Timeline

May 1789

Convocation of Estates General by King Louis XVI.

14 July

Bastille prison stormed by Parisian masses.

August

Feudalism abolished. Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen adopted.

September 1791

King forced to accept new constitution.

September 1792

Louis XVI deposed. Republic declared. Girondins in power.

21 January 1793

King Louis XVI executed by guillotine.

March

Counter-revolutionary uprising in the Vendée department.

June

Montagnards, led by Robespierre, take over Committee of Public Safety. The Terror begins shortly after.

July (Thermidor) 1794

Robespierre executed, Montagnards fall from power. Thermidorian Reaction begins, named after the name of the month (Thermidor) in the republican calendar.

November 1795

Directory established as the Executive of the Republic.

9 November (18 Brumaire) 1799

Napoleon takes power in a coup and deposes the Directory and the Thermidorians.

May 1803

Beginning of the War of the Third Coalition.

2 December 1804

Bonaparte crowns himself Emperor.

October 1812

Bonaparte retreats from Moscow.

April 1814

Victorious anti-French coalition depose Napoleon Bonaparte and restores Bourbon dynasty to the throne under Louis XVIII.

September 1814 – June 1815

Congress of Vienna carves up Europe between the victorious powers.

March 1815

Napoleon leads a successful coup against Louis XVIII.

June

Napoleon defeated at Waterloo. France occupied by 1.2 million foreign troops. White Terror begins.

November

New punitive Treaty of Paris signed. Foreign occupation, paid for by the French, continues in order to stabilise Louis XVIII’s reign.

27-29 July 1830

Bourbon monarchy under Charles X collapses under mass protests and is replaced by constitutional monarchy under Louis Philippe I of the Orléans dynasty.

July 1847

Beginning of the campaign of banquets.

14 January 1848

Final Paris banquet banned.

21 February

Paris banquet cancelled, but workers refuse to call off demonstration.

22 February

Mass demonstrations overcome Municipal Guard. Beginning of the February Revolution.

23 February

National guardsmen join mass protests, Prime Minister resigns. Massacre by soldiers kills fifty-two, barricades erected throughout Paris.

24 February 1848

King abdicates in favour of nine-year-old grandson. Parliament stormed by insurgents and provisional government formed.

25 February

In the early hours, Lamartine declares The Second Republic at Hôtel de Ville to euphoric cheers from the waiting crowd. This is the beginning of the period Marx called the “Universal-Brotherhood swindle”.

8 March

Workers allowed into National Guard and armed.

16 April

Unarmed workers’ protest humiliated by National Guard.

23 April

Constituent Assembly elected consisting mainly of moderate republicans.

4 May 1848

Opening of Constituent Assembly, beginning of the period Marx called the struggle of all classes against the proletariat.

15 May

Armed invasion of the Constituent Assembly by the workers’ clubs in support of Poland. Insurrection defeated and leaders arrested.

22-26 June

The “June Days”. Workers of Paris rise against the proposed closure of the National Workshops. Thousands killed and thousands more deported to Algeria.

25 June

Appointment of General Cavaignac to the executive and proclamation of a state of siege in Paris. Dictatorship of the “pure”, bourgeois republicans begins.

4 November

Promulgation of a new constitution, laying out a national assembly and a president elected by universal male suffrage.

10-11 December

Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte wins presidential election by a landslide, against Cavaignac, the butcher of the June Days.

20 December

Louis Napoleon sworn in as president and appoints Orléanist, Barrot, to lead the government. Beginning of struggle of the Constituent Assembly with Bonaparte and the Party of Order.

29 January 1849

Constituent Assembly, surrounded by soldiers, agrees to dissolve itself and hold new elections.

13-14 May

New elections rout the moderate Republicans in favour of the Party of Order, but also the social-democratic Montagne. Fall of the republican bourgeoisie. Beginning of struggle of the petty bourgeoisie with the bourgeoisie and with Bonaparte.

13 June 1849

Botched insurrection attempt in opposition to the French intervention against the Roman Republic leads to the crushing of the Montagne. Defeat of the petty-bourgeois democracy. Parliamentary dictatorship of the Party of Order.

1 November

Barrot ministry replaced by Hautpoul, putting the Party of Order out of power.

10 March 1850

Victory for social-democratic candidates in Paris by-elections.

22-31 May

New electoral law passed striking 3 million voters off the list. Universal suffrage abolished.

10 January 1851

Changarnier, head of the Paris army and the National Guard, dismissed. Assembly loses the command of the armed forces.

11 April

Bonaparte appoints new “anti-parliamentary” ministry.

19 July

Majority of the National Assembly votes to revise constitution but fails to secure the three-quarter majority required by the Constitution.

10 October

Bonaparte announces intention to restore universal suffrage. Open breach between Parliament and Executive.

2 December

Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte dissolves the National Assembly, reintroduces universal suffrage and declares martial law.

4 December

Massacre at Montmartre. Resistance to the coup in Paris crushed. Republic effectively comes to an end.

20-21 December

Referendum to approve Bonaparte’s coup. 92 per cent vote in favour.

April 1852

Publication of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.

21-22 November

Referendum to re-establish the Empire. 96.9 per cent vote in favour.