The following table draws from the ‘Chronological Summary of the French Revolution’ that Carlyle compiled in December 1856 and attributed to ‘Philo’ for the two-volume edition of The French Revolution published by Chapman and Hall in 1857. The ‘Chronological Summary’ was later included in Works, iv. 323–38.
| 1774 | 10 May: death of Louis XV; new king was Louis XVI, grandson of Louis XIV; he married, 16 May 1770, Marie-Antoinette, 8th daughter of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and Emperor Francis |
| 11 May: Louis XVI ascends the throne; Maurepas appointed prime minister | |
| 24 August: Turgot made controller of finances, which ‘gives rise to high hopes, being already known as a man of much intelligence speculative and practical, of noble patriotic intentions, and of a probity beyond question’; but the era is dominated by ‘one steady fact, of supreme significance, continued Deficit of Revenue,—that is the only History of the Period’ | |
| 1776 | 12 May: Turgot dismissed; replaced on 27 June 1777 by Necker, ‘a Genevese become rich by Banking in Paris, and well seen by the Philosophe party’ |
| 1781 | 19 May: Necker dismissed; replaced by Calonne, 3 October |
| 1786 | 31 May: Diamond Necklace scandal ‘tragically compromising the Queen’s name who had no vestige of concern with it, becomes public as Criminal-Trial’ |
| 1787 | 22 February: Calonne convokes Assembly of Notables to ‘sanction his new plan of Taxing’; he is dismissed, 8 April, and succeeded by Cardinal Loménie de Brienne, ‘dissolute, worthless;—devises Tax-Edicts, Stamptax (Edit du Timbre, July 6th, 1787) and others . . . which the Parlement, greatly to the joy of the Public, will not register’ |
| 1788 | 8 August: edict issued for Estates-General (EG), 1 May 1789 |
| 25 August: Loménie de Brienne resigns, replaced by Necker | |
| 1789 | 5 May: opening session of EG |
| 17 June: Third Estate constitutes itself as National Assembly (NA), 17 June, and Constituent Assembly (CA), 9 July | |
| 20 June: Tennis Court Oath; Necker dismissed, 11 July; riots | |
| 14 July: fall of the Bastille, and Necker recalled, 19 July. Municipalities and citizen guards formed in provinces | |
| July–August: the Great Fear (brigands) and peasant uprisings | |
| 4 August: the abolition of feudalism | |
| 26 August: Declaration of the Rights of Man approved by CA | |
| August–September: ‘Patrollotism’ versus ‘Patriotism’, with ‘Hope, terror, suspicion, excitement, rising ever more, towards the transcendental pitch;—continued scarcity of grain’ | |
| 5 October: Insurrection of Women | |
| 6 October: Louis XVI brought to Paris from Versailles, ‘Paris thereafter Centre of the Revolution’ | |
| October–December: first emigration | |
| 1790 | 4 February: Louis XVI visits CA; National Oath |
| 21 May: Paris divided into forty-eight sections | |
| 14 July: Federation ceremony or ‘Feast of Pikes’ | |
| 31 August: Bouillé suppresses mutiny at Nancy; Mirabeau has interview with Marie-Antoinette | |
| 1791 | 2 April: death of Mirabeau, ‘last chance of guiding or controlling this Revolution gone thereby’ |
| 20 June: royal flight to Varennes; 25th: return to Paris with monarchy ‘in a frightfully worsened condition’ | |
| 17 July: Champs de Mars massacre, ‘with extensive shrieks following, and leaving remembrances of a very bitter kind’ | |
| 5 August: France renounces foreign conquest, but met by declaration of Pilnitz, 27 August, which pledge Austria and Prussia to ‘resist French aggression’ and ‘rouses violent indignation in France . . . not quenched for twenty-five years after’ | |
| 13 September: Louis XVI accepts new constitution and CA dissolved | |
| 1 October: first session of Legislative Assembly (LA), which survives until 21 September 1792, ‘more republican than its predecessor; inferior in talent; destitute, like it, of parliamentary experience’ | |
| 1792 | 20 April: France declares war on Hungary and Bohemia |
| 20 June: Paris sections growing more violent demonstrate in procession, and invade Tuileries, confronting the King | |
| 6 July: ‘Baisser l’amourette’, reconciliation in LA; 22nd: proclamation of ‘La Patrie en danger’; 24–5 July: Prussian declaration of war and Duke of Brunswick’s manifesto; 29th: arrival in Paris of 500 Marseillais, who ‘know how to die’ | |
| 10 August: ‘Universal Insurrection of the Armed Population of Paris; Tuileries forced, Swiss Guards cut to pieces’; royal family imprisoned in the Temple; 23rd: Longwy surrenders | |
| 29 August: Dumouriez occupies passes of Argonne | |
| 2–5 September: massacres in Paris prisons; 20th: French victory at Valmy | |
| 20 September: National Convention (NC) meets, and with monarchy abolished, Year I begins | |
| 21 September–8 October: Siege of Lille, followed by Prussian retreat and ‘Total failure of that Brunswick enterprise’ | |
| 10 December: Trial of Louis XVI by NC begins | |
| 1793 | 21 January: Louis XVI executed in Place de la Révolution |
| 1 February: France declares war on England and Holland | |
| 23 February: the NC conscripts 30,000 men | |
| March–July: struggle between Girondins and Jacobins (the Mountain) | |
| 18 March: Dumouriez defeated at Neerwinden and defects on 3 April | |
| 6 April: Committee of Public Safety (CPS) formed | |
| 4 May: Law of the Maximum, ‘fixing a price on commodities’ | |
| 31 May: Parisian uprisings against the Girondins, whose deputies are arrested, 2 June; federalist revolt ‘comes to nothing’ | |
| 10 July: reorganization of the CPS | |
| 13 July: Charlotte Corday assassinates Marat and provokes republican vengeance | |
| 26 July: Valenciennes, besieged by Duke of York since May, surrenders | |
| 27 July: Robespierre elected to CPS | |
| 1 August: the NC orders a systematic assault on La Vendée | |
| 23 August: Barrère proclaims levée en masse | |
| 17 September: Law of Suspects | |
| 5 October: new Republican Calendar adopted | |
| 9 October: surrender of Lyons to Dubois-Crancé ‘after frightful suffering’ | |
| 16 October: execution of Marie-Antoinette | |
| 17 October: defeat of Vendéan rebels at Cholet | |
| 22 October: execution of the Girondins, ‘after a trial of some length’ | |
| November–December: Reign of Terror, and Terror Order of the Day | |
| 6 November: execution of D’Orléans Égalité | |
| 8 November: execution of Madame Roland | |
| 10 November: Festival of Reason celebrated in Notre-Dame, trial of Bailly | |
| 18 December: Toulon recaptured; ‘Carrier at Nantes: Noyadings by night’ | |
| 1794 | 4 February: NC decrees abolition of slavery |
| 24 March: executions of Hébertists | |
| 5 April: execution of Dantonists, Dechristianization | |
| 7 May: NC decrees recognition of Supreme Being, and holds Fête de L’Être Suprême, 8 June | |
| 1 June: Howe’s naval victory and the fable of the Vengeur | |
| 28 July: Robespierre ‘guillotined with his Consorts;—which, unexpectedly, ends the Reign of Terror’ | |
| 5 August: release of many prisoners | |
| 12 November: Jacobin Club closed | |
| 8 December: 73 Girondin deputies return | |
| 16 December: execution of Carrier | |
| 24 December: abolition of the Law of the Maximum | |
| 1795 | January: rise of the jeunesse dorée and the fall of Sansculottism |
| 4 February: arrest of Gracchus Babœuf | |
| 1 April: insurrection of 12 Germinal, ended by Pichegru with ‘two blank cannon shot’ | |
| 5 April: peace of Basle between France and Prussia | |
| 4 May: massacre of Jacobin prisoners at Lyons | |
| 20–3 May: insurrection of Prairial, and the final defeat of Sansculottism | |
| 21 July: French victory at Quiberon Bay, which briefly rekindles revolt of the Vendée | |
| 22 August: NC adopts new constitution | |
| 5 October: Royalist insurrection of 13 Vendémiaire quelled by Barras and Napoleon; the Revolution ends |