14 July
Fall of the Bastille
15 July
King received at Hôtel de Ville and adopts tricolour cockade
16 July
Recall of Necker
1789
July – August
The Great Fear
4 August
Renunciation of feudal rights in National Assembly
26 August
Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen
5 October
March of women to Versailles
6 October
Royal Family brought to Paris followed by National Assembly
10 October
Louis XVI decreed King of the French
29 October
‘Active’ and ‘Passive’ citizens distinguished by decree
2 November
Church property nationalized
7 November
Decree excluding deputies from Ministry
14–22 December
Local government reorganized
19 December
Assignats issued
1790
4 February
King speaks to Assembly
13 February
Religious orders, except those engaged in teaching or charitable work, suppressed
19 June
Titles of hereditary nobility abolished
12 July
Civil Constitution of the Clergy
14 July
First Fête de la fédération
4 September
Resignation of Necker
27 November
Decree imposing civic oath on clergy
26 December
King sanctions clerical oath
1791
9 February
Election of first bishops of constitutional church
20 February
King’s aunts move to Rome
10 March
Pope condemns Civil Constitution of the Clergy
2 April
Mirabeau dies
20 June
Flight to Varennes
25 June
King suspended from his functions on being brought back to Paris
17 July
The ‘Massacre of the Champ de Mars’
17 August
Frenchmen abroad summoned to return within one month
27 August
Declaration of Pillnitz
14 September
King accepts Constitution and is restored to functions
1 October
Legislative Assembly meets
1791
9 November
Decree ordering return to France of émigrés suspected of conspiracy against nation
12 November
King vetos decree against the émigrés
19 November
King vetos decree against non-juring priests
29 November
Assembly passes decree against non-juring priests
1792
9 February
Property of émigrés decreed forfeit to nation
10 March
Assembly brings about resignation of Ministry; administration sympathetic to Girondins takes its place
20 April
War declared
29 April
General Dillon murdered by his troops
12 June
Ministry dismissed by King
19 June
King vetos proposed military camp near Paris
20 June
Mob invades Tuileries
28 June
Lafayette returns to Paris
11 July
Decree of ‘La patrie en danger’
25 July
Brunswick Manifesto
25–30 July
Arrival of fédérés from Brest and Marseilles
3 August
All but one of the Paris sections petition for deposition of King
9 August
Insurrectionary commune formed in Paris
17 August
Storming of the Tuileries. King suspended from functions. Ministers dismissed in June reappointed
19 August
Lafayette defects to Austrians. Brunswick crosses frontier
23 August
Longwy falls to Prussians
25 August
Redemption charges for seigneurial dues abolished
2 September
Verdun surrenders to Prussians
2–6 September
Prison massacres
8 September
Brunswick enters Argonne Forest
20 September
Battle of Valmy. Convention constituted
21 September
Convention abolishes monarchy
22 September
Convention decrees that all acts from now on are to be dated from Year One of the Republic
29 September
French army occupies Nice
6 November
Battle of Jemappes. French army advances into Belgium
1792
19 November
Decree of Fraternitéet secours
27 November
Savoy becomes 84th French département
15 December
December Decree of Guerre aux châteaux
1793
14–17 January
Convention debates the fate of the King
21 January
The King is executed
1 February
War declared against England and Holland
14 February
Monaco annexed
7 March
War declared against Spain
9 March
Convention authorizes representatives en mission. Levy of 300,000 men authorized
10 March
Revolutionary Tribunal established
11 March
Revolt in La Vendée begins
18 March
Battle of Neerwinden
21 March
Comités de surveillance established in every commune
26 March
Committee of Public Safety established
4 April
General Dumouriez deserts to Austrians
6 April
Committee of Public Safety reduced to nine members.
13 April
Marat arraigned before Revolutionary Tribunal
4 May
First maximum
May – October
Federalist revolts in provinces against the Convention
28 May
Insurrectionary Committee formed
29 May–2 June
Overthrow of the Girondins
3 June
Émigrés’ land sold in small lots
5 June
Couthon, Saint-Just and Hérault de Séchelles join the Committee of Public Safety
24 June
Constitution of 1793
13 July
Murder of Marat
17 July
Final abolition of all feudal rights without compensation
27 July
Robespierre joins Committee of Public Safety
28 July
Fall of Valenciennes
14 August
Carnot joins the Committee of Public Safety
23 August
Decree of levée en masse
27 August
Toulon surrenders to Admiral Hood
5 September
Attempted coup by Hébertists
6 September
Billaud-Varenne and Collot d’Herbois join die Committee of Public Safety
1793
17 September
Law of Suspects
29 September
Law of General maximum
7 October
Adoption of Revolutionary Calendar: Year II deemed to have begun on 22 September
9 October
Lyons retaken
10 October
Government declared to be
‘revolutionary until the peace’
16 October
Marie Antoinette executed
31 October
Girondin leaders executed
6 November
Duc d’Orléans executed
8 November
Madame Roland executed
11 November
Bailly executed
29 November
Barnave executed
19 December
English evacuate Toulon
23 December
Vendéens defeated at Savenay
1794
24 March
Execution of Hébertists
2 April
Danton’s trial begins
5 April
Execution of Dantonists
8 June
Festival of the Supreme Being
10 June
Law of 22 Prairial
26 June
Battle of Fleurus
23 July
Maximum des salaries
26 July
Robespierre calls for purge in his last speech in the Convention
27 July
The journée of 9 Thermidor. Arrest of Robespierrists. Abolition of Paris Commune by Convention. Liège and Antwerp captured by Jourdan and Pichegru
28 July
Execution of Robespierre and his followers. Repeal of Law of 22 Prairial.
29 July
Execution of Robespierrists on Paris Commune
30–31 July
Reorganization of Committee of Public Safety
31 July
Maximum des salaries withdrawn
10 August
Reorganization of Revolutionary Tribunal
12 November
Jacobin Club closed
1794
8 December
Return of some surviving Girondins to the Convention
24 December
Maximum abolished
1795
23 January
Amsterdam occupied
17 February
Hoche brings temporary peace to La Vendée
21 February
Decree separating Church and State
5 March
Carnot leaves Committee of Public Safety
1 April
Jourée of 12 Germinal
5 April
Peace with Prussia signed at Basle
16 April
Peace with Holland signed at the Hague
20–23 May
Journées of Prairial
23 May
Parisian sections disarmed
May – June
The White Terror
8 June
Death of Dauphin
24 June
Comte de Provence, self-styled Louis XVIII, issues proclamation from Verona
27 June
Émigrés land at Quiberon Bay
20 July
Émigrés defeated by Hoche.
22 July
Peace with Spain signed
22 August
Convention approves Constitution of the Year III
4–6 October
Journées of Vendémiaire
26 October
Convention is dissolved. Directory is inaugurated
1796
2 March
Bonaparte becomes General of the Army of Italy
28 April
Armistice of Cherasco with Piedmont
10 May
Bonaparte defeats Austrians at Lodi
16 November
Bonaparte’s victory at Arcola
1797
12 May
Democratic republic set up at Venice
27 May
Babeuf executed
15 June
Ligurian republic set up at Genoa
9 July
Cisalpine republic set up at Milan
4 September
Coup d’état of 18 Fructidor
1797
18 October
Peace with Austria secured by Treaty of Campo-Formio
10 December
Bonaparte returns to Paris
1798
15 February
Proclamation of Roman republic
12 April
Proclamation of Helvetian republic
18 May
Bonaparte sails for Egypt
1 August
Battle of the Nile
1799
26 January
Proclamation of Parthenopean Republic at Naples
12 March
War declared on Austria
20 May
Sieyès joins the Directory
15 August
Suvarov defeats Joubert at Novi
26 September
Massena defeats Russians at Zurich
9 October
Bonaparte lands at Fréjus
9 November
Coup d’état of Brumaire
PRINCIPAL SOURCES
A complete biography (if it were possible to compile one) would occupy far more pages than there are in this book. There is a good selective bibliography in Lefebvre’s history, and shorter ones in the histories by Soboul, Roberts, Goodwin and Hampson. This list is a highly personal selection.
ASCHERSON, NEAL (ed.), The French Revolution: Extracts from The Times, 1789–1794, Times Books, 1975
AULARD, ALPHONSE, The French Revolution: A Political History, 1789–1804, trans. Bernard Miall, 1910
BEIK, P. H. (ed.), The French Revolution, Macmillan, 1971
BERNARD, J. F., Talleyrand: A Biography, Collins, 1973
BIENVENU, RICHARD (ed.), The Ninth of Thermidor: Fall of Robespierre, Oxford University Press, 1968
BIRÉ, EDMOND, The Diary of a Citizen of Paris during the Terror, trans. John de Villiers, 1896, 2 vols.
BLANC, LOUIS, Histoire de la Révolution française, Paris 1847–1862, 12 vols.
BOULOISEAU, M., La République jacobine–10 août 1792–9 Thermidor an II, Paris, 1972
BRADBY, E.D., The Life of Barnave, Oxford, 1915, 2 vols.
BRAESCH, F., La Commune du 10 août 1792, Paris, 1911
BRINTON, CRANE, A Decade of Revolution 1789–99, 1934
BRUCKNER, GENE A., Jean-Sylvain Bailly: Revolutionary Mayor of Paris, University of Illinois Press, 1950
BUCKMAN, PETER, Lafayette: A Biography, Paddington Press, 1977 Cambridge Modern History, vol. VIII., The French Revolution, Cambridge University Press, 1934
CAMPAN, MADAME, Mémoires, 1833
CARON, PIERRE, Massacres de septembre, Paris, 1935; Paris pendant la Terreur, Paris, 1910–58, 5 vols.; La Première Terreur, Paris, 1950
CLAPHAM, J. H., Abbé Sieyès, 1912
COBB, RICHARD, Les Armées Revolutionnaires, Paris, 1961–3, 2 vols.; Death in Paris, 1795–1801, Oxford University Press, 1978; Paris and its Provinces, 1792–1802, Oxford University Press, 1975; The Police and the People. French Popular Protest, 1789–1820, Oxford University Press, 1970; Reactions to the French Revolution, Oxford University Press, 1972; Terreur et subsistances 1793–1795, Paris, 1965
COBBAN, ALFRED, Aspects of the French Revolution, Cape, 1968; A History of Modern France, Volume I: 1755–1799, third edition, Pelican Books, 1963; The Social Interpretation of the French Revolution, Cambridge University Press, 1964
COLE, HUBERT, Fouché: The Unprincipled Patriot, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1972
COOPER, DUFF, Talleyrand, Cape, 1938
CRONIN, VINCENT, Louis and Antoinette, Collins, 1974; Napoleon, Collins, 1971
CURTIS, E. N., Saint-Just, Colleague of Robespierre, London, 1935
DAWSON, CHRISTOPHER, The Gods of Revolution, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1972
DAWSON, PHILIP (ed.), The French Revolution, Prentice Hall, Inc., 1967
DESMOULINS, CAMILLE, Le Vieux Cordelier, Paris, 1936
ELLIOTT, SIR JOHN, The Way of the Tumbrils, Rheinhart, 1958
FERRIÈRES, MARQUIS DE, Mémoires, Paris, 1822, 3 vols.
FERSEN, HANS AXEL VON, Rescue the Queen: A
Diary of the French Revolution, 1789–1793, Bell, 1971
The Days of the French Revolution Page 35