoinette was executed on October 16, 1793 -
Napoleon Overthrows the Directory
Coup of 18–19 Brumaire, coup d'état that overthrew the system of government under the Directory in France and substituted the Consulate -
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 -
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. -
The Congress of Vienna Meets
discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. -
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