French Revolution Timeline - collegehistory



French Revolution Timeline – Causes of Revolution

|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 (quite!) 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! US representatives visited and were received|

| | |with enthusiasm and copies of the US Constitution were studied. |

|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. |

| | |Paris Parlement refused to agree to any further loans to the government. |

| | |New Controller General Calonne re-tries Turgot’s earlier finance reforms without success. |

|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 Calonne 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). |

| | |Increased unemployment (particularly in textiles) due to signing of Eden Treaty (free trade agreement with Britain) with cheap British goods flooding French|

| | |markets. |

|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. |

| | | |

| 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. In August the Crown announced it was bankrupt. Louis had to call the Paris Parlement back from|

| | |exile to help stop the unrest. |

| | |Brienne resigned and Necker was recalled to office! |

| | |To stop the disturbances Louis agreed to call the Estates-General (on Necker’s insistence), realising he had no other choice, to meet May 1789. |

| | |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! |

| | |BUT…Louis couldn’t decide on voting procedures (by head or by order) at the Estates-General. Louis took no decision but doubled the number of 3rd Estate |

| | |deputies. Cahiers de doléances (cahiers) drawn up throughout France to bring grievances to the Estates-General. |

French Revolution Timeline – The Course of Revolution 1789 - 1792

|1789 |May | |Estates-General met at Versailles & political clubs began to form throughout France to discuss politics. |

| | | |Spring of 1789 had already seen unrest with riots in April (Reveillon Riots – wallpaper factory burnt down) and tension over |

| | | |continuing high bread prices / unemployment. |

| |June | |Third Estate broke away from the E-G & formed the National Assembly after weeks of discussion over voting procedures and no |

| | | |apparent progress. 3rd Estate frustrated at lack of mention of Constitution. |

| | | |National Assembly swore the Tennis Court Oath following being locked out of their meeting room. 3rd Estate were joined by the 1st |

| | | |and 2nd Estate in the National Assembly. A new type of political system was emerging. |

| | | |Palais Royal established as the HQ of the popular movement in Paris (home to the Duke of Orleans). |

| | | |Louis began to amass troops in & around Paris – looked like Louis was to crush the National Assembly! |

| |July | |Revolt of Paris following the king’s dismissal of Necker. Citizens armed themselves / set up barricades. |

| | | |Citizens’ militia (re-named as National Guard) & the Paris Commune formed by the electors of Paris |

| | | |Customs posts attacked / destroyed by Parisians |

| | | |Bastille stormed by sans-culottes & soldiers who’d deserted |

| | | |The king recognised the Paris Commune and the National Guard. Necker re-appointed. |

| | | |Revolt spread to other towns / cities & the countryside / Start of the Great Fear violence in the countryside (carried on til |

| | | |early Aug) |

| |Aug. | |Assembly passed August Decrees dismantling the feudal system to end the unrest of the Great Fear. |

| | | |Declaration of the Rights of Man & the Citizen granted civil rights! |

| | | |Free trade in grain introduced. |

| |Oct. | |‘October Days’ = royal family escorted to Paris (by fish ladies etc) to live at the Tuilieries Palace. Caused by continuing high |

| | | |bread prices and anger at Louis’s failure to agree to the August Decrees etc. |

| | | |The Assembly also forced to move to Paris. |

| |Nov. | |Church property nationalised & assignats introduced to solve financial problems. |

| |Dec. | |Assembly began administrative reorganisation of France and widespread reforms. Beginnings of Constitution being drawn up - Louis |

| | | |to be given a 4 year suspensive veto. |

| | | |New voting laws introduced dividing France’s population into ‘active’ & ‘passive’ citizens. |

|1790 |April | |Assignats converted into paper money to be used like bank notes |

| |May | |Paris sections created giving Paris a new local government made up of 48 sections |

| |July | |Civil Constitution of the Clergy – the state now reorganising religion. |

| |Aug | |Reorganisation of the judiciary |

| |Nov | |Assembly demanded clergy take the oath of loyalty to the constitution – splits public opinion radically. Clergy now divided into |

| | | |refractory or constitutional priests. |

|1791 |March | |Guilds dissolved to open up career opportunities to all |

| |June | |Le Chapelier Law makes trade unions / strikes illegal |

| | | |Flight to Varennes – Royal family fail to flee but the king’s brother (Comte de Provence) succeeded. |

| | | |Royals brought back to Paris in silence. Louis temporarily suspended as monarch. |

| | | |Jacobins split; moderates (those wanting the king) left the Jacobins & set up the Feuillants. |

| | | |Increasing numbers of noble army officers fled France. |

| |July | |Champ de Mars massacre. National Guard fired on protestors commemorating 14th July 1789 / calling for a petition to put the king |

| | | |on trial – ordered to do so by the Paris Commune. 50 killed. Rift opening up between radicals and moderates. |

| |Aug | |Declaration of Pillnitz passed by Austria & Prussia declaring their support for Louis as a result of concern over treatment of |

| | | |Louis. |

| |Sept | |Louis accepted the new constitution. |

| | | |Robespierre engineers a vote to exclude members of the old Assembly from the new Legislative Assembly = result is a more radical |

| | | |new Assembly with fewer moderates. |

| |Nov | |Assembly try to pass decrees against émigrés and refractory priests. |

| | | |Louis vetoed both decrees – now seen as being even more suspicious/ potentially traitorous! |

|1792 |April | |France declared war on Austria. |

| | | |Louis had already appointed Girondins ministers knowing they were keen on war. Louis hoping the Revolution would be ended by |

| | | |foreign victory! |

| |May | |Legislative Assembly introduced law to deport refractory / non-juror priests and to set up national guard camp (federes) near |

| | | |Paris to protect it. |

| | | |Louis used veto against this and dismissed Girondins ministers. Tuileries palace invaded by sans-culottes – Louis refused to |

| | | |withdraw veto or re-appoint ministers. |

| | | |The Assembly ignores Louis. |

| |June | |Prussia declared war on France |

| |August | |Brunswick Manifesto issued. Increased fear as Austrian and Prussian forces invade France. |

| | | |Monarchy overthrown in France following second and final storming of the Tuileries by angry Sans Culottes encouraged by Jacobins. |

| | | |Royals imprisoned. |

| | | |Anger over defection of Lafayette to the Austrians. |

| | | |Assembly collapsed and replaced temporarily by the Commune. |

| |Sept. | |September Massacres – massacre in prisons of all those suspected counter-revolutionaries who’d been rounded up for the protection |

| | | |of Paris – provoked by the enemy’s capture of Verdun on the road to Paris. Violence brought to an end by French victory at Valmy. |

| | | |Proclamation of the Republic and formation of the Convention to govern France. |

French Revolution Timeline – War, Terror and the Coup of Thermidor 1792 – 1794/5

|1792 |Sept | |Jacobins, led by Robespierre, won all the seats in Paris. The Girondins dominated most of the provinces. Tensions increase between more |

| | | |moderate Girondins and radical Jacobins. |

| |Dec. | |The trial of the king was held in December and he was found guilty by a large majority of deputies. A narrower majority voted for |

| | | |execution |

|1793 |Jan. | |An attempt by the Girondins to save him was defeated. He was guillotined. |

| | | |At the end of 1792, the war had appeared to be going well for France, but by early 1793, the tide had turned and invasion threatened |

| | | |once more. |

| | | |Assignats had fallen in value and the price of bread rose as farmers hoarded their supplies. |

| |March | |The Vendée Rising forced the Convention to divert forces from the war. |

| |Spring - | |Control of France was centralised in Paris by the creation of several committees: Public Safety and General Security |

| |Summer | |Wages and prices were controlled by the Law of Maximum. Rationing was introduced |

| | | |The Girondins tried to limit the control exercised by Paris. |

| | | |Sans Culottes and National Guards demanded the expulsion of the Girondins from the Convention and some were arrested. |

| | | |Convention introduced conscription to the army – the levee en masse. |

| |July | |July: Marat was murdered by the Charlotte Corday, a Girondin |

| | | |There were risings against the Jacobins in many parts of France, including Lyon, Marseilles, Bordeaux and Toulon (known as the |

| | | |Federalist Revolt) |

| |Sept | |Sans Culottes surrounded the Convention and forced it to agree to ‘terror’. |

| | | | |

| | | |The Law of Suspects stated that anyone suspected of being a threat to the Revolution could be arrested and held without trial. |

| |Oct | |Marie Antoinette, some nobles and Girondins were executed. Mass executions followed in Nantes, Lyon and Toulon. The total eventually |

| | | |reached bout 50,000. |

|1794 |Spring | |Report on the Principles of Political Morality, of 5 February 5 1794, stated that ‘that government during a revolution is virtue |

| | | |combined with terror’. |

| | | |Robespierre believed in a ‘Republic of Virtue’. He argued that the Republic could only be saved by the virtue of its citizens. |

| | | |Anyone not in step with the decrees of Robespierres' committees was to be purged from the Convention, and thoroughly hunted in the |

| | | |general population. |

| |Spring - | |Great Terror sees Terror escalate – executions of anyone seen to be too moderate / not revolutionary enough / not in line with what |

| |Summer | |Robespierre thought e.g. Desmoulins / Danton / Hebert. Robespierre now seen to be in charge. |

| | | | |

| |July | |Coup of Thermidor / overthrow of Robespierre; he had lost much Sans Culottes support by the executions of the popular Hébert and Danton |

| | | |/ appeared to be trying to set up a personal dictatorship when he created a police force that reported to him personally / attempt to |

| | | |create the Cult of the Supreme Being in May 1794 was unpopular. |

| | | |By mid-July he appeared to be ill and disappeared for more than a week. This gave his enemies an opportunity to prepare to attack him. |

| | | |On 26 July he made a long speech in the Convention, in which he implied that there were enemies of the revolution everywhere. |

| | | |This was taken to mean that a purge of the Convention was about to take place. |

| | | |The following day he was shouted down in the Convention; arrested and executed on 28 July. |

|July 1794 – May 1795 | |Laws and controls of the Convention were dismantled or abolished. Replaced with the Directory – moderate government. |

| | |In particular, the Paris Commune was abolished; the Law of Maximum was repealed; the Jacobin Club and the Revolutionary Tribunal were |

| | |closed. |

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