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September 22: The Convention proclaims the abolition of royalty and the First French Republic. September 29: French troops occupy Nice, then part of Savoy. October 3: French troops occupy Basel in Switzerland, then ruled by Archbishop of Basel, and proclaim it an independent Republic.
The Saint-Domingue slave revolt in 1791. In 1789, the most populous French colonies were Saint-Domingue (today Haiti), Martinique, Guadeloupe, the Île Bourbon (Réunion) and the Île de la France. These colonies produced commodities such as sugar, coffee and cotton for exclusive export to France.
- Causes of The French Revolution
- Estates General
- Rise of The Third Estate
- Tennis Court Oath
- The Bastille
- Declaration of The Rights of Man and of The Citizen
- French Revolution Turns Radical
- Reign of Terror
- Thermidorian Reaction
- French Revolution Ends: Napoleon’s Rise
As the 18th century drew to a close, France’s costly involvement in the American Revolution, combined with extravagant spending by King Louis XVI, had left France on the brink of bankruptcy. Not only were the royal coffers depleted, but several years of poor harvests, drought, cattle disease and skyrocketing bread prices had kindled unrest among pe...
To garner support for these measures and forestall a growing aristocratic revolt, the king summoned the Estates General (les états généraux) – an assembly representing France’s clergy, nobility and middle class – for the first time since 1614. The meeting was scheduled for May 5, 1789; in the meantime, delegates of the three estates from each local...
France’s population, of course, had changed considerably since 1614. The non-aristocratic, middle-class members of the Third Estate now represented 98 percent of the people but could still be outvoted by the other two bodies. In the lead-up to the May 5 meeting, the Third Estate began to mobilize support for equal representation and the abolishment...
By the time the Estates General convened at Versailles, the highly public debate over its voting process had erupted into open hostility between the three orders, eclipsing the original purpose of the meeting and the authority of the man who had convened it — the king himself. On June 17, with talks over procedure stalled, the Third Estate met alon...
On June 12, as the National Assembly (known as the National Constituent Assembly during its work on a constitution) continued to meet at Versailles, fear and violence consumed the capital. Though enthusiastic about the recent breakdown of royal power, Parisians grew panicked as rumors of an impending military coup began to circulate. A popular insu...
IIn late August, the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen), a statement of democratic principles grounded in the philosophical and political ideas of Enlightenment thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The document proclaimed the Assembly’s commitment to replace the...
In April 1792, the newly elected Legislative Assembly declared war on Austria and Prussia, where it believed that French émigrés were building counterrevolutionary alliances; it also hoped to spread its revolutionary ideals across Europe through warfare. On the domestic front, meanwhile, the political crisis took a radical turn when a group of insu...
Following the king’s execution, war with various European powers and intense divisions within the National Convention brought the French Revolution to its most violent and turbulent phase. In June 1793, the Jacobins seized control of the National Convention from the more moderate Girondins and instituted a series of radical measures, including the ...
The death of Robespierre marked the beginning of the Thermidorian Reaction, a moderate phase in which the French people revolted against the Reign of Terror’s excesses. On August 22, 1795, the National Convention, composed largely of Girondins who had survived the Reign of Terror, approved a new constitution that created France’s first bicameral le...
The Directory’s four years in power were riddled with financial crises, popular discontent, inefficiency and, above all, political corruption. By the late 1790s, the directors relied almost entirely on the military to maintain their authority and had ceded much of their power to the generals in the field. On November 9, 1799, as frustration with th...
The French Revolution (1789-1799) was a period of major societal and political upheaval in France. It witnessed the collapse of the monarchy, the establishment of the First French Republic, and culminated in the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte and the start of the Napoleonic era.
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Jan 12, 2023 · The French Revolution was a period of major social and political upheaval in France that lasted from 1789-1799. Its goals were to dismantle France's oppressive old regime and create a new society based around Enlightenment Age principles such as the general will of the people and natural rights.
- 3 main causes of the French Revolution include a financial crisis caused by mounting state debt, rampant social inequality, and the incompetence of...
- The French Revolution is generally agreed to have begun on 5 May 1789 with the meeting of the Estates-General, although there is a valid argument t...
- The Coup of 18 Brumaire in November 1799 is generally considered to have ended the French Revolution, as it was the moment when Napoleon Bonaparte...
- Important events of the French Revolution include the Storming of the Bastille by the people, the adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of Man...
Timeline of major events during the French Revolution, including the storming of the Bastille by Parisians in 1789, the establishment of a French republic in 1792, the subsequent period known as the Reign of Terror, and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte to become leader of France in 1799.
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Sep 28, 2020 · The French Revolution, a seismic event that reshaped the contours of political power and societal norms, began in 1789, not merely as a chapter in history but as a dramatic upheaval that would influence the course of human events far beyond its own time and borders.
