Key Events and Figures of the French Revolution

Peasants' Revolt

Rural uprisings over feudal dues and taxes in 1789.

Three Estates

Clergy (1st), Nobility (2nd), and Commoners (3rd) in pre-revolution France.

Nobility & Clergy & Peasants & Artisans

Social classes with varying privileges and burdens under the ancien régime.

Louis XVI & Marie Antoinette

King and Queen of France whose extravagance and indecision fueled revolution.

Great Fear

Summer 1789 panic among peasants over rumors of noble reprisals.

Robespierre & Reign of Terror

Jacobin leader who oversaw mass executions (1793-94) to defend the revolution.

Women of Paris & The Bastille

Women's march on Versailles (Oct 1789); storming of the Bastille prison (July 14, 1789).

Versailles & "Madame Déficit"

Symbol of royal excess; Marie Antoinette derided for alleged extravagance.

Price of Bread & "Let them eat cake"

Food scarcity triggered unrest; the phrase (likely apocryphal) symbolizes aristocratic indifference.

Sans-culottes

Radical working-class revolutionaries in urban Paris.

Émigrés

Nobles fleeing France and plotting counterrevolutions abroad.

Feudal Contracts

Obligations binding peasants to lords before abolition in August 1789.

Marat, Danton, Charlotte Corday

Radical journalist Marat; orator Danton; Corday assassinated Marat in 1793.

Cult of the Supreme Being

State religion instituted by Robespierre to replace Catholicism.