French Revolution
The French Revolution lasted ten years, from the Estates General of 1789 to the Coup of 18 Brumaire on the 9th of November 1799. In May 1789, a representative body called the Estates General met for the first time since 1614. Within months, a royal fortress would fall, feudalism would be abolished, and a king would be addressed not as King of France but as king of a free people. By January 1793, that same king would be executed on a public square. How did a financial crisis spiral into the overthrow of a monarchy that had stood for centuries? What turned debates about taxation into the guillotine? And how did a young artillery officer named Napoleon Bonaparte emerge from the wreckage to seize power? The answers run through bread riots, a tennis court oath, and roughly 16,000 death sentences handed down in the name of liberty.
Between 1715 and 1789, the population of France grew from 21 to 28 million, with Paris alone holding over 600,000 inhabitants. Yet prosperity reached mainly the rentier and mercantile classes, while wage labourers and peasant farmers who rented their land saw their living standards fall. Economic recession from 1785, combined with bad harvests in 1787 and 1788, drove up unemployment and food prices.
France faced repeated budgetary crises because revenue failed to keep pace with spending. The use of tax farmers meant economic growth did not translate into proportional tax income. The nobility and the Church enjoyed exemptions, so the tax burden fell mainly on the lower classes. New tax laws had to be registered with regional judicial bodies called parlements, which could block them.
France funded the Anglo-French War of 1778 to 1783 largely through loans, and kept borrowing afterward. By 1788, half of state revenue went on servicing the debt. In 1786, the finance minister Calonne proposed a universal land tax, the abolition of grain controls, and new provincial assemblies. The Assembly of Notables rejected the new taxes, as did the parlements. Both argued such taxes could only be approved by an Estates General.
On the 8th of August 1788, the minister Brienne announced the king would summon an Estates General the following May. He resigned and was replaced by Jacques Necker. In September 1788, the Parlement of Paris ruled the body should meet as it had in 1614, with the three estates voting separately. That meant the clergy and nobility, representing less than 5% of the population, could outvote the Third Estate. A pamphlet by Abbé Sieyès, titled What Is the Third Estate?, argued that the Third Estate represented the nation and should sit alone as a National Assembly.
Of the 610 deputies of the Third Estate, about two-thirds held legal qualifications, and none were peasants or artisans. The Second Estate elected 322 deputies who owned about 25% of the land. Three-quarters of the 303 clergy elected were parish priests, many earning less than unskilled labourers. Each region drew up a list of grievances, the Cahiers de doléances, headed by complaints about tax inequality and seigneurial dues.
On the 5th of May 1789, the Estates General convened at Versailles. The Third Estate voted to verify all representatives in common and to count votes by head. On the 17th of June, it declared itself the National Assembly of France and pronounced all existing taxes illegal. By the 19th, more than 100 members of the clergy had joined them.
The Salle des États was closed to prepare a joint royal session, but the members were not told in advance. Finding their meeting place shut, they swore the Tennis Court Oath, vowing not to disperse until a constitution had been agreed. At the royal session, Louis XVI announced reforms but then restated his demand that the three estates sit and vote separately. The Third Estate refused to leave.
On the 27th of June, facing popular demonstrations and mutinies in his French Guards, Louis XVI commanded the first and second estates to join the third. The struggle over how to vote had become a struggle over who held authority in France.
On the 11th of July 1789, Louis dismissed Necker as chief minister, on the advice of Marie Antoinette and his younger brother the Comte d'Artois. The next day, rumours spread that the king planned to use the Swiss Guards to force the Assembly to close. Crowds poured into the streets, and soldiers of the Gardes Françaises refused to disperse them.
On the 14th of July, many of these soldiers joined a crowd attacking the Bastille, a royal fortress holding large stores of arms and ammunition. Its governor, Bernard-René de Launay, surrendered after several hours of fighting that cost the lives of 83 attackers. Launay was taken to the Hôtel de Ville, killed, and his head paraded on a pike. The fortress, rumoured to hold many prisoners, held only seven: four forgers, a lunatic, a failed assassin, and a deviant nobleman. The Bastille was demolished in the following weeks, and Bastille Day became the French national holiday.
Louis appointed the Marquis de Lafayette commander of the National Guard, with Jean-Sylvain Bailly heading a new administrative structure called the Commune. On the 17th of July, Louis visited Paris and accepted a tricolore cockade, greeted as father of the French and king of a free people. In rural areas, wild rumours produced an agrarian insurrection known as the Great Fear. Much of the nobility fled abroad, becoming émigrés who funded reactionary forces and urged foreign monarchs to back a counter-revolution.
In response, the Assembly published the August Decrees abolishing feudalism. Over 25% of French farmland was subject to feudal dues, now cancelled along with Church tithes. The decrees also brought equality before the law and freedom of worship. With the suspension of the 13 regional parlements in November, the pillars of the old regime had all been abolished in less than four months.
On the 26th of August 1789, the Assembly published the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen as a statement of principle. Mirabeau was its most prominent drafter. On the 10th of September, the majority voted for a single legislative body, and the next day approved a suspensive veto, letting Louis delay a law but not block it indefinitely. In October, political rights were restricted to active citizens, French males over 25 who paid direct taxes equal to three days' labour.
In late September 1789, the Flanders Regiment arrived at Versailles and was welcomed with a banquet. The radical press described this as a gluttonous orgy. On the 5th of October, crowds of women gathered outside the Hôtel de Ville against high food prices, then marched on Versailles, some 7,000 strong. They were followed by 15,000 members of the National Guard under Lafayette. The next morning protestors broke into the royal apartments searching for Marie Antoinette, who had escaped, and killed several guards. The royal family then left for Paris, and Louis's title changed from King of France to King of the French.
The Church controlled nearly 10% of all estates and levied tithes effectively amounting to a 10% tax on income. On the 2nd of November, the Assembly confiscated all Church property, using its value to back a new paper currency, the assignats. On the 13th of February 1790, religious orders and monasteries were dissolved. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy of the 12th of July 1790 made clergy employees of the state and set up a system for electing priests and bishops.
Pope Pius VI and many French Catholics objected, since the law denied papal authority. When clergy were required to swear loyalty, only 24% complied. Resistance stiffened in Catholic areas such as Normandy, Brittany and the Vendée, where the civilian population turned against the revolution. Many refractory clergy were forced into exile, deported, or executed, a fault line that would later tear open into civil war.
On the night of the 20th of June 1791, the royal family left the Tuileries Palace in disguise, urged by Louis's brother and wife to take refuge with General Bouillé at Montmédy. Late the next day, Louis was recognised as he passed through Varennes, arrested, and taken back to Paris. Since it was clear he had sought refuge in Austria, fear of spies and traitors became pervasive.
On the 17th of July 1791, an immense crowd gathered in the Champ de Mars to sign a petition demanding the king's deposition. The National Guard, led by Lafayette, fired into the crowd, killing between 13 and 50 people. The massacre badly damaged Lafayette's reputation. On the 27th of August, Emperor Leopold II and King Frederick William II of Prussia issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, hinting at an invasion of France on the king's behalf.
The Legislative Assembly convened in October 1791, split into three groups. The Feuillants, with 264 members, thought the Revolution had gone far enough. Around 136 Jacobin leftists, led by Brissot, supported a republic. The remaining 345 belonged to La Plaine, a centrist faction. Brissot campaigned for war against Austria and Prussia. On the 20th of April 1792, the French Revolutionary Wars began, and French armies suffered a series of disastrous defeats.
Details of the Brunswick Manifesto reached Paris on the 1st of August, threatening vengeance against any who opposed the Allies in restoring the monarchy. On the morning of the 10th of August, the Paris National Guard and provincial fédérés attacked the Tuileries Palace, killing many of the Swiss Guards. The deputies voted to temporarily relieve the king, effectively suspending the monarchy. The throne that had ruled France for centuries had three months left as an institution.
On the 20th of September 1792, the French defeated the Prussians at the Battle of Valmy, their first major victory of the Revolutionary Wars. Two days later the Convention replaced the monarchy with the French First Republic and introduced a new calendar, making 1792 Year One. On the 17th of January 1793, Louis, now called Citoyen Louis Capet, was sentenced to death. 361 deputies voted in favour, 288 against, and 72 for execution subject to delay. The sentence was carried out on the 21st of January on the Place de la Révolution, now the Place de la Concorde.
The Committee of Public Safety was created on the 6th of April 1793. On the 2nd of June, a crowd of up to 80,000 surrounded the Convention, and Girondin deputies were arrested. On the 10th of June, the Montagnards took over the Committee. The assassination of Marat on the 13th of July by the Girondist Charlotte Corday gave the Committee an excuse to seize control.
From September 1793 to July 1794, around 300,000 people were arrested, with some 16,600 executed on charges of counter-revolutionary activity, while another 40,000 may have died summarily or awaiting trial. Marie Antoinette was guillotined in mid-October. Over 2,000 were killed in Lyon after its recapture. Between November 1793 and February 1794, over 4,000 were drowned in the Loire at Nantes under Jean-Baptiste Carrier.
Divisions split the Montagnards. Hébert was arrested and executed on the 24th of March with 19 colleagues. Danton was executed on the 5th of April with Camille Desmoulins, after a show trial. The Law of 22 Prairial, the 10th of June, denied the accused the right to defend themselves, and executions in Paris rose from 5 to 26 per day.
On the 26th of July, Robespierre told the Convention that certain members were conspiring against the Republic, but refused to name them. His opponents attacked the next day. When Robespierre tried to speak, his voice failed, and one deputy cried, The blood of Danton chokes him. He took refuge in the Hôtel de Ville, severely injured himself attempting suicide, and was executed on the 28th of July with 19 colleagues, followed by 83 members of the Commune.
Southern France saw a wave of revenge killings after Robespierre's death, directed against alleged Jacobins, Republican officials, and Protestants. Some who had taken part in the Terror kept their positions, including Paul Barras, later chief executive of the Directory, and Joseph Fouché, who had directed the killings in Lyon. The Constitution of the Year III was approved by plebiscite on the 23rd of September 1795.
The new system established a bicameral legislature. The Council of 500 drafted legislation, reviewed by the Council of Ancients, an upper house of 250 men over the age of 40. Five directors held executive power. The law of two-thirds ruled that 600 former Conventionnels kept their seats, intended to ensure stability. By April 1795, the assignat was worth only 8% of its face value.
On the 5th of October 1795, Convention troops led by Napoleon put down a royalist rising in Paris. By April 1796, over 500,000 Parisians were unemployed, sparking the Conspiracy of the Equals led by François-Noël Babeuf, whose demands included a more equitable distribution of wealth. The revolt was crushed and Babeuf executed. By 1799, the economy had been stabilised, and reforms remained in place for much of the 19th century.
The elections of May 1797 brought gains for the right. Republicans staged a pre-emptive coup on the 4th of September, deporting 63 leading Royalists to French Guiana. Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in July 1798 confirmed European fears of French expansionism, and the War of the Second Coalition began in November.
The architect of the Directory's end was Sieyès, who, asked what he had done during the Terror, allegedly answered, I survived. He removed Barras with help from Talleyrand and Napoleon's brother Lucien, president of the Council of 500. On the 9th of November 1799, the coup of 18 Brumaire replaced the five directors with the French Consulate, made up of Napoleon, Sieyès, and Roger Ducos. Most historians consider this the end of the French Revolution, though the wars it began would not end until Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in 1815.
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Common questions
When did the French Revolution start and end?
The French Revolution began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the Coup of 18 Brumaire on the 9th of November 1799. That coup replaced the five directors with the French Consulate, made up of Napoleon Bonaparte, Sieyès, and Roger Ducos.
What caused the French Revolution?
The French Revolution resulted from social, political, economic, and financial crises in the late 1780s. By 1788, half of state revenue went on servicing debt, while economic recession from 1785 and bad harvests in 1787 and 1788 drove up unemployment and food prices. Tax exemptions for the nobility and Church placed the burden mainly on the lower classes.
What happened during the Storming of the Bastille?
On the 14th of July 1789, a crowd attacked the Bastille, a royal fortress holding arms and ammunition. Its governor, Bernard-René de Launay, surrendered after fighting that cost 83 attackers their lives, then was killed and his head paraded on a pike. The fortress held only seven prisoners, and Bastille Day became the French national holiday.
Why was King Louis XVI executed in the French Revolution?
Louis XVI was sentenced to death on the 17th of January 1793 for conspiracy against public liberty and general safety, with 361 deputies in favour and 288 against. The sentence was carried out on the 21st of January on the Place de la Révolution, now the Place de la Concorde.
How many people died in the Reign of Terror?
During the Reign of Terror, from September 1793 to July 1794, around 300,000 people were arrested and some 16,600 were executed on charges of counter-revolutionary activity. Another 40,000 may have died summarily or while awaiting trial, and over 4,000 were drowned in the Loire at Nantes.
Who was Maximilien Robespierre and how did he die?
Maximilien Robespierre was a radical Jacobin who led the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror. After accusing unnamed members of conspiracy on the 26th of July 1794, his opponents turned on him, and he was executed on the 28th of July with 19 colleagues following the Thermidorian Reaction.
When did the French Revolution abolish slavery in the colonies?
The National Convention voted for the abolition of slavery in the colonies on the 4th of February 1794 and decreed that all colonial residents had the full rights of French citizens irrespective of colour. In 1789 there were about 700,000 slaves in the colonies, of which about 500,000 were in Saint-Domingue.