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Louis XVI becomes King of France
On May 10, 1774, Louis XVI became King of France and he was 20 years old at the time. Louis XVI wanted to be a good king and help his subjects, but instead he faced enormous debt and rising resentment towards a despotic monarchy. The failure to address the serious fiscal problems would hunt him for most of his reign. Louis lacked of character and decisiveness to combat the influence of court factions or give support to reformers in their efforts to improve France's government. -
Calling of the Estates- General
Louis XVI called the Estates General meeting in 1789 to address issues of taxation. Louis XVI thought that all of the people in France should pay taxes to get the country out of financial crisis. The clergy and the nobility already took care of the country's land and schools, felt as they shouldn’t have to pay taxes. Third Estate breaks away from Estates-General which led the King to have it in one of the castle's tennis courts to write the French constitution. -
Formation of the National Assembly
The National Assembly was formed on June 17, 1789. The Third Estate began the Revolution by declaring itself a National Assembly. The National Assembly moved to a tennis court and took a Oath of the Tennis Court which states that they would not break up until a Constitution was pulled. On June 20, 1789 National Assembly members take Tennis Court Oath, pledging to create new constitution. -
Attack on the Bastille
On 14 July 1789, a state prison on the east side of Paris, France known as the Bastille, was attacked by an angry and aggressive mob. The Bastille prison had become a symbol of the monarchy’s dictatorial rule, and soon it became one of the most important moments in the French Revolution. -
Great Fear
The Great Fear was a general panic that happened between July 17 to August 3,1789 in the beginning of the French Revolution. It was present in France since the worsening grain shortage of the spring, and fueled by the rumors of an aristocrat "famine plot" to starve or burn out the population, peasant and town people in many regions. -
French Women force Louis XVI to leave Versailles
On October 5, 1789, an angry mob of 7,000 working women that were armed with pitchforks, pikes and muskets had marched in the rain from Paris to Versailles. To the beat of a drum, the women chanted “Bread! Bread!” for the population of Paris was starving while Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette continued to feast like proverbial kings and queens at their salubrious country gaffe. But the women who set out to Versailles, demand bread were about to change and the very course of modern -
National Convention is Formed
The National Convention was revolutionary France’s 3rd attempt at the national legislature. It was elected with a broader franchise than the Legislative Assembly, that between ‘active’ and ‘passive’, the citizens having been abolished. The three years under the National Convention were eventful, divisive and violent. They were plagued by war and civil war, factional struggles between the Girondins and Montagnards and the continued failure of economic policies and conditions. -
Louis XVI is executed
The Convention put Louis XVI on trial for treason, and had unanimously pronounced him guilty. As the revolution continued in France, the ruling elites in other countries watched the growing fear. They were afraid that the events in France might inspire people in their own country to take similar actions. In response to outside threats were being taken care of, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed in 1793. -
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror was a period of factional and ideological violence during the French Revolution. It lasted for 10 months, September, 1793 to July 1794, and is named for the many executions of "enemies of the state", mainly in Paris but also in other areas of France. -
The Directory is formed
The Directory was the government of France during the penultimate stage of the French Revolution. It was administered by a collective leadership of five directors that ran the Committee of Public Safety and preceding the Consulate. The Directors were Paul Barras, the Abbé Sieyès, General Moulin; Roger Ducos, and Gohier.It lasted from 2 November 1795 until 10 November 1799, a period commonly known as the "Directory era." It was overthrown by Napoleon. -
Napoleon Takes power
Napoleon Bonaparte took power in France on November 9th or the 10th, 1799. The coup of 18/19 Brumaire in the Year VIII of the republican calendar is to mark the end of the French Revolution and the beginning of Napoleon Bonaparte's dictatorship. While he was in power, he wanted to take down The Directory after the fall of Robespierre. -
Napoleon Invades Russia
The French invasion of Russia, known as the Patriotic War of 1812, when Napoleon's Grande Armée crossed into the Neman River and attempt to engage and defeat the Russian army. Napoleon hoped to force Tsar Alexander I of Russia to stop the trading with British merchants through the proxies in an effort to pressure the United Kingdom to sue for peace. Napoleon named the campaign the Second Polish War just for him to gain favor with the Poles. -
Napoleons defeat at Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815. At Waterloo in Belgium, Napoleon Bonaparte suffers defeat at the hands of the Duke of Wellington, bringing an end to the Napoleonic era of European history. The Battle of Waterloo, the British sign the end of Napoleon's reign and France’s domination in Europe. After Waterloo, Napoleon abdicated and later died in exile.
