Timeline of the French Revolution: From 1789 to 1799

The French Revolution spanned a decade of intense political, social, and cultural transformation, from the meeting of the Estates-General in 1789 to the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799. This article provides a chronological overview of the major events of the Revolution, organized by its major phases.

1789: The Beginning of the Revolution

May 5, 1789: The Estates-General meets at Versailles. The Third Estate, representing the commoners, demands reforms.

June 17, 1789: The Third Estate declares itself the National Assembly.

June 20, 1789: The Tennis Court Oath. The deputies of the Third Estate pledge not to disband until they have given France a constitution.

July 14, 1789: The storming of the Bastille. The Paris mob attacks the royal fortress, freeing the prisoners and acquiring arms. The event is widely seen as the symbolic beginning of the Revolution.

August 4, 1789: The Night of August 4. The National Constituent Assembly, meeting in the night, abolishes the feudal system, including the privileges of the nobility and the church.

August 26, 1789: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is adopted. The Declaration proclaims the natural and imprescriptible rights of man, including liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.

October 5-6, 1789: The Women’s March on Versailles. A crowd of Parisian women, joined by members of the National Guard, marches to Versailles and forces the royal family to return to Paris.

1790-1791: The Constitutional Monarchy

July 12, 1790: The Civil Constitution of the Clergy. The National Constituent Assembly places the Catholic Church under state control, requiring the clergy to take an oath of loyalty to the constitution.

June 20-21, 1791: The Flight to Varennes. King Louis XVI and his family attempt to flee France in order to seek foreign support against the Revolution. They are recognized and brought back to Paris. The king’s flight destroys what remains of his credibility with the French public.

September 3, 1791: The Constitution of 1791 is adopted. The Constitution establishes a constitutional monarchy with a separation of powers and a system of indirect elections.

1792: The Fall of the Monarchy

April 20, 1792: France declares war on Austria. The war, which will expand to include most of the European powers, will dominate the rest of the revolutionary period.

August 10, 1792: The storming of the Tuileries. The Paris mob attacks the royal palace, and the royal family takes refuge with the Legislative Assembly. The monarchy is effectively suspended.

September 2-7, 1792: The September Massacres. The Paris mob, fearing a foreign invasion, kills over a thousand prisoners in the city’s jails.

September 20, 1792: The Battle of Valmy. The French revolutionary forces defeat the Prussian army, halting the foreign invasion.

September 21, 1792: The National Convention proclaims the French Republic. The monarchy is abolished, and France becomes a republic.

September 22, 1792: The First Republic. The First French Republic is established, with the National Convention as its governing body.

1793: The Reign of Terror

January 21, 1793: King Louis XVI is executed. The king is convicted of treason by the National Convention and executed by guillotine.

June-July 1793: The fall of the Girondins. The more moderate Girondin faction of the National Convention is purged by the more radical Jacobin faction, led by Maximilien Robespierre.

September 5, 1793: The Reign of Terror begins. The National Convention grants the Committee of Public Safety, dominated by the Jacobins, emergency powers to defend the Republic against its enemies.

October 16, 1793: The execution of Marie Antoinette. The queen is convicted of treason and executed by guillotine.

November 10, 1793: The Cult of the Supreme Being. Robespierre establishes a new civic religion, the Cult of the Supreme Being, to replace Catholicism.

December 1793 - July 1794: The Terror. The Committee of Public Safety conducts a campaign of political repression, executing thousands of French citizens in the name of the Republic.

1794: The End of the Terror

March 24, 1794: The execution of the Hébertists. The radical Hébert faction is purged by Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety.

April 5, 1794: The execution of Danton. Georges Danton, one of the leaders of the Revolution, is executed by order of the Committee of Public Safety.

July 27, 1794 (9 Thermidor): The Thermidorian Reaction. The National Convention, fearing for its own safety, turns against Robespierre and his allies.

July 28, 1794 (10 Thermidor): Robespierre and his allies are executed. The Reign of Terror ends.

1795-1799: The Directory and the Rise of Napoleon

August 22, 1795: The Constitution of 1795 is adopted. The Constitution establishes the Directory, a five-member executive.

October 5, 1795: The Directory takes office. The Directory will govern France for the next four years, in a period of political instability and economic crisis.

1796-1797: The Italian Campaign. The young general Napoleon Bonaparte leads the French armies to victory in Italy, against the Austrian and Sardinian forces.

October 1797: The Treaty of Campo Formio. France and Austria sign a peace treaty, recognizing the French conquests in Italy.

1798-1799: The Egyptian Campaign. Napoleon leads a French expedition to Egypt, in an attempt to threaten British interests in the Mediterranean.

November 9, 1799 (18 Brumaire): The coup of 18 Brumaire. Napoleon, returning from Egypt, leads a coup that overthrows the Directory and establishes the Consulate. The event effectively ends the French Revolution.

December 15, 1799: The Constitution of the Year VIII. The new constitution establishes the Consulate, with Napoleon as First Consul. The period of the French Revolution is over.

The Significance of the Timeline

The timeline of the French Revolution illustrates the speed and the complexity of the revolutionary process. What began as a moderate reform movement in 1789 quickly radicalized into a series of political and social transformations that fundamentally changed French society and influenced the entire world.

The Revolution went through several distinct phases, each of which was marked by its own political dynamics, its own constitutional projects, and its own characteristic forms of political action. The moderate constitutional monarchy of 1789-1792 gave way to the radical republic of 1792-1795, the Directory of 1795-1799, and the Consulate of 1799-1804.

The timeline also illustrates the way in which the Revolution eventually exhausted itself. The Terror of 1793-1794 demonstrated the dangers of revolutionary radicalism, and the post-Terror period was marked by political instability, economic crisis, and the gradual rise of authoritarian leadership. Napoleon’s coup of 1799 was both a consequence of the failures of the Revolution and a response to the desire for a stable political order.