70 Fun Facts About French Revolution

When the Estates-General convened in May 1789, it was the body's first meeting since which year?

The 175-year gap meant nobody alive had seen the three estates sit, so even the voting rules had to be relitigated.

Whom did Louis XVI dismiss as chief minister on 11 July 1789, helping trigger the Bastille unrest?

The popular Swiss banker was sacked on the advice of Marie Antoinette and the king's brother; Paris read it as the prelude to a crackdown.

Whose 1786 reforms, including a universal land tax, did the Assembly of Notables reject?

The notables insisted only an Estates-General could approve new taxes, which is how the fateful assembly ended up being summoned.

Abbé Sieyès's influential 1789 pamphlet posed which question in its title?

His answer was 'everything', and the pamphlet argued the commons should sit alone as a National Assembly.

On 17 June 1789 the deputies of the commons declared themselves to be what body?

They also declared all existing taxes illegal, a direct challenge to royal authority.

Locked out of their hall on 20 June 1789, the deputies swore their famous oath in what kind of venue?

They vowed not to disperse until France had a constitution; the hall had been closed to prepare for a royal session nobody had told them about.

Only one deputy present refused to sign the Tennis Court Oath. Who was he?

Martin-Dauch would only carry out decisions made by the king, and Jacques-Louis David's famous painting shows him hunched in the corner.

Rumoured to be full of prisoners, how many was the Bastille actually holding on 14 July 1789?

Four forgers, a lunatic, a failed assassin and a deviant nobleman; the fortress mattered as a symbol and an arsenal, not a prison.

Who was the governor of the Bastille, killed and paraded on a pike after surrendering the fortress?

The fighting killed 83 attackers; de Launay was dragged to the Hôtel de Ville and murdered by the crowd.

After the fall of the Bastille, whom did Louis XVI appoint to command the new National Guard?

The hero of the American war took the post; Jean-Sylvain Bailly simultaneously became head of the new Paris Commune.

What is the wave of rural panic and agrarian revolt across France in summer 1789 called?

Peasants formed militias against imagined brigands and burned châteaux, prompting the Assembly to abolish feudalism within weeks.

The August Decrees of 1789 are best remembered for abolishing what?

Over a quarter of French farmland had owed feudal dues, and church tithes went at the same time.

The women who marched on Versailles on 5 October 1789 were primarily protesting what?

Some 7,000 women marched, followed by 15,000 National Guardsmen, and returned with the royal family in tow.

From October 1789 Louis XVI's title changed to what, signalling he ruled a people rather than a territory?

The change signalled that he now ruled by the will of the people rather than over a territory by divine right.

What was the name of the paper currency backed by confiscated church property?

Printed in ever greater quantities to cover the deficit, they had lost 92% of their face value by 1795.

Roughly what share of clergy swore loyalty to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in November 1790?

The refusal of the majority split the church and turned devout regions like the Vendée and Brittany against the Revolution.

The royal family's disguised flight from Paris in June 1791 ended in which town?

They were heading for General Bouillé's 10,000 loyal troops at Montmédy; the arrest destroyed what trust in the monarchy remained.

The crowd fired upon at the Champ de Mars on 17 July 1791 had gathered to sign a petition demanding what?

The National Guard killed between 13 and 50 people, wrecking its commander's reputation and driving radicals like Marat into hiding.

The 1791 Declaration of Pillnitz was issued by Emperor Leopold II and which country's king?

The two rulers had actually met to discuss partitioning Poland; the threat was meant to placate the émigrés but rallied France behind the regime.

In the Legislative Assembly of 1791, the Feuillants were best described as what?

Barnave's 264 Feuillants thought the Revolution had gone far enough; 136 Brissotin Jacobins wanted a republic and 345 centrists swung between them.

The Le Chapelier Law of June 1791 suppressed what?

It formed part of a winter of measures aimed at disarming popular radicalism, alongside limits on petitions and posters.

On which country did France declare war in April 1792, beginning the French Revolutionary Wars?

The first campaign in the Austrian Netherlands went badly, and defeats fed the panic that toppled the monarchy that August.

Which royal residence did National Guardsmen and fédérés storm on 10 August 1792, effectively ending the monarchy?

Many of the Swiss Guards defending it were killed; the deputies voted to 'temporarily relieve the king' shortly after 11 am.

Which battle of 20 September 1792 was the first major victory for the army of revolutionary France?

The Republic was proclaimed two days later; the Prussian retreat that followed emboldened the Convention.

Robespierre, Danton and Marat headed which radical faction in the National Convention?

About 200 of the 749 deputies were Montagnards and 160 Girondins; the centrist Plaine held the balance.

At his trial before the Convention, the deposed Louis XVI was referred to as Citizen Louis what?

The surname reached back to Hugh Capet, founder of the dynasty in 987, and stripped him of royal style.

How many deputies voted unconditionally for the death of Louis XVI on 17 January 1793?

288 voted against and another 72 for death subject to delaying conditions, so the unconditional majority was slim.

Louis XVI was guillotined in the Paris square later renamed Place de la what?

The same square later saw Marie Antoinette, Danton and Robespierre die under the blade.

Refusing to be bound with rope on the scaffold, Louis XVI let his hands be tied with what instead?

His confessor Edgeworth talked him into accepting the restraint; the executioner was Charles-Henri Sanson, who had served him as royal executioner.

In February 1793 the Convention declared war on Britain and which other state?

Spain, Portugal, Naples and Tuscany soon joined Austria and Prussia to form the First Coalition.

Which traditionally royalist and Catholic region of western France rose in revolt in March 1793?

The uprising was triggered by conscription on top of the church reforms, and the insurgency dragged on until 1796.

Which French general, defeated at Neerwinden in March 1793, promptly defected to the Austrians?

The victor of Valmy switching sides was one of the shocks that persuaded the Convention to create the Committee of Public Safety.

Who assassinated the radical journalist Jean-Paul Marat on 13 July 1793?

The killing gave the Committee of Public Safety its excuse to suspend normal legal process and take control.

What was the title of Marat's newspaper?

'The Friend of the People' was one of over 130 papers that sprang up in 1789 alone; the royalists' L'Ami du Roi answered it until suppressed.

Which young ally of Robespierre led the committee that wrote the 1793 Constitution?

It included universal male suffrage but was suspended indefinitely in October 1793 and never came into force.

Napoleon Bonaparte first made his name commanding the artillery at the 1793 siege of which port?

He owed the appointment to his friendship with Augustin Robespierre, and success there earned him the Army of Italy in April 1794.

Which law of 17 September 1793, authorising arrests of 'enemies of freedom', began the Terror?

Around 300,000 people were arrested over the following ten months.

Roughly how many people were executed for counter-revolutionary activity between September 1793 and July 1794?

Another 40,000 may have died in summary killings or awaiting trial, and the repression in the Vendée is counted separately.

In which river were more than 4,000 people drowned at Nantes between November 1793 and February 1794?

The mass drownings were supervised by the Convention's representative Jean-Baptiste Carrier, who was himself guillotined in December 1794.

Which future Minister of Police directed the mass killings in Lyon during the Terror?

Over 2,000 were killed after Lyon's recapture, yet Fouché went on to serve the Directory, the Consulate and Napoleon's Empire.

Who was executed alongside Georges Danton on 5 April 1794?

The show trial of the popular Danton and his journalist friend arguably did Robespierre more damage than anything else he did.

Which deist civic religion did Robespierre promote with a lavish festival on 8 June 1794?

Many Jacobins mocked the ceremony, and Robespierre was accused of putting it about that he was a second Messiah.

The overthrow of Robespierre in July 1794 takes its name from which month of the republican calendar?

The 'Thermidorian Reaction' that followed repealed the Law of 22 Prairial and closed the Jacobin Club.

Under the Constitution of the Year III, executive power was held by how many directors?

They were chosen by the Council of Ancients from a list supplied by the Council of 500 and served five-year terms.

The May 1796 insurrection known as the Conspiracy of the Equals was led by which revolutionary?

Babeuf demanded the 1793 Constitution and a fairer share of wealth; he was executed and is often called a forerunner of communism.

With Napoleon and Sieyès, who was the third consul installed by the coup of 18 Brumaire?

Most historians treat the coup, which replaced the five directors with three consuls, as the end point of the Revolution.

'La Marseillaise' was originally a 'chant de guerre' for the French troops on which front?

Rouget de Lisle's 'Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin' got its nickname when Marseille volunteers sang it marching into Paris.

What was the profession of Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, who in 1789 proposed a humane beheading machine?

He proposed it on 10 October 1789 and did not build it; the design drew on the Halifax Gibbet and the Scottish Maiden.

In what year did France carry out its last execution by guillotine?

The convicted murderer Hamida Djandoubi was the last; France abolished the death penalty four years later.

Which poet and playwright invented the names of the months in the French republican calendar?

The names evoked weather and harvests, and the calendar's ten-day 'décade' replaced the seven-day week.

The revolutionaries' red liberty cap is also named for which ancient Anatolian region?

It alluded to the Roman ceremony in which a freed slave received a cap as a symbol of liberty.

The tricolour cockade added which two colours of Paris to the white of the Ancien Régime?

The Paris militia adopted the blue and red on 13 July 1789, and revolutionaries pinned it over the old white cockade.

What nickname did critics give Marie Antoinette, blaming her spending for the state's financial crisis?

She also opposed the reforms proposed by finance ministers Turgot and Necker, which hardly helped her reputation.

Marie Antoinette was born in 1755 in which city?

She was the fifteenth child of Empress Maria Theresa and, aged seven, met the six-year-old Mozart at court.

After Louis XVI's execution, Marie Antoinette was moved from the Temple to which prison?

She was tried in October 1793 and guillotined; the medieval prison on the Île de la Cité later became a museum.

In what year did the National Convention abolish slavery in the French colonies?

The decree of 4 February 1794 gave every colonial resident full citizenship regardless of colour; Napoleon reinstated slavery in 1802.

Olympe de Gouges, executed in November 1793, is best remembered for writing what?

Her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen demanded equality under the law, especially in divorce and inheritance.

Which British statesman attacked the Revolution in 'Reflections on the Revolution in France' (1790)?

The pamphlet war it sparked drew replies from Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine's 'Rights of Man'.

After the republican coup of September 1797, dozens of leading royalists were deported to which colony?

The elections were annulled and 63 royalists shipped out; the deportees called it the 'dry guillotine'.

France invaded Switzerland in 1798 and reorganised it as which short-lived puppet state?

It lasted until 1803 and was deeply resented for trampling on local traditions, though some of its reforms survived.

Runaway inflation finally ended with the introduction in 1803 of which gold-based currency?

Annual inflation had hit 3,500% after the poor harvest of 1794 and the removal of price controls.

How many attackers died storming the Bastille on 14 July 1789?

The fortress held only seven prisoners at the time: four forgers, a lunatic, a failed assassin and a deviant nobleman.

Who headed the new Paris administration known as the Commune after the fall of the Bastille?

He greeted Louis XVI in Paris on 17 July 1789, when the king accepted a tricolour cockade to loud cheers.

Which former finance minister was lynched with his son by a Paris mob on 22 July 1789?

Neither Bailly nor Lafayette could stop the killings, an early sign that civil authority was collapsing.

The September Massacres of 1792 were a response to Prussia's capture of Longwy and which fortress?

Between 1,100 and 1,600 prisoners in Paris jails were killed, most of them common criminals, largely by National Guardsmen heading to the front.

On what date in 1793 was the Committee of Public Safety created?

It was an executive committee accountable to the Convention and was recognised as the supreme Revolutionary Government that October.

In how many days was the radical Constitution of 1793 completed?

Ratified on 24 June, it included universal male suffrage but was suspended indefinitely in October after Marat's assassination.

After the Law of 22 Prairial, daily executions in Paris rose from five to roughly how many per day?

The law of 10 June 1794 denied 'enemies of the people' the right to defend themselves, and provincial suspects were sent to Paris for judgment.

How many sans-culottes did Victor Hugues lead to Guadeloupe in 1794 to expel the British and enforce abolition?

Recruiting former slaves, the force grew to 11,000 and captured Guadeloupe and other smaller islands.

What were the knitting women who became hardcore regulars at the guillotine called?

Vendors sold programmes listing those scheduled to die, but by the end of the Terror even this grisly entertainment had bored its audience.