A printed fan design covered with French revolutionary paper money, the assignats
Fan design with Republican assignats (French revolutionary money), ca. 1795
Marked Versailles

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

The French Revolution

Bankrupt and hungry, France rose against its absolute monarchy in 1789. The revolution declared the rights of man, abolished feudalism, executed the king and queen, and passed through the Terror before Napoleon seized power.

Place
Versailles · The Bastille · The Place de la Révolution · The VendéeEurope
Laid out as
A revolutionHow things were before, the moment it turned, and how things were after.
Lessons
6 planned, none written yet

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

BeforeAn absolute king, nobles and church with privileges.

  1. IA bankrupt kingdom
  2. IIThe storming of the Bastille
  3. IIIThe rights of man and of woman
  4. IVThe king’s flight and death
  5. VThe Terror
  6. VINapoleon takes power

AfterA republic of citizens, then a military ruler.

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Louis XVI
  • Marie Antoinette
  • Olympe de Gouges
  • Maximilien Robespierre
  • Napoleon Bonaparte

Objects

  • The Declaration of the Rights of Man
  • A guillotine blade
  • Revolutionary posters

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestryOur species and the Old Stone AgeFarming and the New Stone AgeFirst cities and the Bronze AgeThe Iron Age and growing statesThe classical worldAfter the empiresMedieval networks and empiresOceans crossedRevolutions and the first factoriesIndustry, empire and world warThe world since 1945

1789 to 1799. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?