Timeline of the French Revolution
Timeline of the French Revolution.
Events preceding but pertinent to the French Revolution
- The Diamond Necklace Affair results in the discrediting of Marie Antoinette
- Louis XVI and France face economic ruin
Pre-Revolutionary Phase
- February 22: First assembly of notables, called by Charles Alexandre de Calonne against a background of state financial instability and general resistance by e.g. the aristocracy to the imposition of taxes and fiscal reforms.
- May 1: Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne replaces de Calonne as Contoller-General of Finances.
- May 25: First Assembly of Notables dissolved.
- May 8: Louis XVI issues the Lamoignon Edict which abolishes the power of parliament to review royal edicts
- January 24: General unrest occasioned by economic conditions leads to the Summoning of the States-General for the first time since 1614
Estates-General and Constituent Assembly
- May 5: Meeting of the Estates-General
- June 10: The Third Estate (others) votes for the common verification of credentials, in opposition to the First Estate (the aristocracy) and the Second Estate (the clergy)
- June 17: National Assembly declared
- June 20: Third Estate/National Assembly are locked out of meeting houses by royal decree; Tennis Court Oath in which the National Assembly vows to continue despite royal prohibition
- June 23: Two companies of French guards mutiny in the face of public unrest
- June 30: Large crowd storms left bank prison and frees mutinous French Guards
- July 1: Louis recruits more troops, among them many foreign mercenaries
- July 9: National Assembly reconstitutes itself as National Constituent Assembly
- July 11: Jacques Necker dismissed by Louis; populace sack the monasteries, ransack aristocrats homes in search of food and weapons
- July 14: Storming of the Bastille
- July 15: Lafayette appointed Commander of the National Guard
- July 16: Necker recalled, troops pulled out of Paris
- July 17: The beginning of the Great Fear, the peasantry revolt against feudalism and a number of urban disturbances and revolts
- August 4: Surrender of feudal rights
- August 27: Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen approved by the National Assembly
- October 5-6: Outbreak of the Paris mob; Liberal monarchical constitution;
- November 2: Church property nationalised and otherwise expropriated
- December 12 Assignats are used as legal tender
- February 13 Suppression of monastic vows and religious orders
- July 14: Constitution accepted by King Louis XVI
- July: Growing power of the clubs (including: Cordeliers, Jacobin Club)
- July: Reorganisation of Paris
- September: Fall of Necker
- January 30: Mirabeau elected President of the Assembly
- February 28: Day of Daggers; Lafayette orders the arrest of 400 armed aristocrats at the Tuileries
- March 2: Abolition of trade guilds
- April 2: Death of Mirabeau
- April 13: Papal bull, Cavitas, condemning the Civil Constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is published
- June 14: Le Chapelier law banning trade unions is passed by National Assembly
- June 20-25: Royal family's flight to Varennes
- June 25: Louis XVI forced to return to Paris
- July 10: Leopold II issues the Padua Circular calling on the royal houses of Europe to come to his brother-in-law, Louis XVI's aid.
- July 15: National Assembly declares the king to be inviolable and he is reinstated.
- July 17: Champ-de-Mars massacre in which the National Guard fire on protestors against the reinstatement of the king
- August 27: Declaration of Pillnitz ( Frederick William II and Leopold II)
- September 13-14: Louis XVI accepts the constitution formally
- September 30: Dissolution of the National Constituent Assembly
Legislative Assembly
- October 1: Legislative Assembly meets
- November 9 All emigrés are ordered by the Assembly to return under threat of death
- November 11 Louis vetoes the ruling of the Assembly on emigrés.
- January - March : Food riots in Paris
- February 7: Alliance of Austria and Prussia
- April 20: French declare war against Austria
- August 10-13: Storming of the Tuileries Palace. Louis XVI of France is arrested and taken into custody, along with his family
- August 19 Lafayette flees to Austria
- August 22 Royalist riots in Brittany, La Vendée and Dauphiné
- September 2-7: The September Massacres
The National Convention
- September 20: Battle of Valmy
- September 20: Final sessions of the Legislative Assembly and first meeting of the National Convention; unanimous vote for the abolition of the monarchy
- October 10: The terms monsieur and madame are baneed by decree, to be replaced with citoyen and citoyenne
- December 11: Commencement of the trial of Louis XVI before the Convention
- January 21: Execution of Louis XVI
- February 1: War declared against Britain, Holland, Spain
- February 14: France annexes Monaco
- March: Royalist revolt in the Vendée
- March 10: Establishment of the Revolutionary Tribunal
- April 6: Power centered in the Committee of Public Safety and the Committee of General Security
- June 2: Arrest of 31 Girondist deputies
- July 12 Royalist revolt in Toulon
- July 13: Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat
- July 27: Robespierre joins the Committee of Public Safety
- August 23: Levy of entire male population, the Levée en masse
- September 17: Passing of the Law of Maximum Général: a comprehensive program of wage and price controls and the Law of Suspects
- October 9: Lyon retaken by republicans from royalists
- October 16: Execution of Marie Antoinette
- October 31: Execution of Girondist leaders
- November 8: Madame Roland executed
- November 10: Abolition of the worship of god: Cult of Reason
- December: Retreat of the allies across the Rhine
- December 19: English evacuate Toulon
- December 23: Battle of Savenay crushes the royalist revolt in La Vendée
- January 19: English land in Corsica
- February 4: Abolition of slavery in colonies
- March 24: Execution of the Hébertists
- April 2: Trial of Danton begins
- April 6: Execution of the Dantonists
- June 8: Festival of the Supreme Being
- June 10: Law of 22 Prairial
- June 26: Battle of Fleurus (1794) (French victory in Belgium)
- July 27: Fall of Maximilien Robespierre (9 Thermidor)
- December 24: Repeal of maximum
- 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
The Directory
- October 5: Napoleon's "whiff of grape-shot"
- October 26: Convention dissolved; Directory begins
- March 5: War against the Holy Roman Empire
- March 9: Marriage of Napoleon Bonaparte and Josephine
- May 10: Battle of Lodi (Napoleon in Italy)
- July: Siege of Mantua
- 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
- 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
Beginning of the Napoleonic Era
- 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 18 Brumaire: end of the Directory
- December 24: Constitution of the Year VIII: Dictatorship of Napoleon established under the Consulate
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