June 8, 1794

Robespierre is the famous man who started the French Revolution. Everyone listened to him until, he started to go crazy. Power got to him. Robespierre allowed so many people to be executed. In 9 months, 30,000 people had been executed. That’s about one every 13 minutes. So, on this day in 1794, Robespierre held the Festival of the Supreme being where he wanted to start a new religion based on logic and reason. When he led the ceremony and started acting like “God”, that’s when people knew he had gone crazy and it was time to take his power away.

So, Robespierre was executed. At first, he had tried to kill himself but instead, blew his jaw apart. The irony of this is that Robespierre was known for being a good orator but, now he couldn’t talk and everyone was talking at him. He was then executed by the guillotine and it ended the reign of terror. The killings would stop and people could stop worrying if they’d be the next one to face the guillotine.

                         

              The execution of Robespierre                                                                    Robespierre

October 16, 1793

A few months after her husband was killed, Marie Antoinette was. She was executed by the guillotine. They tore her away from he children and put on trial. There, she was accused of high treason. Her children were taught to forget all about their parents and monarchy. This came true unfortunately, and her son ended up dying because of the conditions he was put in.

The significance of this event? The monarchy was completely abolished. The king and queen had been out of power for a few years now, but now they were gone. The country had beheaded them. There was no more monarchy. The country would control itself.

                                     

           The execution of Marie Antoinette                                                             Marie Antoinette

July 13, 1793

Marat was the voice of the people. He wrote a revolutionary paper called “The People’s Friend”. On this day, he was killed. A woman named Charlotte Corday stabbed him while he was soaking in a bathtub. He allowed people to come in and tell him who was a counter revolutionary. He would then publish their names and they would be killed. This woman thought if she killed him, peace would be restored in France.

Instead, Marat became a martyr of the revolution. Because she killed him, he was seen as a person who dies for a cause or a martyr. People then worshiped him as a saint. They hung pictures of him and placed statues all around. Marat, in a way, replaced God in France.

                                              

                    Death of Marat                                                                                         Jean Paul Marat

January 21, 1793

This was the day of the execution of King Louis XVI. After they tried to escape to Austria, everyone hated the king. He was basically in prison at home, so he was put on trial and called guilty. He was executed by the guillotine. His execution was the first of many.

The reason they executed the king was because if the king was right, then the revolution was wrong. The people needed the king wrong otherwise the whole reason for the revolution, would be wrong and for nothing. They didn’t want a monarchy anymore, so they killed him. “For the revolution to live, the king must die.” Also, the king’s execution led to thousands more executions of “enemies of the revolution”.

            

                  The Execution of King Louis XVI                                                           King Louis XVI

June 20, 1791

On this date in 1791, the royal family had been living in Paris. They needed to escape and get to Austria where Marie’s parents were. Their plan was to escape, at night, undercover to Austria where they could launch a counter- revolution attack on France. During the journey, the family was caught and arrested by townspeople of Varennes. Their plan had failed.

This created a big spark of negativity against king Louis. Things had been going ok for the royal family. They were living, peacefully, in their home. Trying to escape turned the public opinion against the king. They labeled him as a traitor of the revolution and of them. Now, their home would pretty much be a prison.

       The royal carriage being caught by the townspeople

October 5, 1789

This was the day of the women’s march on Versailles. The women of France were enraged by the bread prices spiking up. They needed to feed their families and couldn’t pay  for enough bread if the prices were so high. There was also the rumor that the palace was hoarding flour. So, when the women arrived at the palace, they demanded that the king and queen move back to Paris.

This was a huge change in the revolution. The mob march was led by common women not male intellectuals. So, the balance of power in the revolution had changed. Another significance of the event, is that since the monarchs were controlled by commoners, the country was controlled by commoners. Louis XVI and Marie were now prisoners in Paris and no monarch would ever return to Versailles again.

                         Women marching towards Versailles

July 14, 1789

The Storming of Bastille was caused partially because Louis fired Jacques Necker who was the only person that would report to the king about the third estate’s struggles. No one else seemed to care so when he was fired, they were enraged and decided to attack Bastille. The storming was also caused because the third estate wanted gunpowder. These actions gave France independence.

The significance of this event is that it was a date that would go down as France’s Independence day. Also, this was the first action of mob violence  of the French Revolution. It would soon lead to more acts of violence. The storming armed revolutionaries which would help with their more mob violence acts. This event was also the first action taken place after the oath to not stop until they got their constitution.

    Bastille being destroyed by townspeople

May 5, 1789

The National Assembly formed May 5, 1789. It was during the summer of the birth of the revolution. The third estate was upset about how ignored they were during the Estates General. Each estate got one vote and it was pretty much the first and second against the third the whole time. So, they went and created the National assembly. They believed they were the ones who would make the rules and laws now. They started making laws and passing them.

Creating the National Assembly helped cause the revolutionary acts that happened during this summer. The group later swore to keep meeting until they would have a constitution. This led to people believing that authority came from the people not monarchs. So, overall, creating the assembly caused revolutionary acts because people saw that the monarchs shouldn’t lead anymore.

                                        National Assembly meeting