1789
January: Emmanuel Sieyes publishes What is the Third Estate?, his pamphlet calling for greater political representation for commoners.
January: Louis XVI orders the writing and compilation of cahiers de doleances and their presentation at the Estates General.
February: Elections for delegates to the Estates-General commence across France.
April 27th: Rumours about wage freezes triggers the Reveillon and Henriot riots in Paris
May 5th: The Estates General opens at Versailles. In the early sessions, delegates from the First and Second Estates resolve that voting should be done by order, not by head.
May 27th: Emmanuel Sieyes moves that delegates for the Third Estate seek to affirm their right to political representation.
June 13th: Several Estates General delegates from the clergy and aristocracy ‘cross the floor’ voluntarily and join the Third Estate.
June 17th: The Third Estate delegates declare themselves to be the National Assembly.
June 20th: After being locked out of a meeting hall, the Third Estate meets in a nearby tennis court and takes the famous Tennis Court Oath.
June 23rd: At the seance royale, the king proposes a constitution intended to maintain the ancien regime and the Three Estates. This proposal fails.
June 24th: More clergymen and nobles, including the Duc d’Orleans, elect to cross the floor and join the National Assembly.
June 27th: Louis XVI backs down and orders delegates from the First and Second Estates to join the National Assembly.
June 30th: A crowd of 4,000 storms a prison on the left bank of the Seine, freeing dozens of mutinous soldiers.
July: Food prices continue to soar, especially in the cities. In Paris, most workers are spending 80% of wages on bread alone.
July 1st: Louis XVI orders the mobilisation of royal troops, particularly around Paris.
July 2nd: Public meetings at the Palais Royal express great concern at the troop build-up and the king’s intentions.
July 9th: The National Assembly reorganises itself and changes its formal name to the National Constituent Assembly.
July 11th: Jacques Necker is dismissed by the king, adding to paranoia about a royal coup and triggering riots and the sacking of monasteries and chateaux.
July 11th: Lafayette proposes that France adopt a ‘Declaration of Rights’, based on the American Bill of Rights.
July 13th: The more affluent citizens of Paris vote to form a militia, the National Guard, to respond to a potential royalist counter-revolution and prevent property damage and theft.
July 14th: The Bastille, a large fortress, prison and armoury in eastern Paris, is besieged and stormed by revolutionaries. Several officials, including Bastille governor de Launay and finance minister Foulon, are murdered.
July 15th: American Revolutionary War veteran the Marquis de Lafayette is appointed commander of the National Guard.
July 16th: The National Assembly insists on Necker’s recall; the king relents and reappoints him.
July 16th: Large numbers of royal troops massing outside Paris and Versailles are withdrawn.
July 17th: The first signs of the Great Fear begin to appear in rural France. The National Constituent Assembly begins drafting a constitution.
August 4th: The National Assembly begins to dismantle seigneurialism, with many nobles voluntarily surrendering their own feudal dues. These reforms are enacted by the August Decrees.
August 11th: The reforms of August 4th are ratified by the Assembly, albeit with several less-radical amendments.
August 26th: The National Assembly passes the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.
September 11th: The National Assembly grants the king a suspensive veto; he responds by immediately vetoing the August Decrees.
September 12th: Jean-Paul Marat’s radical newspaper The Friend of the People is published on the streets of Paris for the first time.
October 5th: Parisian citizens, including large numbers of women, march on Versailles and menace the royal family.
October 6th: The royal family and the National Assembly agree to leave Versailles for Paris.
October 6th: The king agrees to ratify the August Decrees abolishing feudalism.
October 10th: The National Assembly declares Louis XVI to be “king of the French”, rather than “king of France”.
November 2nd: The National Assembly passes its Decree on Church Lands, declaring that all ecclesiastical lands are “at the disposal of the nation”.
December 14-16th: The National Assembly reforms provincial government, creating 83 new departements.
December 19th: The National Assembly approves a first release of 400 million assignats, a paper bond backed by the value of church lands. It becomes a de facto currency.
1790
January: The first release of assignats is circulated. The National Assembly approves further printings.
January 28th: Legal and commercial restrictions on Jews are officially lifted.
February: British parliamentarian Edmund Burke gives a speech in the House of Commons, condemning the French Revolution.
June 19th: The National Assembly decrees the abolition of all noble ranks and titles.
July 12th: The Civil Constitution of the Clergy is passed by the National Assembly.
July 14th: The Fete de la Federation, a celebration of the revolution and the first anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, takes place in Paris.
August 16th: The parlements are formally abolished
August 18th: Royalists and emigres gathered at Jales in southern France form the first counter-revolutionary assembly.
November: The publication of Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France.
November: A number of counter-revolutionary riots break out in the city of Lyons.
November 26th: A National Assembly decree requires all clergymen to swear an oath to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.
1791
January 30th: Honore Mirabeau is elected president of the National Assembly.
February 9th: Juring priests are elected as the first bishops in the new ‘Constitutional Church’.
March 2nd: The National Assembly decrees the abolition of all guilds and trade monopolies.
March 10th: Pope Pius condemns both the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
April 2nd: The death of Honore Mirabeau.
May 15th: In the French colonies, blacks born to free parents are given equal rights with whites.
June 14th: The National Assembly passes the Le Chapelier Law, prohibiting worker unions, associations and strikes.
June 20th: The royal family attempts to flee Paris to a loyalist stronghold in Montmedy but are intercepted and arrested at Varennes.
June 25th: Louis XVI and the royal family are returned to Paris under guard.
July 10th: Austrian emperor Leopold II issues the Padua Circular, calling on all European monarchs to protect the French royal family.
July 15th: The National Assembly restores the status and privileges of the king, despite his flight to Varennes. This causes outrage in the Jacobin and Cordelier clubs.
July 17th: The Champ de Mars massacre. The National Guard kills between 20-50 rowdy Parisians, who had gathered to sign a Cordeliers petition for the abolition of the monarchy.
August: The commencement of elections for the Legislative Assembly, the body that will replace the National Assembly. Only ‘active citizens’ are permitted to participate.
August 8th: The National Assembly begins deliberating on the draft constitution.
August 14th: Slave uprisings break out in the French Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue (Haiti).
August 27th: The rulers of Prussia and Austria issues the Declaration of Pillnitz, affirming their support for Louis XVI.
September 14th: Louis XVI formally ratifies the Constitution of 1791.
September 28th: The National Assembly issues a decree abolishing slavery in France, though not in its colonies.
September 30th: The National Assembly is dissolved, after passing a self-denying ordinance that prevents its members from sitting in the new Legislative Assembly.
November 1st: The Legislative Assembly convenes for the first time.
November 9th: The Legislative Assembly orders all emigres to return to France “under pain of death”.
November 9th: The Legislative Assembly introduces procedures for civil marriage and divorce.
November 11th: The king vetos the Legislative Assembly’s November 9th decree on emigres.
November 14th: Petion de Villeneuve replaces Jean Sylvain Bailly as the mayor of Paris.
November 29th: The Legislative Assembly orders the arrest of all non-juring priests.
December 19th: The king vetos the Legislative Assembly’s order for the arrest of non-juring priests.
1792
January-March: The sporadic outbreak of food riots in Paris.
February 9th: The Legislative Assembly decrees that the property of emigres now belongs to the nation.
March: The Girdondin ministry, led by Brissot, is appointed by the king.
April 20th: The Girondin majority in the Legislative Assembly declares war on Austria.
July 22nd: Early military defeats lead the Legislative Assembly to declare “La Patrie en danger”, an attempt to rally public support.
July 25th: The Duke of Brunswick, commander of a joint Austrian-Prussian military force, issues the Brunswick Manifesto, threatening Paris with destruction if the king is harmed.
August 10th: The Tuileries Palace is invaded by Parisians and republican soldiers. The king takes refuge in the Legislative Assembly, then is arrested and imprisoned. Soldiers of the Swiss Guard at the Tuileries are massacred.
August 19th: Marquis de Layette is dismissed as commander of the National Guard. Soon after, he defects to Austrian forces.
August 22nd: Royalist riots break out in the Vendee, Brittany and Dauphine.
September 2-6th: The September Massacres in Paris result in around 1200 deaths, the vast majority imprisoned royalists and clergymen.
September 20th: The Legislative Assembly is dissolved, to be replaced by the National Convention.
September 21st: The first session of the National Convention votes unanimously to abolish the monarchy.
September 21st: The National Convention votes to introduce a decimalised revolutionary calendar, beginning with Year I of the First Republic.
October 10th: The Convention forbids the use of old forms of address, replacing them with the more egalitarian citoyenand citoyenne.
December 11th: The trial of Louis XVI before the National Convention begins.
1793
January 21st: The execution of King Louis XVI.
February 1st: The National Convention declares war on Britain and Holland.
February 13th: The formation of the First Coalition, a European military alliance of Britain, Austria, Prussia, Holland, Spain and Sardinia.
March 10th: The first Revolutionary Tribunal is created.
March 10-16th: The beginning of uprisings in the Vendee in western France.
April 6th: The Committee of Public Safety, a 12-man emergency committee with wide-ranging powers, is established by the National Convention.
May 4th: The National Convention passes the Maximum Price Law, under pressure from the sans culottes and Paris sections.
June 2nd: Girondinist deputies are expelled from the National Convention, under pressure from Paris’ sans culottes.
June 24th: The National Convention passes the Constitution of Year I, also known as the Constitution of 1793 or the ‘Jacobin Constitution’.
July 13th: While bathing, Jean-Paul Marat is stabbed to death by Charlotte Corday, a Girondinist supporter.
July 17th: The National Convention orders the abolition and renunciation of all feudal rights and dues, without compensation or delay.
July 17th: Maximilien Robespierre and Louis Saint-Just are elected to the Committee of Public Safety.
August 1st: The National Convention adopts the metric system as the national system of measurement.
August 10th: The Festival of Unity and Indivisibility, celebrating the first anniversary of the storming of the Tuileries.
August 23rd: The National Convention passes the levee en masse.
September 5th: The National Convention, under pressure from the sans culottes and Paris sections, declares that terror is the “order of the day”.
September 17th: The National Convention passes the Law of Suspects.
October 10th: The National Convention suspends the Constitution of 1791 in favour of an emergency war government.
October 16th: The execution of Marie-Antoinette, two days after her trial before the Paris Revolutionary Tribunal.
October 24th: The National Convention adopts the French revolutionary calendar, containing 10 months per year and 10 days per week.
October 31st: The execution of Girondinist leaders, including Brissot, Vergniaud and Fauchet.
December: Republican forces gain the upper hand over rebellious peasants in the Vendee.
1794
February 4th: The National Convention abolishes slavery in all French colonies.
February 15th: The red, white and blue tri-colour is adopted as the national flag of France.
March 24th: The execution of Jacques Hebert and several of his followers.
March 30th: Georges Danton is arrested for alleged corruption; his trial in the Revolutionary Tribunal begins three days later.
April 5-6th: The execution of Danton, Desmoulins and their supporters
June 8th: The Festival of the Supreme Being is celebrated on the Champ de Mars.
June 10th: The National Convention passes the Law of the 22 Prairial, increasing the power of tribunals, removing the rights of defendants and limiting all penalties to death
July 27th: The deposition and arrest of Robespierre. He, Saint-Just, Couthon and others are executed without trial the following day.
August 1st: The Law of 22 Priairial is repealed by the National Convention.
August 5th: The government orders a mass release of political prisoners.
August 11th: Executive powers are removed from the Committee of Public Safety.
August: The White Terror, a campaign of persecution against Jacobins, commences.
September 18th: The National Convention renounces the ‘constitutional church’ and the Cult of the Supreme Being.
November 12th: All Jacobin Clubs are ordered to close down.
December 8th: The surviving Girondinist deputies expelled from the National Convention in June 1793 are reinstated.
December 24th: The National Convention repeals the Maximum Price Law.
1795
February-July: A series of peace treaties are signed, seeking to wind down the revolutionary war in Europe.
April: Bread riots erupt in Paris.
May 31st: Revolutionary Tribunals are formally abolished.
June 8th: The death of the Dauphin, the uncrowned Louis XVII.
August 22nd: Constitution of 1795 is passed, outlining a new system of government that includes a five-man executive (the Directory) and a bicameral assembly (the Council of Elders and the Council of Five Hundred).
October 26th: The Thermidorian Convention ends with the dissolution of the National Convention.
January: Emmanuel Sieyes publishes What is the Third Estate?, his pamphlet calling for greater political representation for commoners.
January: Louis XVI orders the writing and compilation of cahiers de doleances and their presentation at the Estates General.
February: Elections for delegates to the Estates-General commence across France.
April 27th: Rumours about wage freezes triggers the Reveillon and Henriot riots in Paris
May 5th: The Estates General opens at Versailles. In the early sessions, delegates from the First and Second Estates resolve that voting should be done by order, not by head.
May 27th: Emmanuel Sieyes moves that delegates for the Third Estate seek to affirm their right to political representation.
June 13th: Several Estates General delegates from the clergy and aristocracy ‘cross the floor’ voluntarily and join the Third Estate.
June 17th: The Third Estate delegates declare themselves to be the National Assembly.
June 20th: After being locked out of a meeting hall, the Third Estate meets in a nearby tennis court and takes the famous Tennis Court Oath.
June 23rd: At the seance royale, the king proposes a constitution intended to maintain the ancien regime and the Three Estates. This proposal fails.
June 24th: More clergymen and nobles, including the Duc d’Orleans, elect to cross the floor and join the National Assembly.
June 27th: Louis XVI backs down and orders delegates from the First and Second Estates to join the National Assembly.
June 30th: A crowd of 4,000 storms a prison on the left bank of the Seine, freeing dozens of mutinous soldiers.
July: Food prices continue to soar, especially in the cities. In Paris, most workers are spending 80% of wages on bread alone.
July 1st: Louis XVI orders the mobilisation of royal troops, particularly around Paris.
July 2nd: Public meetings at the Palais Royal express great concern at the troop build-up and the king’s intentions.
July 9th: The National Assembly reorganises itself and changes its formal name to the National Constituent Assembly.
July 11th: Jacques Necker is dismissed by the king, adding to paranoia about a royal coup and triggering riots and the sacking of monasteries and chateaux.
July 11th: Lafayette proposes that France adopt a ‘Declaration of Rights’, based on the American Bill of Rights.
July 13th: The more affluent citizens of Paris vote to form a militia, the National Guard, to respond to a potential royalist counter-revolution and prevent property damage and theft.
July 14th: The Bastille, a large fortress, prison and armoury in eastern Paris, is besieged and stormed by revolutionaries. Several officials, including Bastille governor de Launay and finance minister Foulon, are murdered.
July 15th: American Revolutionary War veteran the Marquis de Lafayette is appointed commander of the National Guard.
July 16th: The National Assembly insists on Necker’s recall; the king relents and reappoints him.
July 16th: Large numbers of royal troops massing outside Paris and Versailles are withdrawn.
July 17th: The first signs of the Great Fear begin to appear in rural France. The National Constituent Assembly begins drafting a constitution.
August 4th: The National Assembly begins to dismantle seigneurialism, with many nobles voluntarily surrendering their own feudal dues. These reforms are enacted by the August Decrees.
August 11th: The reforms of August 4th are ratified by the Assembly, albeit with several less-radical amendments.
August 26th: The National Assembly passes the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.
September 11th: The National Assembly grants the king a suspensive veto; he responds by immediately vetoing the August Decrees.
September 12th: Jean-Paul Marat’s radical newspaper The Friend of the People is published on the streets of Paris for the first time.
October 5th: Parisian citizens, including large numbers of women, march on Versailles and menace the royal family.
October 6th: The royal family and the National Assembly agree to leave Versailles for Paris.
October 6th: The king agrees to ratify the August Decrees abolishing feudalism.
October 10th: The National Assembly declares Louis XVI to be “king of the French”, rather than “king of France”.
November 2nd: The National Assembly passes its Decree on Church Lands, declaring that all ecclesiastical lands are “at the disposal of the nation”.
December 14-16th: The National Assembly reforms provincial government, creating 83 new departements.
December 19th: The National Assembly approves a first release of 400 million assignats, a paper bond backed by the value of church lands. It becomes a de facto currency.
1790
January: The first release of assignats is circulated. The National Assembly approves further printings.
January 28th: Legal and commercial restrictions on Jews are officially lifted.
February: British parliamentarian Edmund Burke gives a speech in the House of Commons, condemning the French Revolution.
June 19th: The National Assembly decrees the abolition of all noble ranks and titles.
July 12th: The Civil Constitution of the Clergy is passed by the National Assembly.
July 14th: The Fete de la Federation, a celebration of the revolution and the first anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, takes place in Paris.
August 16th: The parlements are formally abolished
August 18th: Royalists and emigres gathered at Jales in southern France form the first counter-revolutionary assembly.
November: The publication of Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France.
November: A number of counter-revolutionary riots break out in the city of Lyons.
November 26th: A National Assembly decree requires all clergymen to swear an oath to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.
1791
January 30th: Honore Mirabeau is elected president of the National Assembly.
February 9th: Juring priests are elected as the first bishops in the new ‘Constitutional Church’.
March 2nd: The National Assembly decrees the abolition of all guilds and trade monopolies.
March 10th: Pope Pius condemns both the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
April 2nd: The death of Honore Mirabeau.
May 15th: In the French colonies, blacks born to free parents are given equal rights with whites.
June 14th: The National Assembly passes the Le Chapelier Law, prohibiting worker unions, associations and strikes.
June 20th: The royal family attempts to flee Paris to a loyalist stronghold in Montmedy but are intercepted and arrested at Varennes.
June 25th: Louis XVI and the royal family are returned to Paris under guard.
July 10th: Austrian emperor Leopold II issues the Padua Circular, calling on all European monarchs to protect the French royal family.
July 15th: The National Assembly restores the status and privileges of the king, despite his flight to Varennes. This causes outrage in the Jacobin and Cordelier clubs.
July 17th: The Champ de Mars massacre. The National Guard kills between 20-50 rowdy Parisians, who had gathered to sign a Cordeliers petition for the abolition of the monarchy.
August: The commencement of elections for the Legislative Assembly, the body that will replace the National Assembly. Only ‘active citizens’ are permitted to participate.
August 8th: The National Assembly begins deliberating on the draft constitution.
August 14th: Slave uprisings break out in the French Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue (Haiti).
August 27th: The rulers of Prussia and Austria issues the Declaration of Pillnitz, affirming their support for Louis XVI.
September 14th: Louis XVI formally ratifies the Constitution of 1791.
September 28th: The National Assembly issues a decree abolishing slavery in France, though not in its colonies.
September 30th: The National Assembly is dissolved, after passing a self-denying ordinance that prevents its members from sitting in the new Legislative Assembly.
November 1st: The Legislative Assembly convenes for the first time.
November 9th: The Legislative Assembly orders all emigres to return to France “under pain of death”.
November 9th: The Legislative Assembly introduces procedures for civil marriage and divorce.
November 11th: The king vetos the Legislative Assembly’s November 9th decree on emigres.
November 14th: Petion de Villeneuve replaces Jean Sylvain Bailly as the mayor of Paris.
November 29th: The Legislative Assembly orders the arrest of all non-juring priests.
December 19th: The king vetos the Legislative Assembly’s order for the arrest of non-juring priests.
1792
January-March: The sporadic outbreak of food riots in Paris.
February 9th: The Legislative Assembly decrees that the property of emigres now belongs to the nation.
March: The Girdondin ministry, led by Brissot, is appointed by the king.
April 20th: The Girondin majority in the Legislative Assembly declares war on Austria.
July 22nd: Early military defeats lead the Legislative Assembly to declare “La Patrie en danger”, an attempt to rally public support.
July 25th: The Duke of Brunswick, commander of a joint Austrian-Prussian military force, issues the Brunswick Manifesto, threatening Paris with destruction if the king is harmed.
August 10th: The Tuileries Palace is invaded by Parisians and republican soldiers. The king takes refuge in the Legislative Assembly, then is arrested and imprisoned. Soldiers of the Swiss Guard at the Tuileries are massacred.
August 19th: Marquis de Layette is dismissed as commander of the National Guard. Soon after, he defects to Austrian forces.
August 22nd: Royalist riots break out in the Vendee, Brittany and Dauphine.
September 2-6th: The September Massacres in Paris result in around 1200 deaths, the vast majority imprisoned royalists and clergymen.
September 20th: The Legislative Assembly is dissolved, to be replaced by the National Convention.
September 21st: The first session of the National Convention votes unanimously to abolish the monarchy.
September 21st: The National Convention votes to introduce a decimalised revolutionary calendar, beginning with Year I of the First Republic.
October 10th: The Convention forbids the use of old forms of address, replacing them with the more egalitarian citoyenand citoyenne.
December 11th: The trial of Louis XVI before the National Convention begins.
1793
January 21st: The execution of King Louis XVI.
February 1st: The National Convention declares war on Britain and Holland.
February 13th: The formation of the First Coalition, a European military alliance of Britain, Austria, Prussia, Holland, Spain and Sardinia.
March 10th: The first Revolutionary Tribunal is created.
March 10-16th: The beginning of uprisings in the Vendee in western France.
April 6th: The Committee of Public Safety, a 12-man emergency committee with wide-ranging powers, is established by the National Convention.
May 4th: The National Convention passes the Maximum Price Law, under pressure from the sans culottes and Paris sections.
June 2nd: Girondinist deputies are expelled from the National Convention, under pressure from Paris’ sans culottes.
June 24th: The National Convention passes the Constitution of Year I, also known as the Constitution of 1793 or the ‘Jacobin Constitution’.
July 13th: While bathing, Jean-Paul Marat is stabbed to death by Charlotte Corday, a Girondinist supporter.
July 17th: The National Convention orders the abolition and renunciation of all feudal rights and dues, without compensation or delay.
July 17th: Maximilien Robespierre and Louis Saint-Just are elected to the Committee of Public Safety.
August 1st: The National Convention adopts the metric system as the national system of measurement.
August 10th: The Festival of Unity and Indivisibility, celebrating the first anniversary of the storming of the Tuileries.
August 23rd: The National Convention passes the levee en masse.
September 5th: The National Convention, under pressure from the sans culottes and Paris sections, declares that terror is the “order of the day”.
September 17th: The National Convention passes the Law of Suspects.
October 10th: The National Convention suspends the Constitution of 1791 in favour of an emergency war government.
October 16th: The execution of Marie-Antoinette, two days after her trial before the Paris Revolutionary Tribunal.
October 24th: The National Convention adopts the French revolutionary calendar, containing 10 months per year and 10 days per week.
October 31st: The execution of Girondinist leaders, including Brissot, Vergniaud and Fauchet.
December: Republican forces gain the upper hand over rebellious peasants in the Vendee.
1794
February 4th: The National Convention abolishes slavery in all French colonies.
February 15th: The red, white and blue tri-colour is adopted as the national flag of France.
March 24th: The execution of Jacques Hebert and several of his followers.
March 30th: Georges Danton is arrested for alleged corruption; his trial in the Revolutionary Tribunal begins three days later.
April 5-6th: The execution of Danton, Desmoulins and their supporters
June 8th: The Festival of the Supreme Being is celebrated on the Champ de Mars.
June 10th: The National Convention passes the Law of the 22 Prairial, increasing the power of tribunals, removing the rights of defendants and limiting all penalties to death
July 27th: The deposition and arrest of Robespierre. He, Saint-Just, Couthon and others are executed without trial the following day.
August 1st: The Law of 22 Priairial is repealed by the National Convention.
August 5th: The government orders a mass release of political prisoners.
August 11th: Executive powers are removed from the Committee of Public Safety.
August: The White Terror, a campaign of persecution against Jacobins, commences.
September 18th: The National Convention renounces the ‘constitutional church’ and the Cult of the Supreme Being.
November 12th: All Jacobin Clubs are ordered to close down.
December 8th: The surviving Girondinist deputies expelled from the National Convention in June 1793 are reinstated.
December 24th: The National Convention repeals the Maximum Price Law.
1795
February-July: A series of peace treaties are signed, seeking to wind down the revolutionary war in Europe.
April: Bread riots erupt in Paris.
May 31st: Revolutionary Tribunals are formally abolished.
June 8th: The death of the Dauphin, the uncrowned Louis XVII.
August 22nd: Constitution of 1795 is passed, outlining a new system of government that includes a five-man executive (the Directory) and a bicameral assembly (the Council of Elders and the Council of Five Hundred).
October 26th: The Thermidorian Convention ends with the dissolution of the National Convention.