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Louis the XIV Calls the Estates General
The economic problem facing France was Third Estate. The commoners were making the least amount of money and they were paying the most amount of taxes. Without any agricultural produce to sell they couldn't make money to pay the taxes. In 1789 the Estates General called a meeting which was the first since 1614. He called the meeting because the French government was having financial problems. -
Establishment of the New Constitution
French constitution created by the National Assembly during the French Revolution. The National Assembly gathered in a Versailles tennis court and pledged not to disband until France had a working constitution. The constitution retained the monarchy in France. The constitution lasted less than a year. -
Parisians Storm the Bastille
On 14 July 1789, a prison in Paris called the Bastille, was attacked by an angry and aggressive mob. When the mod attacked the prison they got the weapons and then were armed with muskets and swords. During the reign of Louis XVI, France faced a major economic crisis and the third estate was mad and stormed the Bastille. -
Writing of the Declaration of the Rights of Men
The Declaration of the Rights of Man contains the principles that inspired the French Revolution. The basic principle of the Declaration was that all “men are born and remain free and equal in rights." -
Execution of the King and Queen / Beginning of the Reign of Terror
Reign of Terror, also called The Terror, was the period of the French Revolution from September 5, 1793, to July 27, 1794. On October 16, 1793, Marie Antoinette was beheaded. She is considered one of the first victims of the Reign of Terror. During the ten months the number of people executed by the revolutionary cause using the guillotine reached over 16,000. -
Napoleon Overthrows the Directory
On 9 November 1799, the French Directory was overthrown by Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon was part of a group that successfully overthrew the French Directory. -
Napoleon Builds an Empire
The First French Empire was the empire of Napoleon Bonaparte of France and the dominant power in much of Europe. On 18 May 1804, Napoleon was granted the title Emperor of the French.
Napoleon extended the French empire to Western Europe and into Poland. At its height in 1812, the French Empire ruled over 70 million people -
Napoleon Invades Russia
The French invasion of Russia, began on 24 June 1812 when Napoleon's Grande Armée crossed the Neman River in an attempt to engage and defeat the Russian army. At the start of the invasion, the Grande Armée numbered 680,000 soldiers (including 300,000 soldiers from France). It was the largest army ever known to have been assembled in the history of warfare up to that point. Napoleon pushed the army rapidly through Western Russia in an attempt to engage and destroy the Russian army. -
The Congress of Vienna Meets
The Congress of Vienna was a meeting of ambassadors of European states and held in Vienna from November 1814 to June 1815. The objective of the Congress was to provide a long-term peace plan for Europe by settling critical issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. The goal was not simply to restore old boundaries but to resize the main powers so they could balance each other and remain at peace. -
Napoleon Defeated at Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium. A French army under the command of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated by two of the armies of a British-led Allied army. The battle marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars.