3rd Period – French Revolution: Radical Phase - Timeline
Constitutional Monarchy (1791-92)
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1971, Royal Family arrested while attempting to flee France
National assembly disbanded
o No members could be elected to the legislative assembly
o New legislature is still made up of prosperous, well educated, middle class
men
Aug. 10, 1792, Louis XVI is suspended from all power
1792 – France decides to declare war on all despotic and aristocratic states
Austria and Prussia – declaration of Pillnitz
o Can intervene in France at different circumstances (1791)
Louis XVI executed
Reign of Terror (1792-94)
Execution of King  Execution of Maxemilien Robespierre
o Timeline
 April 1792: France Declares war on Austria
 September 1792: September massacres
 National convention declares France Republic and
abolishes current monarchy
 January 1793: Execution of Louis XVI
 February 1793: France Declares war on Holland Britain and Spain
 Revolts in outlying cities
 March 1793: 2 Factions (Girondists and Mountains) National
convention Fight
 April-June 1793: Robespierre organizes committee of public safety
and begins to arrest Girondists
 September 1793: Planned economy put into effect to help military
 1793-1794: Reign of Terror Starts
 Spring 1794: French armies victorious in all fronts
 July 1974: Robespierre executed on 9 Thermidor
Directory (1794-99)
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Thermidorian reaction recalled the early days of Revolution (1789)
Middle-class lawyers and professionals reasserted their authority, drawing support
from their own class and the better-off peasants
National Convention abolished many economic controls and let price rise sharply
Wealthy bankers and newly rich people celebrated the end of the Reign of Terror
and self-indulged
Led to inflation, increased the instability of the economy
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Hit the lower peasantry (sansculottes), led them to revolt against the merging
new order in 1795
National Convention controls revolts
Revolutionary spirit from the poor subsided
1796 – 1801 Women of rural France worked for a return to a normal and structure
lifestyle, through the Catholic church
o Religious questions and beliefs resurfaces
1795 Middle class of the National Convention wrote another constitution in which
they established an electoral system
o Reorganized Legislative assembly where they chose five-man executive
called the Directory
The Directory stressed military expansion to create an increase in job
opportunities
1797 the Directory an increase in conservative and monarchist deputies were
elected, favoring peace
Effort to Establish stable representative government had failed
November 9-10, 1799 Napoleon replaces the Directory with strong dictatorship
with coup d’état (the sudden unconstitutional overthrow of a government)
Group 1 – Key Terms
Girondists and Jacobins – groups within the national convention
Declaration of Pillnitz- declares that Austria and Prussia will intervene in France under
certain circumstances
The Mountain – another group within the national convention led by Robespierre
Edmund Burke – wrote pamphlet promoting the power of the 3rd estate
Olympe de Gouges – wrote Listening to the Past: Revolution and Women’s Rights, in
support of Mary Wollstonecraft’s ideas on the rights of women
National Convention – formed when Louis XVI power was suspended
Group 2 – Key Terms
Sans-culottes
“without breeches”
The laboring poor and traders who wore trousers instead of kene breeches of the
aristocracy and the solid middle class
Planned Economy
The government set maximum allowable prices for a host of key products, such as the
price of bread in Paris (evidently set for the poor to be able to afford)
The poor in Paris had a constant supply of food due to this
A form of Socialism
(leads to black market??)
The Reign of Terror
1793-94
Most controversial phases of the French Revolution
They used scare tactics to put order and laws into effect. Used terror to kill everyone
without having proof or witnesses.
Nationalism
Having pride and patriotic dedication to a nation
(Modern nationalism)
Girondists
Moderate part of the National Assembly
The Mountain
Led by Robespierre and Georges Jaques Danton
More radical part of the National Assembly