The following is a timeline of the French Revolution.
Pre-1788 – The pre-revolution; challenging absolutism
19 January 1771: Beginning of the "Maupeou Coup" against the parlements, one of the few checks on the authority of the crown. Seeking popularity, Louis XVI reinstated the parlements soon after his coronation. May 3 1775: The king's safety is threatened during the "flour war," a wave of peasant riots that presage revolts during the revolution. (Popkin 65) 1776: Charles Vergennes convinces the king to provide financial support to the rebels in the American War of Independence, greatly increasing the nation's debt. (Popkin 69) May 8 1776: The king is forced to resort to a lit de justice to compel the Paris Parlement to accept reforms proposed by Turgot. (Popkin 68) February 1781: Jacques Necker publishes the Compte Rendu, a report of state accounts that obfuscates the nation's financial problems. (Popkin 72) August 1786: Finance Minister Calonne warns the king of imminent bankruptcy. (Popkin 75) 26 September 1786: The Eden Agreement is signed between the Kingdoms of Great Britain and France. February - May 1787: The king convenes the Assembly of Notables, which refuses to support the crown's efforts to raise more funds. (Popkin 78-88)
1788 – The royal treasury is empty; prelude to revolution
May 6: Arrest of Duval d'Eprémesnil, member of the Paris Parlement, for leading resistance to royal absolutism. (Popkin 94) June 7: Day of the Tiles in Grenoble, first revolt against the king. July 21: Assembly of Vizille, assembly of the Estates-General of Dauphiné. August 8: The royal treasury is declared empty, and the Parlement of Paris refuses to reform the tax system or loan the Crown more money. To win their support for fiscal reforms, the Minister of Finance, Brienne, sets May 5, 1789, for a meeting of the Estates General, an assembly of the nobility, clergy, and commoners (the Third Estate), which has not met since 1614. August 16: The treasury suspends payments on the debts of the government. August 25: Brienne resigns as Minister of Finance, and is replaced by the Swiss banker Jacques Necker, who is popular with the Third Estate. French bankers and businessmen, who have always held Necker in high regard, agree to loan the state 75 million, on the condition that the Estates General will have full powers to reform the system. Necker was labelled an "author of the revolution" by Napoleon. December 27: Over the opposition of the nobles, Necker announces that the representation of the Third Estate will be doubled and that nobles and clergymen will be eligible to sit with the Third Estate.Jean Tulard, Jean-François Fayard, Alfred Fierro, Histoire et dictionnaire de la Révolution française, Robert Laffont,
1789 – The Revolution Begins; the Estates-General and the Constituent Assembly
January 1789 January: The Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès publishes a pamphlet, What is the Third Estate? he writes; "What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing. What does it demand to be? Something." The pamphlet is widely distributed. January 24: King Louis XVI convokes elections for delegates to the Estates-GeneralJean Tulard, Jean-François Fayard, Alfred Fierro, Histoire et dictionnaire de la Révolution française, Robert Laffont, Paris, 1998. (In French) April 1789 April 27: Riots in Paris by workers of the Réveillon wallpaper factory in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Twenty-five workers were killed in battles with police. May 1789 May 2: Presentation to the King of the Deputies of the Estates-General at Versailles. The clergy and nobles are welcomed with formal ceremonies and processions, the Third Estate is not. May 5: Formal opening of the Estates-General at Versailles. May 6: The Deputies of the Third Estate refuses to meet separately from the other Estates, occupy the main hall, and invite the clergy and nobility to join them. May 11: The nobility refuses to meet together with the Third Estate, but the clergy hesitates, and suspends the verification of its deputies. May 20: The clergy renounces its special tax privileges, and accepts the principle of fiscal equality. May 22: The nobility renounces its special tax privileges. However, the three estates are unable to agree on a common program. May 25: The Third Estate deputies from Paris, delayed by election procedures, arrive in Versailles.
June 1789 June 3: The scientist Jean Sylvain Bailly is chosen the leader of the Third Estate deputies. June 4: Upon the death of seven-year-old Louis Joseph Xavier François, Dauphin of France, the eldest son and heir of Louis XVI, his four-year-old brother, Louis-Charles, Duke of Normandy, becomes the new Dauphin. June 6: The deputies of the nobility reject a compromise program proposed by finance minister Jacques Necker. June 10: At the suggestion of Sieyès, the Third Estate deputies decide to hold their own meeting, and invite the other Estates to join them. June 13–14: Nine deputies from the clergy decide to join the meeting of the Third Estate. June 17: On the proposal of Sieyès, the deputies of the Third Estate declare themselves the National Assembly. To ensure popular support, they decree that taxes need only be paid while the Assembly is in session. June 19: By a vote of 149 to 137, the deputies of the clergy join the assembly of the Third Estate. June 20: On the orders of Louis XVI, the meeting hall of the Third Estate is closed and locked. At the suggestion of Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, the deputies gather instead in the indoor tennis court, where they swear not to separate until they have given France a new Constitution (the Tennis Court Oath). June 21: The Royal Council rejects the financial program of Minister Necker. June 22: The new National Assembly meets in the church of Saint Louis in Versailles. One hundred fifty deputies from the clergy attend, along with two deputies from the nobility. June 23: Louis XVI personally addresses the Estates-General (a Séance royale), where he invalidates the decisions of the National Assembly and instructs the three estates to continue to meet separately. The king departs followed by the Second- and most of the First-Estate deputies, but the Third-Estate deputies remain in the hall. When the king's master of ceremonies reminds them that Louis has invalidated their decrees, the Comte de Mirabeau, Third-Estate deputy from Aix, boldly shouts that "we are assembled here by the will of the people" and that they would "leave only at the point of a bayonet". June 25: 48 nobles, headed by Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, join the Assembly. June 27: Louis XVI reverses course, instructs the nobility and clergy to meet with the other estates, and recognizes the new Assembly. At the same time, he orders reliable military units, largely composed of Swiss and German mercenaries, to Paris. June 30: A crowd invades the prison of the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and liberates soldiers who had been imprisoned for attending meetings of political clubs.
July 1789 July 6: The National Assembly forms a committee of thirty members to write a new Constitution. July 8: As tensions mount, the Comte de Mirabeau, Third-Estate deputy from Aix, demands that the Gardes Françaises of the military household of the king of France be moved out of Paris, and that a new civil guard be created within the city. July 9: The National Assembly reconstitutes itself as the National Constituent Assembly. July 11: Louis XVI abruptly dismisses Necker. Parisians respond by burning the unpopular customs barriers, and invading and looting the monastery of the Lazaristes. Skirmishes between the cavalrymen of the Régiment de Royal-Allemand of the King's Guard and the angry crowd outside the Tuileries Palace. The Gardes Françaises largely take the side of the crowd. July 13: The National Assembly declares itself in permanent session. At the Hôtel de Ville, city leaders begin to form a governing committee and an armed militia. July 14: Storming of the Bastille. A large armed crowd besieges the Bastille, which holds only seven prisoners but has a large supply of gunpowder, which the crowd wants. After several hours of resistance, the governor of the fortress, de Launay, finally surrenders; as he exits, he is killed by the crowd. The crowd also kills de Flesselles, the provost of the Paris merchants. July 14, 1789 – The Siege and Surrender of the Bastille
July 15: The astronomer and mathematician Jean Sylvain Bailly is named mayor of Paris, and Lafayette is appointed Commander of the newly formed National Guard. July 16: The King reinstates Necker as finance minister and withdraws royal troops from the center of the city. The new elected Paris assembly votes the destruction of the Bastille fortress. Similar committees and local militias are formed in Lyon, Rennes, and in other large French cities. July 17: The King visits Paris, where he is welcomed at the Hôtel de Ville by Bailly and Lafayette, and wears the tricolor cockade. Sensing what is ahead, several prominent members of the nobility, including the Count of Artois, the Prince de Condé, the Duke of Enghien, the Baron de Breteuil, the Duke of Broglie, the Duke of Polignac and his wife become the first of a wave of émigrés to leave France. July 18: Camille Desmoulins begins publication of 'La France libre', demanding a much more radical revolution and calling for a republic arguing that revolutionary violence is justified. July 22: An armed mob on the Place de Grève massacres Berthier de Sauvigny, Intendant of Paris, and his father-in-law, accused of speculating in grain. July 21 – August 14: the Great Fear: Riots and peasant revolts in Strasbourg (July 21), Le Mans (July 23), Colmar, Alsace, and Hainaut (July 25). July 28: Jacques Pierre Brissot begins publication of Le Patriote français, an influential newspaper of the revolutionary movement known as the Girondins.
August 1789 August 4: The King appoints a government of reformist ministers around Necker. August Decrees: The Assembly votes to abolish the privileges and feudal rights of the nobility. August 7: Publication of "A plot uncovered to lull the people to sleep" by Jean-Paul Marat, denouncing the reforms of August 4 as insufficient and demanding a much more radical revolution. Marat quickly becomes the voice of the most turbulent sans-culottes faction of the Revolution. August 23: The Assembly proclaims freedom of religious opinions. August 24: The Assembly proclaims freedom of speech.
August 27, 1789 – Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
August 27: The Assembly adopts the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, drafted largely by Lafayette. August 28: The Assembly debates giving the King the power to veto legislation. August 30: Camille Desmoulins organizes an uprising at the Palais-Royal to block the proposed veto for the King and to force the King to return to Paris. The uprising fails. August 31: The Constitution Committee of the Assembly proposes a two-house parliament and a royal right of veto. September 9: The Mayor of Troyes is assassinated by a mob. September 11: The National Assembly gives the King the power to temporarily veto laws for two legislative sessions. September 15: Desmoulins publishes Discours de la lanterne aux Parisiens, a radical pamphlet justifying political violence and exalting the Parisian mob. September 16: First issue of Jean Paul Marat's newspaper, L'Ami du peuple, proposing a radical social and political revolution. September 19: Election of a new municipal assembly in Paris, with three hundred members elected by districts.