World Civ - The French Revolution

Tithe

10% tax of the third estate's annual income from each person.

Constitutional Monarchy

A constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a written (i.e., codified), unwritten (i.e., uncodified) or blended constitution.

Guillotine

A guillotine is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame in which a weighted and angled blade is raised to the top and suspended. The condemned person is secured with stocks at the bottom of the frame, positioning the neck directly below the blade. The blade is then released, to fall swiftly and forcefully decapitating the victim with a single pass so that the head falls into a basket below.

Bourgeoisie

A political economy, political philosophy, sociology, social sciences, and history, the bourgeoisie is the wealthy stratum of the middle class that originated during the later part of the Middle Ages. The bourgeoisie includes a historical range of socio-economic classes

Gabelle

A very unpopular tax in the French Revolution.

Constitution of 1791

Constitution of 1791, French constitution created by the National Assembly during the French Revolution. It retained the monarchy, but sovereignty effectively resided in the Legislative Assembly, which was elected by a system of indirect voting.

Directory

Directory, French Directoire, the French Revolutionary government set up by the Constitution of the Year III, which lasted four years, from November 1795 to November 1799. It included a bicameral legislature known as the Corps Législatif.

National Assembly

During the French Revolution, the National Assembly, which existed from June 13, 1789 to July 9, 1789, was a revolutionary assembly formed by the representatives of the Third Estate (the common people) of the Estates-General; thereafter (until replaced by the Legislative Assembly on Sept. 30, 1791) it was known as the National Constituent Assembly, though popularly the shorter form persisted.

Emigres

Emigré, any of the Frenchmen, at first mostly aristocrats, who fled France in the years following the French Revolution of 1789. From their places of exile in other countries, many émigrés plotted against the Revolutionary government, seeking foreign help in their goal of restoring the old regime.

Estates (First, Second, Third)

France under the Ancien Regime (before the French Revolution) divided society into three estates: The First Estate (clergy), The Second Estate (nobility), and the Third Estate (Commoners/Peasants). The king was considered part of the Second Estate.

Danton

Georges Jacques Danton, 26 October 1759 - 5 April 1794) was a leading figure in the early stages of the French Revolution, in particular as the first president of the Committee of Public Safety. Danton's role in the onset of the Revolution has been disputed; many historians describe him as "the chief force in the overthrow of the French monarchy and the establishment of the First French Republic". He was guillotined by the advocates of revolutionary terror after accusations of venality and leniency toward the enemies of the Revolution

Great Fear

Great Fear, (1789) in the French Revolution, a period of panic and riot by peasants and others amid rumours of an "aristocratic conspiracy" by the king and the privileged to overthrow the Third Estate.

Republic

In the history of France, the First Republic, officially the French Republic, was founded on 21 September 1792 during the French Revolution. The First Republic lasted until the declaration of the First Empire in 1804 under Napoleon, although the form of the government changed several times. This period was characterized by the fall of the monarchy, the establishment of the National Convention and the Reign of Terror, the Thermidorian Reaction and the founding of the Directory, and, finally, the creation of the Consulate and Napoleon's rise to power.

Jacobins and Girondins

Jacobins: Jacobin, a member of a democratic club established in Paris in 1789. The Jacobins were the most radical and ruthless of the political groups formed in the wake of the French Revolution, and in association with Robespierre they instituted the Terror of 1793-4. Girondins: The Girondins (or Girondists) were members of a loosely knit political faction during the French Revolution. From 1791 to 1793, the Girondins were active within the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention. They were part of the Jacobin movement, though not every Girondin was a member of the Jacobin Club.

Marat

Jean-Paul Marat, (born May 24, 1743, Boudry, near Neuchâtel, Switzerland—died July 13, 1793, Paris, France), French politician, physician, and journalist, a leader of the radical Montagnard faction during the French Revolution. He was assassinated in his bath by Charlotte Corday, a young Girondin conservative.

Louis XIV, XV,XVI

Louis XIV: Was commonly known as Louis the Great or the Sun King, was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any monarch of a major country in European history. In the age of absolutism in Europe, Louis XIV's France was a leader in the growing centralization of power. Louis XV: Was commonly known as Louis the Beloved, was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1 September, 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity in 1723, his kingdom was ruled by Philippe Orleans, Duke of Orleans as Regent of France; the duke was his maternal great-uncle, as well as first cousin twice removed patrilineally. Cardinal Fleury was his chief minister from 1726 until the Cardinal's death in 1743, at which time the young king took sole control of the kingdom. Louis XVI: Was Louis-Auguste, was the last King of France and Navarre before the French Revolution; during which he was also known as Louis Capet. In 1765, at the death of his father, Louis, Dauphin of France, son and heir apparent of Louis XV of France, Louis-Auguste became the new Dauphin. Upon his grandfather's death on 10 May 1774, he became King of France and Navarre, which he remained until 4 September 1791, when he received the title of King of the French until his suspension on 10 August 1792. Louis XVI was guillotined on 21 January 1793. Was last king before the French Revolution.

Charlotte Corday

Marie-Anne Charlotte de Corday d'Armont (27 July 1768 - 17 July 1793), known as Charlotte Corday, was a figure of the French Revolution. In 1793, she was executed by guillotine for the assassination of Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat, who was in part responsible for the more radical course the Revolution had taken through his role as a politician and journalist. Marat had played a substantial role in the political purge of the Girondins, with whom Corday sympathized. His murder was memorialized in the painting The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David, which shows Marat's dead body after Corday stabbed him in his medicinal bath.

Robespierre

Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (6 May 1758 - 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and politician. He was one of the best-known and most influential figures associated with the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. As a member of the Estates-General, the Constituent Assembly and the Jacobin Club, Robespierre was an outspoken advocate for the poor and for democratic institutions. He campaigned for universal male suffrage in France, price controls on basic food commodities and the abolition of slavery in the French colonies. But although he was an ardent opponent of the death penalty, he played an important role in arranging the execution of King Louis XVI, which led to the establishment of a French Republic.

National Convention

National Convention, French Convention Nationale , assembly that governed France from September 20, 1792, until October 26, 1795, during the most critical period of the French Revolution.Jul 11, 2002

Tennis Court Oath

On 20 June 1789, the members of the French Estates-General for the Third Estate, who had begun to call themselves the National Assembly, took the Tennis Court Oath , vowing "not to separate", and to reassemble wherever necessary , until the constitution of the kingdom is established." It was a pivotal event in the early days of the French Revolution.

Bread March, October 1789

On this day in 1789, an angry mob of nearly 7,000 working women - armed with pitchforks, pikes and muskets - marched in the rain from Paris to Versailles in what was to be a pivotal event in the intensifying French Revolution.

Taille

Originally only an "exceptional" tax (i.e. imposed and collected in times of need, as the king was expected to survive on the revenues of the "domain royal", or lands that belonged to him directly), the Taille became permanent in 1439, when the right to collect taxes in support of a standing army was granted to Charles VII of France during the Hundred Years' War. Unlike modern income taxes, the total amount of the Taille was first set (after the Estates General was suspended in 1484) by the French king from year to year, and this amount was then apportioned among the various provinces for collection.

Reign of Terror

Reign of Terror lasted from September 1793 until the fall of Robespierre in 1794. Its purpose was to purge France of enemies of the Revolution and protect the country from foreign invaders.

Valmy

The Battle of Valmy was the first major victory by the army of France during the Revolutionary Wars that followed the French Revolution. The action took place on 20 September 1792 as Prussian troops commanded by the Duke of Brunswick attempted to march on Paris. Generals François Kellermann and Charles Dumouriez stopped the advance near the northern village of Valmy in Champagne-Ardenne.

Cahiers

The Cahiers de doléances (or simply Cahiers as they were often known) were the lists of grievances drawn up by each of the three Estates in France(Mainly the third estate), between March and April 1789, the year in which a revolutionary situation began. Their compilation was ordered by King Louis XVI, to give each of the Estates - the First Estate (the clergy), the Second Estate (the nobility) and the Third Estate, which consisted of the proletarians (the working class), the urban and country workers - the chance to express their hopes and grievances directly to the King. They were explicitly discussed at a special meeting of the Estates-General held on May 5, 1789. Many of these lists have survived and provide considerable information about the state of the country on the eve of the revolution. The documents recorded criticisms of government waste, indirect taxes, church taxes and corruption, and the hunting rights of the aristocracy.

Committee of Public Safety

The Committee of Public Safety —created in April 1793 by the National Convention and then restructured in July 1793—formed the de facto executive government in France during the Reign of Terror (1793-94), a stage of the French Revolution. The Committee of Public Safety succeeded the previous Committee of General Defence (established in January 1793) and assumed its role of protecting the newly established republic against foreign attacks and internal rebellion. As a wartime measure, the Committee—composed at first of nine, and later of twelve, members—was given broad supervisory powers over military, judicial, and legislative efforts. It was formed as an administrative body to supervise and expedite the work of the executive bodies of the Convention and of the government ministers appointed by the Convention. As the Committee tried to meet the dangers of a coalition of European nations and counter-revolutionary forces within the country, it became more and more powerful.

Legislative Assembly

The Legislative Assembly, was the legislature of France from 1 October 1791 to 20 September 1792 during the years of the French Revolution. It provided the focus of political debate and revolutionary law-making between the periods of the National Constituent Assembly and of the National Convention.

Second Revolution

The Second Industrial Revolution, also known as the Technological Revolution, was a phase of rapid industrialization in the final third of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. The First Industrial Revolution, which ended in the early to mid 1800s, was punctuated by a slowdown in macroinventions before the Second Industrial Revolution in 1870. Though a number of its characteristic events can be traced to earlier innovations in manufacturing, such as the establishment of a machine tool industry, the development of methods for manufacturing interchangeable parts and the invention of the Bessemer Process, the Second Industrial Revolution is generally dated between 1870 and 1914 up to the start of World War I.

September Massacres

The September Massacres were a wave of killings in Paris (2-7 September 1792) and other cities in late summer 1792, during the French Revolution. There was a fear that foreign and royalist armies would attack Paris and that the inmates of the city's prisons would be freed and join them.

Thermidorian Reaction

The Thermidorian Reaction (27 July 1794) was a coup d'état within the French Revolution against the leaders of the Jacobin Club who had dominated the Committee of Public Safety. It was triggered by a vote of the National Convention to execute Maximilien Robespierre, Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, and several other leading members of the revolutionary government. This ended the most radical phase of the French Revolution.

Bastille (July 14, 1789)

The beginning of the French revolution. Louis XVI wearing a Phrygian cap, symbol of the revolutionaries (1792). The storming of the Bastille was the symbol of the victory of the French people against the Monarchy. What started as a revolt became a Revolution that will change the face of France's policy for ever.

Civil Constitution of the Clergy

The image result for civil constitution of the clergy The Civil Constitution of the Clergy (French: "Constitution civile du clergé") was a law passed on 12 July 1790 during the French Revolution, that caused the immediate subordination of the Catholic Church in France to the French government.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen

The last article of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen was adopted on 26 August 1789 by the National Constituent Assembly, during the period of the French Revolution, as the first step toward writing a constitution for France.

Ancien Regime

The political and social system in France before the French Revolution of 1789.

Varennes

The royal Flight to Varennes, during the night of 20-21 June 1791 was a significant episode in the French Revolution in which King Louis XVI of France, his queen Marie Antoinette, and their immediate family attempted unsuccessfully to escape from Paris in order to initiate a counter-revolution at the head of loyal troops under royalist officers concentrated at Montmédy near the frontier. They escaped only as far as the small town of Varennes, where they were arrested after having been recognized at their previous stop in Sainte-Menehould.

Sans-culottes

The sans-culottes were the common people of the lower classes in late 18th century France, a great many of whom became radical and militant partisans of the French Revolution in response to their poor quality of life under the Ancien Régime.

Marie Antoinette

Was born as Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna (2 November 1755 - 16 October 1793), was the last Queen of France and Navarre before the French Revolution. She was born an Archduchess of Austria, and was the fifteenth and second youngest child of Empress Maria Theresa and Francis I, and the Holy Roman Emperor.

Royalists

royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of government, but not necessarily a particular monarch. Most often, the term royalist is applied to a supporter of a current regime or one that has been recently overthrown to form a republic.