Chronology

1792	Deposition of King Louis XVI of France, creation of the First Republic, which lasted until 1804.
1793–94	Terror, rule of Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety. Imprisonment of Tocqueville’s parents, execution of his great-grandfather, Chrétien-Guillaume de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, his grandparents, and several uncles and aunts.
18 Brumaire (9 November) 1799	Napoleon leads coup and comes to power as first consul.
1804	Napoleon proclaimed emperor in May; coronation on December 2.
29 July 1805	Birth of Alexis de Tocqueville.
6 April 1814	Napoleon abdicates.
1814–15	First Bourbon Restoration; King Louis XVIII.
20 March 1815	Napoleon returns from exile; his hundred days.
18 June 1815	Battle of Waterloo, end of First Empire.
8 July 1815	Second Bourbon Restoration. King Louis XVIII (1815–24).
13 July 1815	Hervé de Tocqueville (Alexis’s father) appointed prefect.
1824–30	Reign of Charles X, attempt to revive absolute monarchy.
1824–26	Tocqueville in law school at Paris.
1827–32	Tocqueville apprentice judge at Versailles.
July 1830	Revolution overthrows Charles X, creates July Monarchy under King Louis-Philippe.
1831–32	Tocqueville’s trip to America, with Gustave de Beaumont, officially to investigate the penitentiary system.
1833	Tocqueville and Beaumont publish their report on American penitentiaries.
	Tocqueville’s first trip to England.
1835	Tocqueville marries Marie Mottley.
	First volume of Democracy in America published.
	Trip to England and Ireland.
1837	Tocqueville narrowly misses being elected to the Chamber of Deputies.
1838	Tocqueville elected to the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques.
1839	Tocqueville elected to the Chamber as the representative of Valognes, a small town near Cherbourg and Tocqueville. He will continue to represent this district until he leaves public life in 1852.
1840	Second volume of Democracy in America published.
1841	Tocqueville elected to the Académie française.
	First trip to Algeria.
1846	Second trip to Algeria.
27 January 1848	Tocqueville anticipates the revolution when addressing the Chamber (in the speech he misdated as 29 January on page II).
24–25 February 1848	Revolution proclaims Second Republic.
23 April 1848	Tocqueville elected to the Constituent Assembly.
15 May 1848	Mass demonstration and invasion of the Assembly, followed by governmental repression of radicals.
21 June 1848	Decree drastically reducing the number of workers in the National Workshops.
23–26 June 1848	Insurrection of Paris working classes, followed by violent repression.
4 September 1848	Assembly begins discussion of proposed constitution, with active participation by Tocqueville, who sat on the constitutional commission.
4 November 1848	Constitution ratified.
10 December 1848	Louis-Napoléon elected president of the Second Republic with 75 percent of the votes. Cavaignac, Ledru-Rollin, Raspail, Lamartine, and Changarnier defeated.
30 April 1849	President orders General Oudinot to attack Rome and reinstitute Pope Pius IX; strong resistance from Roman republican forces and significant French losses.
13 May 1849	Tocqueville elected to Legislative Assembly while in Germany observing meetings of the Frankfurt parliament.
2 June 1849	Tocqueville joins the Barrot cabinet as minister of foreign affairs. He appoints Arthur de Gobineau as his chief of staff.
11-13 June 1849	Demonstrations in Paris and Lyon against the Rome invasion.
19 June 1849	Law limiting rights of political clubs to assemble.
3 July 1849	Rome taken. General Oudinot restores Pope Pius IX on July 14.
27 July 1849	Law limiting freedom of the press.
31 October 1849	Louis-Napoléon dismisses Barrot and his cabinet; Tocqueville will never again be minister.
March 1850	Tocqueville experiences first episode of coughing blood and requests a leave of absence from the Assembly.
31 May 1850	Law reducing universal suffrage, disenfranchising about a third of the electorate.
June–July 1850	Tocqueville writes first part of Recollections in his Normandy home.
November 1850–April 1851	Tocqueville, convalescent in Sorrento, Italy, writes second part of Recollections.
May 1851	Beginning of a campaign to revise constitution to allow a second consecutive presidential term. Tocqueville meets privately with the president.
July 1851	Assembly rejects constitutional revision.
September 1851	Tocqueville, in Versailles, writes third part of Recollections.
2 December 1851	Coup d’état by President Louis-Napoléon. Tocqueville briefly imprisoned.
29 April 1852	Tocqueville refuses to swear an oath of loyalty to the regime and consequently resigns as president of the Conseil général de la Manche, his last political office.
2 December 1852	Louis-Napoléon is proclaimed Emperor Napoleon III. Second Empire established.
1854	Second trip to Germany.
1856	The Ancien Régime and the Revolution published.
16 April 1859	Tocqueville dies of tuberculosis at Cannes.