The Estate Generals was greeted by Louis XVI in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles on May 2, 1789. The king called the Estate Generals because French had tottered on the verge of bankruptcy. This meeting led to the creation of the National Assembly which then created the Constitution of 1971.
The Tennis Court Oath happened on June 20, 1789 while he Third Estate delegates found themselves locked out of the meeting room. Confused and angry, the delegates met instead at an indoor tennis court on the palace grounds and signed an oath not to disband until they had drawn up a new, fair constitution for France. The Tennis Court Oath made a further step towards the creation of a new constitution.
More than 800 Parisians assembled outside the Bastille, a fortress used as a prison for political and other prisoners on July 14, 1789 demanding weapons believed to be stored there. The commander of the Bastille refused to open the gate and fired on the crowd. The mob broke through the defense and released the several prisoners but found no weapon. The storming of the Bastille became a symbol of the French Revolution.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man was issued by the National Assembly on August 20, 1789. It asserted the political and social equality of all men, the sovereignty of the people, and the natural right to liberty, property, security, and resistance to opposition. It was a further step toward writing a constitution.
On October 5, 1789 thousands of women streamed down the road to Versailles demanded bread. The mob forces the royal family to return to Paris and forced Louis XVI to signs the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Louis XIV became a virtual prisoner of the people.
The queen of France, Marie Antoinette, convinced that the family must flee. On the night of June 20, 1791, the royal family went from Paris to the border. Unfortunately for them, when they reached Varennes, they were recognized and sent back to Paris. This event showed to many people that Louis was a traitor of the Revolution which led to the execution of Louis XIV and his family.
In the fall of 1792, rumors circulated that the 3000 prisoners held in Paris prisons were planning to stage an uprising. News that Verdun was threatened by the Prussian army was the spark that began what are called the "September Massacres". An angry mob led by Jean Paul Marat stormed the prisons and killed about 1600 prisoners.
After six weeks of debate in the National Convention, with the Girondins wanting clemency for the king, whereas the Jacobins wanting to execute him. On January 21, 1793, the French people sent their former king to the guillotine.
Starts on September 5, 1793 the Reign of Terror was a period of mass executions set off by differences between the rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins. During the Reign of Terror, about 40,000 people was executed.
Weary of bloodshed and fearing for their own lives, members of the Convention turned on the Committee of Public Safety. Robespierre was arrested on July 27 and executed the next day and there for ended the Reign of Terror.
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