The French Revolution and the Empire: A New Conception of the Nation

Vocabulary flashcards covering the key political concepts, institutions, events, and figures of the French Revolution, the First Republic, and Napoleon's early rise from the provided lecture notes.

Country (Pays)

A geographic territory delimited by a border.

State (État)

The political organization of a territory that governs a country through leaders, civil servants, laws, and taxes.

People / Ethnic Group (Peuple / Ethnie)

A human group characterized by shared attributes, such as a common language, beliefs, traditions, lifestyles, common culinary practices, or common genetic heritage.

Nation

A human group that constitutes a self-conscious political community proud of its identity, which may reside within an existing state or claim the right to its own territory and state.

Estates-General (États généraux)

An assembly convened by the king representing the three orders of French society (Clergy, Nobility, Third Estate), whose primary historic role was to authorize new taxes.

The Three Estates (Société des trois ordres)

The traditional social hierarchy of the Ancien Régime divided into the Clergy (who pray), the Nobility (who wage war), and the Third Estate (who work to produce wealth and feed the others).

Tennis Court Oath (Serment du Jeu de Paume)

A pledge made on June 20, 1789, by deputies of the Third Estate (proclaiming themselves the National Assembly) not to separate until they had drafted a written Constitution for France.

Storming of the Bastille (July 14, 1789)

The armed seizure and destruction of the royal fortress and prison of the Bastille by the Parisian population, targeting the premier symbol of royal arbitrariness to find gunpowder and weapons.

The Great Fear (La Grande Peur)

A wave of agrarian panics and uprisings in the summer of 1789 during which rural peasants attacked aristocratic châteaux and burned seigneurial tax registers (terriers).

Night of August 4, 1789

A landmark session in which the National Assembly responded to peasant revolts by voting to abolish feudal privileges and the three-order society, establishing legal equality among citizens.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (DDHC)

A foundational charter adopted on August 26, 1789, that codified the social and political principles of the new French order, notably equality and individual liberty.

Women's March on Versailles (October 5–6, 1789)

An expedition led by Parisian women demanding bread from Louis XVI, culminating in an assault on the palace and the forced relocation of the royal family back to Paris.

Constitution

The body of fundamental laws of a state that organizes the division, limits, and functioning of political powers within a government.

Census Suffrage (Suffrage censitaire)

A restrictive electoral system established under the 1791 Constitution granting the right to vote only to wealthy men who paid a required amount of direct tax (the cens).

Royal Veto (Droit de veto)

A constitutional power granted to Louis XVI allowing him to block or temporarily suspend legislation enacted by the Legislative Assembly.

Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790)

A law that reorganized the Catholic clergy into salaried public servants required to swear an oath to the Constitution, dividing the priesthood into juror priests and refractory priests.

Flight to Varennes (June 20–21, 1791)

The failed attempt by Louis XVI and the royal family to flee Paris to rally counter-revolutionary support abroad, which permanently destroyed public trust in the monarch.

Storming of the Tuileries (August 10, 1792)

An insurrectionary assault on the Tuileries Palace by Parisian sans-culottes following wartime military crises, leading to the overthrow of the monarchy and the imprisonment of the royal family.

Battle of Valmy (September 20, 1792)

The first major military victory of the French revolutionary army against foreign invading coalition forces, proving France's capability to defend its sovereignty.

Proclamation of the First Republic (September 21, 1792)

The official abolition of the French monarchy decreed by the National Convention on the day following the victory at Valmy.

Execution of Louis XVI (January 21, 1793)

The public beheading of the deposed king by guillotine following his trial for treason, marking an irreversible break with the Ancien Régime.

Sans-Culottes

Radical working-class militants and urban revolutionaries who rejected aristocratic knee-breeches for long trousers, wore the Phrygian bonnet, and promoted direct democracy and social equality.

War in the Vendée & Chouannerie

Bloody internal counter-revolutionary uprisings and civil wars triggered in western France by the execution of the king and forced military conscription.

The Terror (La Terreur)

An emergency dictatorial period (September 1793 to July 1794) led by the Montagnards, marked by the suspension of constitutional liberties, mass political arrests, and systematic executions.

Committee of Public Safety (Comité de salut public)

The wartime executive committee of the National Convention, dominated by Maximilien Robespierre, responsible for directing defense and ruthlessly executing internal political opponents.

9 Thermidor Year II (July 1794)

The parliamentary coup and execution of Maximilien Robespierre and his allies on July 26–28, 1794, ending the Reign of Terror and introducing a period of political moderation.

The Directory (Le Directoire)

A conservative republican regime (1795–1799) governed by five directors and a bicameral legislature chosen via indirect census suffrage, heavily reliant on the army to suppress political unrest.

Rosetta Stone (Pierre de Rosette)

An inscribed granodiorite stele discovered during Napoleon's military expedition to Egypt that later enabled Jean-François Champollion to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.