French Revolution Begins
France's revolution grew from a fiscal emergency: Louis XVI's bankrupt state convened the Estates-General in May 1789 for the first time since 1614, and the dispute over voting procedure between the three estates immediately broke into constitutional crisis. The Third Estate declared itself a National Assembly, swore not to dissolve at the Tennis Court Oath (20 June), and dismissed attempts to suppress it. On 14 July 1789, Parisian crowds stormed the Bastille fortress; across the country the 'Great Fear' swept through the countryside as peasants burned manorial rolls. The National Assembly abolished feudalism on the night of 4 August, issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August, and progressively dismantled the Ancien Regime's fiscal, legal, and ecclesiastical structures. The monarchy's attempted flight to Varennes in June 1791 destroyed royal legitimacy; war with Austria and Prussia from April 1792 radicalised the politics; the monarchy was abolished and the First Republic declared in September 1792. The decade of revolution that followed — the Terror, Thermidor, the Directory — transformed France's social and legal order before exhaustion created the conditions for Bonaparte's coup in November 1799.
- Year: 1789 CE
- Category: Political
