1770 - Marie Antoinette marries the future Louis XVI
1774 - Louis XVI comes to the throne
1788 - The French Royal Treasury is empty
1789 - The revolution begins. The Bastille is stormed. Lafayette drafts the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which is adopted by the French Assembly.
1790 - Riots continue over bread prices, hereditary nobility is abolished.
1792 - Riots against food shortages, Tuileries are stormed, Royal family are imprisoned, religious orders are abolished.
1793 - The King is guillotined, the Terror begins. Huge numbers of assassinations, executions, with over 16,000 death sentences. Robespierre is considered by some to be the human incarnation of the Terror. Marie Antoinette is executed.
1794 - Napoleon Bonaparte promoted to general. Masses of infighting amongst those in power. Arrest and execution of Robespierre.
1795 - Bonaparte suppresses royalist rebellion in Paris.
1799 - Bonaparte uses his troops to take control of Paris, and through that the whole of France.
1804 - Bonaparte proclaimed Emperor, and basically takes over most of Europe.
1805 - Battle of Trafalgar.
1814 - Battle of Paris. Bonaparte abdicates, is exiled to Elba. Louis XVIII is restored to the throne.
1815 - Bonaparte escapes Elba, retakes control of France. Allies defeat him at Waterloo. Louis XVIII is once again restored, Bonaparte is exiled to St Helena.
1824 - Charles X comes to the throne. The monarchy is an attempt to compromise between Royalists and Revolutionaries, and his coronation is in much the same vein.
1825 - Public opinion of Charles X has sharply worsened. Main issues are his imposing the death penalty for anyone profaning the Eucharist, and his agreeing to pay financial indemnities for anyone who had been considered an enemy of the Revolution.
1828 - Our story begins in the October of this year.
1830 - July Revolution. After three days, Charles X is forced out in favour of his distant cousin, Louis Phillipe. France now has a constitutional monarchy.
1832 - Cholera is rife in Paris. Many are disillusioned with the new monarchy of Louis Phillipe. The President of the Council and General Lamarque are both taken by the cholera, along with over 18,000 in Paris and 100,000 across France as a whole, which combined with bad harvests, food shortages, high costs of living to provoke an uprising. Lafayette called for calm at Lamarque's funeral, but the cortege was redirected to the Place de la Bastille, where the Revolution had begun in 1789. Parisian workers and youths were reinforced by Polish, German, and Italian refugees, and speeches were made about Lamarque's support for Polish and Italian liberty. When a red flag bearing the motto 'Liberty or Death' was raised, the crowd broke into disorder and shots were exchanged. That night, the 5th of June, the 3000 rebels were in control of much of the Eastern and central parts of Paris, but the insurrection failed to spread further. Fighting continued until the evening of the 6th of June. 30,000 of the French army and National Guard were pitched against the 3000 rebels, with 93 rebels killed and 291 wounded, while on the side of the crown, 73 were killed and 344 were wounded. Subsequently, the government portrayed the rebels as an extremist minority, and went to some lengths to hide its own revolutionary beginnings, taking down the painting of Liberty Leading the People which was painted to celebrate their coming to power, for example.
1848 - Lessons learned from the 1832 uprising result in the 1848 revolt being successful in overthrowing Louis Phillipe.
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Lisette
Fanfiction"Don't put your trust in revolutions. They always come round again. That's why they're called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes." - Terry Pratchett, Night Watch A retelling of part of Les Miserables, from about 1828-1832. Élise was born i...
