Timeline of the French Revolution - Definition and Overview

Timeline of the French Revolution.

Events preceding but pertinent to the French Revolution

1785

• The Diamond Necklace Affair results in the discrediting of Marie Antoinette

1786

• Louis XVI and France face economic ruin

Pre-Revolutionary Phase

1787

• 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.

1788

• May 8: Louis XVI issues the Lamoignon Edict which abolishes the power of parliament to review royal edicts

1789

• 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 clergy) and the Second Estate (the aristocracy)
• 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

1790

• 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

1791

• 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.

1792

• 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

1793

• 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

1794

• 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

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

The Directory

• October 5: Napoleon's "whiff of grape-shot"
• October 26: Convention dissolved; Directory begins

1796

• 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

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

Beginning of the Napoleonic Era

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 18 Brumaire: end of the Directory
• December 24: Constitution of the Year VIII: Dictatorship of Napoleon established under the Consulate