French Revolution: Moderate and Radical Phases

Vocabulary practice flashcards defining key terminology, social groups, institutions, and figures from both the Moderate Phase (1789–1791) and Radical Phase (1792–1794) of the French Revolution.

Old Regime

The social and political system in France before the French Revolution.

Estates

The three social classes into which French society was divided under the Old Regime.

First Estate

The social class made up of the clergy, who owned 10% of the land in France and paid few taxes.

Second Estate

The social class made up of nobles, who owned 20% of the land in France and paid almost no taxes.

Third Estate

The social class consisting of everyone else in France (about 97% of the population), including the bourgeoisie, urban workers, and peasants, who paid most of the taxes.

Bourgeoisie

The educated middle class within the Third Estate who were inspired by Enlightenment ideas and demanded equality, representation, and political reform.

Madame Deficit

A nickname given to Marie Antoinette because of her lavish spending habits during France's financial crisis.

Estates-General

An assembly of representatives from all three estates called by Louis XVI in May 1789 to address France's financial crisis, where voting by estate gave unfair advantage to the privileged classes.

National Assembly

A representative body established by the Third Estate in June 1789, claiming to represent the French nation and marking the first major act of the French Revolution.

Tennis Court Oath

A pledge taken by members of the National Assembly in June 1789 after being locked out of their meeting hall, swearing not to separate until they created a new constitution.

Storming of the Bastille

The event on July 14, 1789, where a Paris mob attacked a medieval fortress and prison to seize weapons and gunpowder, transforming the Revolution into a popular movement.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

An August 1789 revolutionary document stating that men are born free and equal in rights, promoting liberty, equality, and fraternity while excluding women.

The Great Fear

A wave of countryside panic in 1789 in which peasants attacked noble manors and destroyed records of feudal dues, pressuring the National Assembly to abolish feudal privileges.

Women's March on Versailles

An October 1789 protest where thousands of women marched to Versailles demanding bread and forced King Louis XVI and his family to move to Paris.

Popular Sovereignty

The principle that ultimate political authority belongs to the nation and representatives of the people, rather than resting in the divine right of a king.

Natural Rights

Inalienable individual entitlements identified in revolutionary ideals as liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.

Constitutional Monarchy

A system of government established in France by 1791 that placed explicit legal limits on the king's power through a constitution.

Legislative Assembly

The legislative body created by the Constitution of 1791 with the power to draft laws and declare war, divided into radical, moderate, and conservative factions.

Émigrés

Nobles and landowners who fled France during the Revolution and sought to undo revolutionary changes to restore the Old Regime.

Sans-Culottes

Urban workers and lower-class citizens in Paris who pushed for more extreme, radical revolutionary reforms.

September Massacres

An outbreak of violence in September 1792 where revolutionaries, panicked by foreign threats and fear of betrayal, executed prisoners and royal supporters in Paris.

National Convention

The revolutionary assembly taking power in 1792 that abolished the monarchy, established France as a republic, and extended political participation for men.

Jacobins

A radical political organization that gained control of the revolutionary government during the radical phase.

Guillotine

A decapitation machine adopted during the Revolution as a standardized, equal, and humane method of capital punishment.

Maximilien Robespierre

A radical Jacobin leader who headed the Committee of Public Safety and governed France dictatorially during the Reign of Terror.

Committee of Public Safety

An executive committee created to protect the French Republic from internal rebellions and external foreign enemies during the radical phase.

Reign of Terror

The period from 1793 to 1794 in which Robespierre used rapid trials and widespread executions to eliminate perceived enemies of the Revolution.

The Directory

A moderate five-man executive body and two-house legislature formed in 1795 following the fall of Robespierre, which depended heavily on military backing to maintain control.

Napoleon Bonaparte

A French military general who gained popular support and rose to political power following years of instability under the Directory.