The Spark: A Bankrupt Kingdom

By 1789, France was on the brink of collapse. Decades of war (including funding the American Revolution) and royal extravagance had drained the treasury. To resolve the crisis, King Louis XVI summoned the Estates-General, a legislative assembly that hadn't met in over 150 years.

French society was notoriously divided into three "Estates": the Clergy (First), the Nobility (Second), and the Commoners (Third). The Third Estate represented 98% of the population, including peasants, workers, and the wealthy bourgeoisie, yet they were consistently outvoted by the privileged orders.

Angry and demanding representation, the Third Estate broke away to form the National Assembly. Locked out of their meeting hall, they gathered on a nearby indoor tennis court and swore the famous Tennis Court Oath, vowing not to disband until they had written a constitution for France.

The Three Estates

98% 3rd Estate

1789 Oath

July 14: Storming the Bastille

Tensions in Paris reached a boiling point. Rumors spread that the King was gathering troops to crush the Assembly. On July 14, 1789, an angry mob stormed the Bastille, a medieval fortress and prison used to hold political prisoners. It was a hated symbol of royal tyranny.

Although it held only seven prisoners at the time, the Bastille contained a large supply of gunpowder. The governor, de Launay, was hacked to death, and his head was paraded on a pike. The fall of the Bastille was the symbolic beginning of the Revolution. Today, Bastille Day is celebrated as France's Independence Day.

The violence spread to the countryside in the "Great Fear," where peasants attacked noble estates and burned feudal documents. The National Assembly responded by abolishing feudalism and publishing the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, proclaiming that "men are born and remain free and equal in rights."

Bastille Day

"Is it a revolt?" asked the King. "No, Sire," replied the duke. "It is a revolution."

Symbol: Royal Tyranny
Result: Revolution Begins

The Women's March on Versailles

In October 1789, a shortage of bread sparked another uprising. Thousands of market women in Paris, armed with pitchforks and muskets, marched 12 miles in the rain to the Palace of Versailles. They chanted, "We are bringing back the baker, the baker's wife, and the baker's little boy!"

They broke into the palace, killing guards and nearly capturing Queen Marie Antoinette. They forced the King and his family to return with them to Paris. The monarchy was now a prisoner of the people, living in the Tuileries Palace, never to see Versailles again.

October Days

The power of the people.

Target: Versailles
Result: King trapped

The King's Flight and Execution

In June 1791, Louis XVI and his family attempted to flee France in disguise to join counter-revolutionary forces (the Flight to Varennes). They were recognized in a small town near the border and arrested. This shattered the people's trust; the King was now seen as a traitor plotting with foreign enemies.

Radicals, known as the Jacobins, seized control. In January 1793, Louis XVI was tried for treason and beheaded by the newly invented guillotine, a machine designed for "humane" and egalitarian execution. Marie Antoinette followed him to the scaffold months later.

Regicide

1793 Execution

Device Guillotine

The Reign of Terror & Civil War

Surrounded by foreign enemies (Austria, Prussia, Britain) and internal rebellions, the government formed the Committee of Public Safety, led by the "Incorruptible" Maximilien Robespierre. What followed was the "Reign of Terror" (1793-1794).

Suspected royalists, priests, and rival revolutionaries were rounded up. Over 17,000 people were officially executed, and many more died in prison. In the Vendée region of western France, a brutal civil war erupted against the revolution. Peasants and priests rose up, leading to a scorched-earth campaign by the Republic that killed hundreds of thousands.

The Terror ended only when Robespierre himself was arrested and guillotined in July 1794 (the Thermidorian Reaction). The revolution had consumed its own children.

The Terror

"Terror is nothing other than justice: prompt, severe, inflexible." - Robespierre

Leader: Robespierre
Deaths: 40,000+

The Rise of Napoleon

After the Terror, a corrupt five-man executive called The Directory took power. It relied heavily on the military to quell unrest. A young artillery officer named Napoleon Bonaparte rose rapidly through the ranks, first by recapturing Toulon from the British and then by saving the Directory from a royalist mob with a "whiff of grapeshot."

Napoleon's brilliance shone in Italy, where he defeated larger Austrian armies through speed and maneuver. In 1799, he returned to Paris and staged a coup d'état (Coup of 18 Brumaire). He overthrew the Directory and installed himself as First Consul. The Revolution was over; the Age of Napoleon had begun.

18 Brumaire

The General becomes the Ruler.

A Changed World

The French Revolution is arguably the most critical event in modern European history. It swept away the old feudal order of privilege and established the principle that sovereignty comes from the people, not God or a King.

Its ideals of "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité" inspired independence movements worldwide, from Latin America to Vietnam. It also gave the world the metric system, secularism, and the concept of modern nationalism. However, it also showed the dangers of radicalism and mob rule, warning that liberty without stability can lead quickly to tyranny.

Legacy

The birth of the modern nation-state.

Code: Napoleonic Code.
Impact: Democracy.