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Austrian Provinces Declare Independence
Each province of Austria separately declared its independence, and the Austrian administration collapsed. Delegates from the various provinces declared themselves the United States of Belgium, a clear reference to the American precedent. -
The Great Fear/Terror
The Great Fear, a termed used to describe the rural panic that the beggars and vagrants might be a part of an aristocratic plot to starve the people by burning the crops or barns, turned in to peasant attacks on aristocrats or on the records of peasants' dues kept in the lord's chateau. -
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French Revolution, Katie Burns
France's transition from a monarchy to a republic. -
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Succession of Regimes in France
During this period of time, there was a breathtaking succession of regimes in France and the failure of the republican experiment after ten years of upheaval raised disturbing questions about the relationship between political change and violence. -
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Klemens von Metternich
He was an Austrian prince, who took the lead in devising the settlement arranged by the Congress of Vienna. -
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Edmund Burke
He was a original British critic of the French Revolution, who inspired many of the conservatives to follow in his lead. He ahd argued that the revolutionaries erred in thinking they could construct an entirely new government based on reason. -
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Transition from Monarchy to Republic
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Newspaper Publishing
When some twelve hundred deputies journeyed to the king's palace of Versailles for the opening of the Estates General, many readers avidly followed the developments in newspapers that sprouted overnight. -
Bread Prices Soar
Bad weather had damaged the harvest of 1788, causing the bread prices to soar in many places in the spring and summer of 1789 and threatening starvation for the poorest people. -
National Assembly
Although most nobles insisted on voting by order, the deputies of the Third Estate refused to proceed on that basis. After six weeks of stalemate, the deputies of the Third Estate took unilateral action and declared themselves and whoever would join them the National Assembly, in which each debuty would vote as an individual. -
Clergy Join the National Assembly
Two days after the formation of the National Assembly, the clergy voted to join them. -
Jacques Necker is Fired
The fears of the deputies were confirmed on July 11, when the King Louis XVI fired Jacques Necker, the Swiss Protestant finanace minister and the one high official regarded as sympathetic to the deputies' cause. -
Capturing of the Bastille
Armed Parisians captured the Bastille, a royal fortresss and symbol of monarchical authority in the center of the capital. The falll of the Bastille like the women's march to Versailles three months later, showed the determination of the common people to put their mark on events. -
Fall of the Bastille
Te deputies who supported the Assembly feared a plot by the king and high-ranking nobles to arrest them and disperse the Assembly. An armed crowd marched on the Bastille, a fortified prison that symbolized royal authority. After a chaotic battle in which a hundred armed citizens died, the prison officials surrendered. -
End of Feudalism
Alarmed by peasant unrest, the National Assembly decided to make some changes. Noble deputies announced thier willingness to give up their tax exemptions and seigneurial dues. The National Assembly declared the end of what it called "the feudal regime." -
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen
The preamble to the French constitution and established the sovereignty of the nation and equal rights for citizens. -
Women's March to Versailles
A crowd of several thousand women marched in a drenching rain twelve miles from the center of Paris to Versailles. They demanded the king's help in securing more grain for the hungry and his reassurance that he did not intend to resist the emerging revolutionary movement. -
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Village Meetings
In the winter and spring of 1789, villagers and townspeople alike held meetings to elect deputies and write down their grievances. Although educated men dominated the meetings at the regional level, the humblest peasants voted in their vilages and burst forth with complaints, especially about taxes. -
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Rule of Emperor Leopold II
He was the Austrian emperor, who suceeded his brother and was suppported by the democrats. -
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Peasants Rebel in Brussels
Every Sunday in May and June 1790, thousands of peasant men and women led by their priests, streamed into Brussels carrying crucifixes, nooses, and pitchforks to intimidate the democrats and defend the church. -
Civil Constitution of Clergy
It set pay scales for the clergy and provided that the voters elect their own parish priests and bishops just as they elected other officials. -
Festival of Federation
This was marked by the first anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. Under the National Convention, the well-known painter Jacques-Louis David took over festival planning. -
Clergy Swear Allegiance to the CCC
After a deal of resistance, the National Assembly required all cerlgy to swear to an oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution of Clergy. -
Completion of the Constitution
The constitution is finally completed and provided for the immediate election of the new Legislative Assembly. The National Assembly declared themselves ineligble to the new Legislative Assembly. -
Declaration of the Rights of Women
Olympe de Gouges' "Declaration of the Rights of Women" played on the language of the offical Declaration to mke the point that women should also be included. -
Royals Flee to Austria
When the reorganization of the Catholic church offended Louis XVI, the royal family escaped in disguise from Paris and fled to the eastern border of France, where they hoped to gather support from Austrian empoeror Leopald II, the brother of Marie-Antoinette. -
Citizens Approve of War with Austria
By early 1792, most seem to agree with the war on Austria. Louis and Marie-Antoinette hoped that such a war would lead to the defeat of the Revolution, whereas the deputies who favored a republic believed that the war would lead to the king's downfall. -
France Declares War on Austria
Louis XVI declared war on Austria. Prussia immediately entered on the Austrian side. Thousands of French aristocrats had already emigrated. -
Second Revolution Begins
When war broke out again in 1792, a second revolution broke out that deposed the king and established a republic in which all power rested in the elected legislature. -
"September Massacres"
Violence exploded again when the Prussians approached Paris. Mobs stormed the overflowing prisons to seek out traitors who might help the enemy. Eleven hundred inmates were killed. The princess of Lambelle was also killed and displayed beneatht the royal family's palace windows. These massacres showed the dark side of a popular revolution, in which the common people demanded revenge on the supposed enemies and conspirators. -
Monarchy Abolished, Republic Established
The National Convention (most members belonged to the Jacobin Club) abolished the monarchy and established the first republic in French history. -
Louis XVI on Trial
The first showdwn between the Girondins and the Mountain occurred during the tiral of the king. After much debate, the National Convention supported the Mountain and voted to execute the king. -
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Reign of Terror
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Execution of King Louis XVI
Louis XVI went to the guillotine sharing the fate of Charles I of England in 1649. -
Military Draft
France faced war with Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, Spain, Sardinia, and the Dutch Republic. To face this opposition, the French republic ordered the first universal draft of men in history. -
Tension between the Mountain and Girondins
Conflict between the more moderate Girondins and the more radical Mountain came to a head in spring of 1793. Militants in paris agitated for the removal of the deputies who had proposed a referendum on the king, and in retaliation the Girondins engineered the arrest of Jean-Paul Marat, a deputy allied witht he Mountain who in his newspaper had been calling for more and more executions. -
Acquittal of Jean-Paul Marat
Jean-Paul Marat was acquitted, and Parisian militants marched into the National Convention, forcing the deputies to decree the arrest of their 29 Girondin colleagues. The Convention consented to the formation of paramilitary bands called "revolutionary armies" to hunt down political suspects and hoarders of grain. -
Festival of Unity
This festival celebrated the first anniversary of the overthrow of the monarchy. In front of the statue of Liberty built for the accasion, a bonfire consumed crowns and scepters symbolizing royalty while a cloud of 3,000 white doves rose into the sky. -
Cult of Reason
Extremists tried to establish what they called the "Cult of Reason" to supplant Christianity. -
General Maximum
The National Convention established the General Maximum, which set limits on the prices of 39 essential commodities and on wages. -
Marie-Antionette Guillotined
The Revolutionary Tribunal of Paris convicted Marie-Antionette of treason and sent her to the guillotine. The Girondin leaders and Madame Roland were also guilotined as well as Olympe de Gouges. -
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Thermidorian Reaction
The men who led the attack on Robespierrre in Thermidor did not intend to reverse all his policies, but that happened nonetheless because of a violent backlash. The new government released hundreds of suspects and arranged a temporary truce in the Vendée. It purged Jacobins from local bodies and replaced them with their opponents. -
France Invades Austrian Netherlands
France invaded the Austrian Netherlands and cross the Rhine River. The army was ready to carry the gospel of revolution and republicanism to the rest of Europe. -
Maximilien Robespierre
A lawyer from northern France who laid out the principles of a republic of virtue and of the Terror, his arrest and execution brought an end to the Terror. -
Dutch Banks Control US Debt
Government-sponsored Dutch banks held the entire foreign debt of the United States. -
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Rule of Napoleon
Within a year, Napoleon Bonaparte had effectively ended the French Revolution and steered France toward an authoritarian state. He dreamed of European integration in the tradition of Augustus and Charlemagne, but he also mastered the details of practical administration. -
Treaty of Amiens
This treaty effectively ended the hostilities in Europe, forcing Britain, France and Austria to agree on peace terms. -
"Genius of Christianity" Published
Written by Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand, who admired Napoleon but preferred the monarchy. -
Consolidation of German States
Napoleon brought the disparate German and Italian states together to rule them more effectivaly and to exploit their resources. He consolidated the tinty German states by abolishing some of them and attaching them to larger units. -
Civil/Napoleonic Code
The Civil Code was established by Napoleon. It reasserted the Old Regime's patriarchal system of male domination over women and insisted a father's control over his children, which revolutionary legislation limited. -
"Eroica"
Ludwig van Beethoven's Third Symphony was dedicated to his hero, Napoleon, but when he heard of Napoleon's declaration to name himself as emperor, he tore up the piece in disgust. -
Toussaint L'Ouverture
The leader of the St. Domingue slave uprising. A portrait was done of him by Marcus Rainsford's called "Historical Account of the Black Empire of Hayti." -
Battle of Austerlitz
The battle of Austerlitz was Napoleon's greatest victory and the first anniversary of his coronation. -
Continental System
In an effort to bankrupt Great Britain, Napoleon inaugurated the Continental Sytem. It had success but was later undermined by smuggling. -
Royalty for Napoleon's Brothers
Napoleon's brother, Joseph, becomes the ruler of the newly established kingdom of Naples. The same year, Napoleon installed his younger brother Louis as king of Holland. -
Prussia Defeats France
After being crushed by Prussia, Napoleon left his country greatly reduced in territory. Frederick William III appointed a reform commision and on its recommendation he abolished serfdom and allowed non-nobles to buy and enclose land. -
Confederation of the Rhine
Napoleon established this, which soon included almost all the German states except Austria and Prussia. The HRE gave up his title, and became simply the king of Austria. -
"Corrine" Published
Written by Anne-Louise-Germaine de Stael, the best-known expatriate and daughter of Louis XVI's chief minister, Jacques Nester. -
France Defeats Russians
Napoleon defeated the Russians at Friedland. Personal negotiations between Napoleon and the young tsar Alexander I resulted in a humiliating settlement imposed on Prussia. -
"The Cross in the Mountains"
Painted by Caspar David Friedrich. It showeed a Christian cross standing alone in a mountain scene. It symbolized the steadfastness of faith but seemed to separate religion from the churches and attach it to mystical experience. -
"The Lady of the Lake"
Poetry by Sir Walter Scott -
"On Germany" Published
Written by Anne-Louise-Germaine de Stael, well-known expatriate and daughter of Louis XVI's chief minister, Jacques Nester. -
Height of Napoleon's Empire
Napoleon had at least nominal control over almost all of western Europe. -
Invasion of Russia
Napoleon followed his usual strategy of trying to strike quickly, but Russian generals avoided confrontation and retreated eastward, upon attack. The gigantic battle of Bordino forced French soldiers to retreat. -
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Military Turns Against Napoleon
The French military turn against Napoleon and French morale plummeted. -
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Congress of Viena
The Vienna settlment established a new equilibrium that relied on cooperation among the major powers while guaranteeing the status of smaller states. They were face-to-face negotiations between the great powers to settle the boundaries of European states and determine who would rule each nation after the defeat of Napoleon.