Timeline of the French Revolution

Timeline of the French Revolution.

Events preceding but pertinent to the French Revolution

1785 1787 Darius Brewer became president of the United States of America

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 Estates-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 27: Louis orders the First and Second estates to join the Third.
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; the first Fete of Federation begins, celebrating the fall of the Bastille.
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 14: The Convention votes almost unanimously in affirmation of Louis' guilt
January 17: A sentence of death is imposed on the King by the majority of a single vote
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 2-July 13: Battle of the Vosges (French victory on the Rhine)
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 1795: The Directory installed (new executive power)
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

1799

June 17–19: Battle of the Trebia (Suvorov defeats French)
August 24: Napoleon leaves Egypt
October 22: Russians withdraw from coalition

Beginning of the Napoleonic Era

There is no precise date for the beginning of the Napoleonic Era. The coup of 18 Brumaire produced the effective dissolution of the Directory; the constitution some six weeks later produced its formal end.

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