Key events
and dates
and dates
What was "Bastile Day "
This famous prison fortress in Paris was stormed on July 14, 1789, marking a symbolic start to the revolution.
Who is Maximilien Robespierre?
Known as "the incorruptible," this radical Jacobin lawyer was the chief architect of the Reign of Terror.
what was the Estates General ?
The pre-revolutionary French legislature, divided into three "estates," was called this.
What was the revolutionary motto ?
liberty, equality, and fraternity
What are the three estates ?
Before the revolution, French society was formally divided into these three legal-class orders, with the clergy being the First.
The price skyrocketed that normal people could hardly afford.
Who is Napoleon Bonaparte
This charismatic military officer from Corsica put down a royalist rebellion in 1795 with a "whiff of grapeshot" and later became Emperor.
What is the Tennis Court Oath ?
The oath taken on June 20, 1789, by members of the Third Estate in a tennis court, vowing not to disband until France had a constitution.
What is the civil constitution of clergy ?
This anti-clerical 1790 law required all Catholic clergy to swear an oath of loyalty to the state, causing a major schism
Who were the bourgeoisie ?
The Third Estate was made up of the common people, from peasants to this wealthy urban social class of merchants and professionals.
What was the Reign of Terror ?
Radical phase of revolution where a huge amount of people were sent to the guillotine.
Who is King Louis XVI ?
King that was sent to guillotine during the French Revolution.
Who were the Jacobins ?
The radical revolutionary government from September 1793 to July 1794, led by Robespierre, that wielded dictatorial power during the Terror.
Who were the sans-culottes ?
the radical republican working-class revolutionaries, named for their long trousers as opposed to the knee-breeches of the aristocracy.
What is the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen?
This foundational 1789 document, inspired by Enlightenment thought, declared the natural rights of all men and citizens.
Where did Louis XVI and his family tried to escape to ?
Austrian Netherlands
Who is Jean-Paul Marat ?
A key journalist and leader of the radical sans-culottes, he was assassinated in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday in 1793.
What was the National Assembly
What is the Dechristianization campaign ?
This 1793-1794 policy, championed by Robespierre, aimed to create a "Cult of the Supreme Being" and de-Christianize France by closing churches.
what is guillotine
The revolutionaries famously used this fast-falling device, named for a doctor, to carry out executions.
What is the Thermidorian Reaction
This 1794 event, where Robespierre was arrested and executed, marked the end of the Reign of Terror and is named for the date on the revolutionary calendar (9 Thermidor Year II).
Who is Marquis de Lafayette ?
This French nobleman and military officer fought for the American revolutionaries and was a key figure in the early French Revolution, presenting the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
What is the Directory?
The 1795 constitution that ended universal male suffrage and established a five-man executive body to lead the government after the Terror.
What is the French Republican Calendar / Revolutionary Calendar?
his revolutionary calendar, introduced in 1793, renamed the months and dated Year I from the abolition of the monarchy in September 1792.
Who was the singer that Peter Lu lastly listened to last night ?
Rong hao Li (李荣浩)