oct 1, 1788 - French Revoltion

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1788 Louis XVI creates more dissatisfaction by abolishing the power of parliament to review royal edicts. There has been insufficient government planning and storage of grain for emergency shortages. A hailstorm destroys crops. France has its worst harvests in forty years. Winter food riots occur.

1789 Frustrated commoners have created a new National Assembly and are joined by some clergy and nobles. Parisians storm the Bastille. The National Assembly declares an end to feudal rights and proclaims The Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen. A constitution is in the making, and an intimidated Louis XVI agrees to become a constitutional monarch.

1789 In Paris, a delegation of distinguished mulattos (gens de couleur) from France's wealthiest colony, St. Domingue (Haiti), asks whether the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen applies to them, and they are told that it does.

1790 The National Assembly abolishes tariff barriers within France – which had been the moneymaking devices for local nobility. It abolishes all aristocratic and hereditary titles. Harvests have improved and many believe that God is siding with the revolution.


1791 An American brigantine, Lady Washington, is the first American ship to dock in Japan. Britain's North American possession divides into Upper and Lower Canada.

1791 Louis has been troubled by government intrusions into church matters. People become suspicious about his loyalty to the revolution. Louis XVI attempts to flee from France. He, his queen, Marie Antoinette, and their children are arrested at Varennes and brought back to Paris. The Constituent National Assembly suspends the king's authority until further notice. The new constitution takes effect, with the National Assembly replaced by a newly elected parliament – the Legislative Assembly – mostly youthful lawyers of moderate wealth.

1791 In Domingue, white vigilantes defeat a small army of gens de couleur. Twenty-two of the gens de couleur are hanged, as is a priest who had joined them. Slaves revolt. Plantations are burned and around a thousand whites slaughtered. Paris sends soldiers to the colony to restore order.

1792 In France, amnesty has been offered those who fled the country and the revolution. Few return and parliament votes in favor of declaring all émigres as plotting against the revolution – a capital offense. An ultimatum is sent to Austria, demanding the expulsion of those Frenchmen hostile to the revolution. The brother of Marie-Antoinette, Leopold II of Austria, does not cooperate. France declares war. Prussia joins Austria against France and captures Verdun just inside France. In France is war fever and people are afraid of the German invasion. Parisians go on a five-day rampage, to monasteries and from prison to prison, killing political prisoners, priests and nobles. The dead are counted at around 1,500.

1793 Louis XVI, accused of conspiring against the nation, is executed. France is proclaimed a republic. The British, Dutch and Spanish go to war against the French Revolution. In the United States, Thomas Jefferson supports France, Alexander Hamilton supports England and President Washington chooses neutrality. Jean Paul Marat, who believed in the redistribution of wealth, a dictatorship representing the poor, and a passionate supporter of terror against enemies of the revolution, is assassinated by Charlotte Corday. She believes that in killing Marat she is saving the revolution. Instead, the assassination intensifies passions and fears.

1794 On a charge of treason, ultra-leftists in Paris behead a famous scientist, the founder of modern chemistry, Antoine Lavoisier – just one of many being executed in what will be known as a reign of terror The ultra-leftists consider revolutionaries less fervent and more tolerant than they, disloyal. Fear swings with legislators against those leading the "terror." The executioners – Robespierre and associates – are themselves executed.

1795 In France, moderate revolutionaries want order and stability. Hunger and rioting reoccur. The rioters are crushed. A new constitution supports property rights, but properties confiscated from the Church and from émigres are not to be returned.

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