The Days of the French Revolution

APPENDIX 3 Table of principal events

1788

8 August

Announcement of recall of Estates General

25 August

Baron Necker appointed to Ministry

25 September

Paris parlement recommends Estates General should be constituted as in 1614

6 November

Assembly of Notables meets

1789

5 May

Estates General meet at Versailles

4 June

Death of Dauphin

17 June

Third Estate adopts title of National Assembly

19 June

Majority of clergy vote to join Third Estate

20 June

Tennis Court Oath

23 June

Séance royale

26 June

Troops begin to concentrate around Paris

27 June

King orders clergy and nobility to join the Third Estate

11 July

Dismissal of Necker

12–17 July

Riots in Paris

14 July

Fall of the Bastille

15 July

King received at Hôtel de Ville and adopts tricolour cockade

16 July

Recall of Necker

1789

July – August

The Great Fear

4 August

Renunciation of feudal rights in National Assembly

26 August

Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen

5 October

March of women to Versailles

6 October

Royal Family brought to Paris followed by National Assembly

10 October

Louis XVI decreed King of the French

29 October

‘Active’ and ‘Passive’ citizens distinguished by decree

2 November

Church property nationalized

7 November

Decree excluding deputies from Ministry

14–22 December

Local government reorganized

19 December

Assignats issued

1790

4 February

King speaks to Assembly

13 February

Religious orders, except those engaged in teaching or charitable work, suppressed

19 June

Titles of hereditary nobility abolished

12 July

Civil Constitution of the Clergy

14 July

First Fête de la fédération

4 September

Resignation of Necker

27 November

Decree imposing civic oath on clergy

26 December

King sanctions clerical oath

1791

9 February

Election of first bishops of constitutional church

20 February

King’s aunts move to Rome

10 March

Pope condemns Civil Constitution of the Clergy

2 April

Mirabeau dies

20 June

Flight to Varennes

25 June

King suspended from his functions on being brought back to Paris

17 July

The ‘Massacre of the Champ de Mars’

17 August

Frenchmen abroad summoned to return within one month

27 August

Declaration of Pillnitz

14 September

King accepts Constitution and is restored to functions

1 October

Legislative Assembly meets

1791

9 November

Decree ordering return to France of émigrés suspected of conspiracy against nation

12 November

King vetos decree against the émigrés

19 November

King vetos decree against non-juring priests

29 November

Assembly passes decree against non-juring priests

1792

9 February

Property of émigrés decreed forfeit to nation

10 March

Assembly brings about resignation of Ministry; administration sympathetic to Girondins takes its place

20 April

War declared

29 April

General Dillon murdered by his troops

12 June

Ministry dismissed by King

19 June

King vetos proposed military camp near Paris

20 June

Mob invades Tuileries

28 June

Lafayette returns to Paris

11 July

Decree of ‘La patrie en danger’

25 July

Brunswick Manifesto

25–30 July

Arrival of fédérés from Brest and Marseilles

3 August

All but one of the Paris sections petition for deposition of King

9 August

Insurrectionary commune formed in Paris

17 August

Storming of the Tuileries. King suspended from functions. Ministers dismissed in June reappointed

19 August

Lafayette defects to Austrians. Brunswick crosses frontier

23 August

Longwy falls to Prussians

25 August

Redemption charges for seigneurial dues abolished

2 September

Verdun surrenders to Prussians

2–6 September

Prison massacres

8 September

Brunswick enters Argonne Forest

20 September

Battle of Valmy. Convention constituted

21 September

Convention abolishes monarchy

22 September

Convention decrees that all acts from now on are to be dated from Year One of the Republic

29 September

French army occupies Nice

6 November

Battle of Jemappes. French army advances into Belgium

1792

19 November

Decree of Fraternitéet secours

27 November

Savoy becomes 84th French département

15 December

December Decree of Guerre aux châteaux

1793

14–17 January

Convention debates the fate of the King

21 January

The King is executed

1 February

War declared against England and Holland

14 February

Monaco annexed

7 March

War declared against Spain

9 March

Convention authorizes representatives en mission. Levy of 300,000 men authorized

10 March

Revolutionary Tribunal established

11 March

Revolt in La Vendée begins

18 March

Battle of Neerwinden

21 March

Comités de surveillance established in every commune

26 March

Committee of Public Safety established

4 April

General Dumouriez deserts to Austrians

6 April

Committee of Public Safety reduced to nine members.

13 April

Marat arraigned before Revolutionary Tribunal

4 May

First maximum

May – October

Federalist revolts in provinces against the Convention

28 May

Insurrectionary Committee formed

29 May–2 June

Overthrow of the Girondins

3 June

Émigrés’ land sold in small lots

5 June

Couthon, Saint-Just and Hérault de Séchelles join the Committee of Public Safety

24 June

Constitution of 1793

13 July

Murder of Marat

17 July

Final abolition of all feudal rights without compensation

27 July

Robespierre joins Committee of Public Safety

28 July

Fall of Valenciennes

14 August

Carnot joins the Committee of Public Safety

23 August

Decree of levée en masse

27 August

Toulon surrenders to Admiral Hood

5 September

Attempted coup by Hébertists

6 September

Billaud-Varenne and Collot d’Herbois join die Committee of Public Safety

1793

17 September

Law of Suspects

29 September

Law of General maximum

7 October

Adoption of Revolutionary Calendar: Year II deemed to have begun on 22 September

9 October

Lyons retaken

10 October

Government declared to be ‘revolutionary until the peace’

16 October

Marie Antoinette executed

31 October

Girondin leaders executed

6 November

Duc d’Orléans executed

8 November

Madame Roland executed

11 November

Bailly executed

29 November

Barnave executed

19 December

English evacuate Toulon

23 December

Vendéens defeated at Savenay

1794

24 March

Execution of Hébertists

2 April

Danton’s trial begins

5 April

Execution of Dantonists

8 June

Festival of the Supreme Being

10 June

Law of 22 Prairial

26 June

Battle of Fleurus

23 July

Maximum des salaries

26 July

Robespierre calls for purge in his last speech in the Convention

27 July

The journée of 9 Thermidor. Arrest of Robespierrists. Abolition of Paris Commune by Convention. Liège and Antwerp captured by Jourdan and Pichegru

28 July

Execution of Robespierre and his followers. Repeal of Law of 22 Prairial.

29 July

Execution of Robespierrists on Paris Commune

30–31 July

Reorganization of Committee of Public Safety

31 July

Maximum des salaries withdrawn

10 August

Reorganization of Revolutionary Tribunal

12 November

Jacobin Club closed

1794

8 December

Return of some surviving Girondins to the Convention

24 December

Maximum abolished

1795

23 January

Amsterdam occupied

17 February

Hoche brings temporary peace to La Vendée

21 February

Decree separating Church and State

5 March

Carnot leaves Committee of Public Safety

1 April

Jourée of 12 Germinal

5 April

Peace with Prussia signed at Basle

16 April

Peace with Holland signed at the Hague

20–23 May

Journées of Prairial

23 May

Parisian sections disarmed

May – June

The White Terror

8 June

Death of Dauphin

24 June

Comte de Provence, self-styled Louis XVIII, issues proclamation from Verona

27 June

Émigrés land at Quiberon Bay

20 July

Émigrés defeated by Hoche.

22 July

Peace with Spain signed

22 August

Convention approves Constitution of the Year III

4–6 October

Journées of Vendémiaire

26 October

Convention is dissolved. Directory is inaugurated

1796

2 March

Bonaparte becomes General of the Army of Italy

28 April

Armistice of Cherasco with Piedmont

10 May

Bonaparte defeats Austrians at Lodi

16 November

Bonaparte’s victory at Arcola

1797

12 May

Democratic republic set up at Venice

27 May

Babeuf executed

15 June

Ligurian republic set up at Genoa

9 July

Cisalpine republic set up at Milan

4 September

Coup d’état of 18 Fructidor

1797

18 October

Peace with Austria secured by Treaty of Campo-Formio

10 December

Bonaparte returns to Paris

1798

15 February

Proclamation of Roman republic

12 April

Proclamation of Helvetian republic

18 May

Bonaparte sails for Egypt

1 August

Battle of the Nile

1799

26 January

Proclamation of Parthenopean Republic at Naples

12 March

War declared on Austria

20 May

Sieyès joins the Directory

15 August

Suvarov defeats Joubert at Novi

26 September

Massena defeats Russians at Zurich

9 October

Bonaparte lands at Fréjus

9 November

Coup d’état of Brumaire