Estates-General Convened
Louis XVI calls the first meeting of the three estates since 1614, hoping to pass monetary reforms. Decades of tradition and humiliating ritual for Third Estate deputies sharpen anger toward the crown.
PoliticalKey events from A New World Begins: The History of the French Revolution (Jeremy D. Popkin), as discussed in the companion blog review. Dates are approximate where the source gives only a month or season.
Louis XVI calls the first meeting of the three estates since 1614, hoping to pass monetary reforms. Decades of tradition and humiliating ritual for Third Estate deputies sharpen anger toward the crown.
PoliticalDeadlocked over whether votes should be counted by estate or by head, the Third Estate breaks away and declares itself the National Assembly — a direct challenge to royal authority.
PoliticalFearing a royal crackdown, deputies meet at a nearby tennis court and swear not to disperse until France has a new constitution. The King's concessions arrive too late to stop the momentum.
PoliticalAs clergy and nobles defect to the Third Estate, Louis XVI orders the first and second estates to join the National Assembly — signaling a tectonic shift of power from crown to populace.
Turning pointArmed Parisians storm the fortress-prison, a symbol of royal oppression. After hours of fighting they kill the governor and parade his head through the city — the revolution's first great eruption of violence.
ViolenceRumors of aristocratic grain hoarding spark peasant attacks on manor houses and castles across the countryside. Nobles flee into exile; many later fund counter-revolutionary forces.
ViolenceThe Assembly abolishes feudal privileges — dues owed to nobles and tithes collected by the clergy — revealing that the old feudal order can no longer enforce itself.
The revolutionary state confiscates Church lands — nearly 10% of France — as part of the broader assault on clerical privilege tied to the crown.
ChurchProtesting food shortages, a crowd of women seizes weapons at city hall; roughly 7,000 march on Versailles. Some break into the royal apartments; Marie Antoinette narrowly escapes. Louis is effectively forced to leave Versailles for Paris.
The Church is brought under state control. The Pope condemns the measure; many priests refuse loyalty oaths, face persecution or exile, and Catholic resentment against the revolution deepens outside Paris.
ChurchLouis XVI and his family escape Paris disguised as servants, then switch to a royal carriage outside the city. Recognized and stopped within nine miles of a waiting royalist escort, they are marched back to Paris under arrest. What legitimacy the crown retained is destroyed.
MonarchyEmperor Leopold II (Marie Antoinette's brother) declares Austria ready to intervene to restore Louis — if other great powers join. The Assembly reads it as foreign meddling and war fever grows.
War / foreignAfter more than a year of drafting, Louis XVI formally accepts a constitution establishing a constitutional monarchy — while Parisians' material conditions continue to worsen.
PoliticalLouis gambles that military defeat might restore his power and formally proposes war. The Legislative Assembly adopts it; France suffers humiliating early defeats.
WarThe allied commander threatens retaliation against Paris if harm comes to the royal family. Many Parisians see proof of foreign collusion with the crown.
War / foreignA mob storms the Tuileries palace. Louis and his family are arrested; the monarchy is abolished. Louis XVI becomes "Citizen Louis Capet." Evidence of his treason makes conviction nearly certain.
ViolenceThe death sentence passes the Convention by a single vote — Philippe Égalité, the King's own cousin, among those voting yes. Louis dies on the guillotine at age 38.
ViolenceA February levy sparks revolt in the Vendée. Uprisings spread through Bordeaux, Lyon, Toulon, Marseille, and Caen as war with Austria and Prussia deepens.
War / civilFacing possible collapse, the Convention creates the Committee of Public Safety — ostensibly a wartime measure that will become the central engine of the Reign of Terror.
TerrorUp to 80,000 surround the Convention demanding food, money, and reform. The Jacobins rise, expel Girondin deputies — many of whom are later arrested or executed.
PoliticalRobespierre becomes the most powerful man in France. A new constitution is drafted in eight days and ratified in late June, but it is suspended later the same year.
TerrorJacobin journalist Jean-Paul Marat is killed by Girondist Charlotte Corday — further proof to the Jacobins that domestic enemies are as dangerous as foreign ones.
ViolenceA broader levy than the first succeeds where the earlier one failed. New military leaders — including a young general named Napoleon — quash rebellions and retake French cities.
War / militaryThe Law of Suspects expands who may be arrested and who may carry out arrests. In under a year: ~300,000 arrests, 16,600 official executions, and thousands more without trial.
TerrorDespite advances in divorce law, civil marriage, and inheritance, women remain locked out of politics. The Jacobins ban all women's political clubs — official policy keeps women apart from public life.
Convicted of treason amid a widening list of accusations, the former queen is guillotined in October — nine months after her husband.
ViolenceFormer allies of Robespierre — the Indulgents (Dantonists) and the Enragés (Hébertists) — see their leaders arrested and executed. Not even supporters are safe.
Terror"Enemies of the people" are denied the right of defense. Average daily executions in Paris jump from about 5 to 26.
TerrorRobespierre leads an elaborate deist ceremony. Rumors cast him as a would-be messiah; many deputies conclude their survival depends on removing him.
PoliticalConservative deputies turn on Robespierre. The Jacobins fall in what becomes known as the Thermidorian Reaction — yet another purge, with many Jacobins executed or arrested.
ReactionYet another constitution ends the National Convention and installs the Directory — a bicameral legislature meant to stabilize the republic after years of radicalism. Food remains scarce and the treasury depleted; royalists and neo-Jacobins press from opposite flanks.
PoliticalNapoleon overthrows the Directory and makes himself France's first consul — beginning the end of the revolutionary republic and the long rollback of many of its gains.
Turning pointEvents drawn from the blog review of Popkin's A New World Begins. Omitted here but discussed in the review: Haitian revolution under Toussaint Louverture, slavery reinstated (1802), and the Napoleonic Code (1804).