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| 1791 | 1791 | ||
Revision as of 03:54, 9 December 2002
The French Revolution occurred during the years 1789-1792, just a few years after the American Revolution.
The King of France, Louis XVI was overthrown in a popular rebellion, caused in part by the rise of a middle class no longer controllable by the old regime, by ideological changes brought about by such authors as Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Turgot, and other theorists of the Enlightenment, and most proximately by the financial disarray of the government resulting in sharply higher taxes.
The storming of the Bastille prison on July 14th, 1789, is commemorated today as Bastille Day. Although only seven prisoners were released -- four forgers, two lunatics, and a dangerous sexual offender -- it became a potent symbol of all that was hated of the ancien régime.
The new French Republic soon was at war with its neighbors. It helped revolutionaries in other countries to set up their own republics (e.g. the Batavian Republic, but soon these states were little more than vassal states.
Unfortunately, unlike the American Revolution, which brought about a republic, the French revolution resulted in a condition of general civil war known as the Reign of Terror, culminating in the rise to power of Napoleon Bonaparte.
see also French Revolutionary Calendar
French Revolution Time Line
1789
- May 5: Meeting of the Estates-General
- June 17: National Assembly declared
- June 20: Tennis Court Oath
- July 14: Storming of the Bastille
- August 4: Surrender of feudal rights
- August 27: Declaration of the Rights of Man
- October 5-6: Outbreak of the Paris mob; Liberal monarchical constitution
1790
- July 14: Constitution accepted by the king;
- July -- : Growing power of the clubs;
- July -- : Reorganization of Paris
- September: Fall of Necker
1791
- April 2: Death of Mirabeau
- June 20-25: Flight of the King
- September 30: Dissolution of Constituent Assembly
- October 1: Legislative Assembly meets
- August 27: Declaration of Pillnitz (William II and Lepold II)
1792
- February 7: Alliance of Austria and Prussia
- April 20: French declare war against Austria
- August 10: Storming of the Tuileries
- September 2-7: The September Massacres
- September 20: Battle of Valmy
- September 21: National Convention meets; Abolition of the monarchy
- December: Trial of Louis XVI before the Convention
1793
- January 21: Execution of Louis XVI
- February 1: War declared against Britain, Holland, Spain
- March -- : Royalist revolt in the Vendée
- April -- : Power centered in two committees; Committee of Public Security
- June 2: Arrest of 31 Girondist deputies
- July 13: Assassination of Marat
- August 23: Levy of entire male population
- September 17: Establishment of the maximum price
- October 16: Execution of Marie Antoinette
- October 31: Execution of Girondists
- November 10: Abolition of the worship of god: cult of Reason
- December -- : Retreat of the allies across the Rhine
1794
- March 24 : Execution of Hébertists
- April 6 : Execution of Dantonists
- June 8 : Festival of the Supreme Being
- June 10 : Law of 22 Prairial (power to revolutionary tribunal)
- June 26 : Battle of Fleurus (French victory in Belgium)
- July 27 : Fall of Robespierre (9 Thermidor)
- December 24 : Repeal of maximum
1795
- March 5 : Treaty of Basel (Prussia withdraws from war)
- April 1 : Bread riots in Paris
- June 8 : Death of the dauphin (Louis XVII)
- August 22 : Constitution of 1795
- October 5 : Napoleon's "whiff of grape-shot"
- October 26 : Convention dissolved
1796
- March 5 : War against the empire
- March 9 Marriage of Bonaparte and Josephine
- May 10 Battle of Lodi (Napoleon in Italy)
- July Siege of Mantua
1797
- April 18 Preliminary Peace of Leoben
- July 8 : Cisalpine Republic established
- September 4 : Coup d'Etat at Paris (republicans over reactionaries)
- October 17 : Treaty of Campo Formio
1798
- February -- : Roman Republic proclaimed
- April -- : Helvetian Republic proclaimed
- July 21 : Battle of the Pyramids
- August 1 : Battle of the Nile
- December 24 : Alliance between Russia and Britain
1799
- June 17-19 : Battle of the Trebia (Suvorov defeats French)
- August 24 : Napoleon leaves Egypt
- October 22 : Russians withdraw from coalition
- November 9 : The Coup d'Etat of Brumaire (18 Brumaire)
- December 24 : Constitution of the Year VIII: Dictatorship of Napoleon established