French Revolution Timeline



French Revolution Timeline

|1614 | |Last summoning of the Estates-General. From here on in just absolute monarchy- most people no longer represented until 1789. |

|1770 | |Future Louis XVI Louis marries Marie-Antoinette of Austria. People begin to criticise her / her reputation begins to damage loyalty to the Crown. |

|1771 | |The Crown’s reputation with its law-passing high courts hits rock-bottom when Louis XV abolishes the Parlements. |

|1774 | |Louis XV dies. Louis XVI takes over aged 19 – completely unprepared – brings back Parlements thinking this will be popular / will help his government. He |

| | |inherits a financial deficit of 40 million livres – the Crown is not bankrupt but it needs financial reform! |

|1775 | |Louis begins a long period of trying to reform France’s finances with attempts to pass tax reforms through the Parlements through a success of Financial |

| | |Controllers. The 1st and 2nd Estates resist these attempts on their tax privileges. |

|1778 | |France entered the American War of Independence (ending 1783) to help the rebels to get revenge on Britain for land lost in the Seven Years’ War. The war |

| | |cost 1066 million livres – leading France closer to bankrupty - and soldiers returned with ideas of democracy! |

|1781 | |Finance Minister Necker published the comte rendu – the first set of royal accounts – leaving out the cost of the American war leaving French people with |

| | |the idea that French finances were fine. The true cost of the war was only revealed later. People wondered why finances had gone so wrong! |

|1785 | |Affair of the Diamond Necklace tarnished royal reputation even further. Marie Antoinette now highly unpopular. |

|1786 | |The Crown’s financial deficit now reached 112 million – France’s finances were now desperately poor but spending carried on at a high rate. Louis was |

| | |persuaded by Financial Controller to call an Assembly of Notables (a meeting of notable people – handpicked people from 1st / 2nd Estate believed likely to |

| | |support the Crown and agree to reform) to discuss tax reform after the Parlements refused to agree to tax reforms. The plan was they would agree to the |

| | |reforms and these could then be presented again to the Parlements for agreement (The idea was they would be more acceptable to the Parlements if another |

| | |group had already accepted them. Louis did not want to call an Estates-General – as he’d have no control over what they discussed). |

|1787 | |The Assembly of Notables met but rejected Louis’ reform proposals presented by Calonne. Louis in desperation replaced Calonne with Brienne, one of the |

| | |Notables. Brienne found his fellow Notables equally resistant to change and decided to get the Paris Parlement to accept his reforms. |

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| 1788 | |The Paris Parlement said only an Estates-General could accept these reforms. Louis had no intention of being forced to call an Estates-General so sent the |

| | |Parlement of Paris into exile causing popular disturbances. To stop the disturbances Louis agreed to call the Estates-General, realising he had no other |

| | |choice. In August the Crown announced it was bankrupt. Louis had to call the Paris Parlement back from exile to help stop the unrest. A bad winter and a |

| | |freak summer hailstorm meant the harvest was wrecked. Peasants would not be able to pay their taxes. Food shortages reached new heights – there were food |

| | |riots in many areas. Bread prices were now at 88% of an ordinary labourer’s wages. |

| | |Louis had shown he was politically weak in the face of the aristocracy’s revolt against his reforms. Hopes were high from all people for the |

| | |Estates-General as now the Third Estate would be involved! |

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