40-45
Parlement de Paris
The most powerful of France's 13 sovereign appeal courts dominated by robe nobles.
September Massacres
The summary execution of over 1,000 political prisoners in Paris jails in 1792.
Varennes
Louis XVI's failed attempt to flee France in disguise toward the Austrian border in 1791.
white terror
A wave of violent revenge attacks carried out by royalists against former Jacobins from 1795 onward.
Denis Diderot
A prominent French Enlightenment philosopher and driver of the Encyclopédie.
Peninsular War
A military conflict in Spain and Portugal against Napoleon's army.
Tennis Court Oath
A vow by the locked-out Third Estate not to disperse until they wrote a constitution.
War of the First Coalition
A multi-nation European alliance formed in 1792 to defeat revolutionary France.
Jacques Turgot
Reformist Controller-General under Louis XVI influenced by Enlightenment economics.
Duc d’Enghien
A young Bourbon prince kidnapped from neutral territory and executed by Napoleon in 1804.
Refractory Clergy
Catholic priests who refused to swear an oath of loyalty to the state.
Thermidorian Reaction
The parliamentary revolt that overthrew and executed Robespierre in July 1794.
War of the Second Coalition
A renewed European alliance (1798–1802) formed against France during Napoleon's Egypt campaign.
Baron de Montesquieu
An Enlightenment political philosopher who wrote The Spirit of the Laws.
Edmund Burke
A British statesman and political philosopher who wrote Reflections on the Revolution in France.
Reign of Terror
A period of dictatorial rule and mass executions led by Robespierre.
Treaty of Campo Formio
A peace settlement negotiated by Napoleon with Austria in 1797.
War of the Third Coalition
A British-led European alliance organized in 1805 to crush the French Empire.
Charles Calonne
Controller-General of finances from 1783 to 1787.
Emmanuel Sieyes
A radical clergyman who authored the influential 1789 pamphlet.
Sans Culottes
The radical, working-class militants of Paris named for wearing trousers instead of breeches.
Tuileries
The royal palace in Paris where the royal family was held under house arrest.
Watch Committees
Local revolutionary committees established during the Terror to monitor and arrest suspects.
Charlotte Corday
A young Girondin sympathizer from a minor noble family who assassinated Jean-Paul Marat.
Etienne Brienne
Archbishop and Controller-General who succeeded Calonne in 1787.