First Estate
The first class of French society made up of the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church.
Second Estate
The second class of French society made up of the noblility.
Third Estate
They consisted of the bourgeoisie, the san-culottes and the peasants; they paid high taxes and had no special privileges.
Napoleon Bonaparte
French general who became emperor of the French.
guillotine
A machine for beheading people, used as a means of execution during the French Revolution.
French National Assembly
The Third Estate wanted to set up a constitutional government that would make the clergy and nobility pay taxes too. Voting seemed to be a problem because each estate only got 1 vote. The Third Estate demanded that each deputy have one vote but the king had favored the current system. The Third Estate declared it at the National Assembly and swore the Tennis Court Oath until they had a new constitution.
Tennis Court Oath
Declaration mainly by members of the Third Estate not to disband until they had drafted a constitution for France (June 20, 1789).
Civil Constitution of the Clergy
A decree by the National Assembly that established a national church system with elected clergy.
Jean Valjean
The protagonist of Les Miserables.
Sans-culottes
"without breeches"
Committee of Public Safety
The leaders under Robespierre who organized the defenses of France, conducted foreign policy, and centralized authority during the period 1792-1795.
The Directory
A committee of five in an attempt to mediate between royalists and Jacobins.
Napoleon's Grand Empire
Comprised of dependent states, allied states, and the French Empire.
taille
Tax on property and land. Provided permanent income for French royal government.
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen
A document that guaranteed due process in judicial matters and established sovereignty among the French people.
Constitution of 1791
Set up a limited monarchy. There was still a king, but a Legislative Assembly would make the laws.
Paris Commune
The small government in Paris who wanted to resist the conservative leaders of France and tried to form their own government.
Marie Antoinette
Queen of France (as wife of Louis XVI) who was unpopular and thought to be immoral. Her extravagance and opposition to reform contributed to the overthrow of the monarchy; she was guillotined along with her husband.
Louis XVI
King of France from 1774 to 1792. His failure to grant reforms led to the French Revolution; he and his queen (Marie Antoinette) were guillotined.
Maximilien Robespierre
Young provincial lawyer who led the most radical phases of the French Revolution. His execution ended the Reign of Terror.
Jean-Paul Maret
A leader of the radical Montagnard faction during the French Revolution.
Civil code
Napoleonic Code; this code preserved most of the gains of the revolution by recognizing the principle of the equality of all citizens before the law, etc.
Grand Army
An army of 500,000 men made by Napoleon to beat Alexander I when he refused to obey the Continental System.
Duke of Wellington
Leader of the combined British and Prussian army; would defeat Napoleon at Waterloo.
Waterloo
The battle on June 18, 1815 in which Napoleon met his final defeat.
Jacobins
The more radical side of the National Assembly. They wanted the king to be executed.
Girondins
The conservative side of the National Assembly. They favored having a king and wanted an absolute monarchy like England. They were the first people to control the National Assembly.
Elba
This island in the Mediterranean Sea off of Italy where Napoleon was initially exiled after he abdicated the throne for the first time.
legislative assembly
A French congress with the power to create laws and approve declarations of war, established by the constitution of 1791. This replaced the National Assembly and took away most of the king's power.
coup d'etat
A sudden overthrow of the government.
Olympia de Gouges
A French feminist playwright and journalist who wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen. Demanded equal rights for women from the new French National Assembly.
The Mountain
The label applied to deputies sitting on the raised left benches in the National Convention during the French Revolution.
Bastille
A French jail.
continental system
Napoleon's efforts to block foreign trade with England by forbidding Importation of British goods Into Europe.
St. Helena
Place of Napoleon's last exile and death.
Republic of Virtue
Robespierre's attempt to erase all traces of the monarchy, nobility and the Catholic Church.
Great Fear
The panic and insecurity that struck French peasants in the summer of 1789 and led to their widespread destruction of manor houses and archives.
French Republic
The free and democratic French Republic established in 1946 by Charles de Gaulle.
Citizen
A native or naturalized member of a state or other political community.
codify
To organize into a code or system, such as a body of law.
Russia
A former empire in eastern Europe and northern Asia created in the 14th century with Moscow as the capital.