He is the author of the History in an Afternoon textbook series.Pictures were important during the French Revolution, from the grandly painted masterpieces which helped define revolutionary rule, to the basic drawings appearing in cheap pamphlets.This collection of pictures from the Revolution has been ordered and annotated to take you through the events.
![]() ![]() In theory he was the latest in a line of absolute monarchs; that is to say, kings with total power in their kingdoms. In practice there were many checks on his power, and the changing political and economic situation in France meant his regime continued to erode. A financial crisis, caused largely by involvement in the American Revolutionary War, meant Louis had to seek out new ways of financing his kingdom, and in desperation he called an old representative body: the Estates General. As they gathered to continue discussions they discovered they had been locked out of their meeting hall. While the reality was workmen inside preparing for a special meeting, the deputies feared the king was moving against them. Rather than split, they moved en masse to a nearby tennis court where they resolved to take a special oath to reinforce their commitment to the new body. This was the Tennis Court Oath, taken on June 20th 1789 by all but one of the deputies (this lone man may be represented on the picture by the fellow seen turning away at the lower right hand corner.) More on the Tennis Court Oath. This imposing structure was a royal prison, a target of many myths and legends. Crucially for the events of 1789, it was also a storehouse of gunpowder. As the Paris crowd grew more militant and took to the streets to defend themselves and the revolution, they searched for gunpowder to arm their weapons, and Paris supply had been moved for safekeeping to the Bastille. A crowd of civilians and rebel soldiers thus attacked it and the man in charge of the garrison, knowing he was unprepared for a siege and wanting to minimise violence, surrendered. In a series of extraordinary meetings, none more so than that of August 4th, the political structure of France was washed away for a new one to be put in place, and a constitution was drawn up. The Assembly was finally dissolved on September 30th 1790, to be replaced by a new Legislative Assembly. These militants were often referred to as Sans-cullotes, a reference to the fact they were too poor to wear the culottes, a knee high piece of clothing found on the rich (sans meaning without). In this picture you can also see the bonnet rouge on the male figure, a piece of red headware which became associated with revolutionary freedom and adopted as official clothing by the revolutionary government. March of the Women to Versailles: as the revolution progressed, tensions arose over what King Louis XVI had the power to do, and he delayed passing the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. A surge of popular protest in Paris, which increasingly saw itself as the protector of the revolution, led around 7000 women to march from the capital to the King at Versailles on the 5th 1791. They were hurriedly accompanied by the National Guard, which insisted in marching to join them. French Revolution Speeches How To Defuse TheOnce at Versailles a stoic Louis allowed them to present their grievances, and then took advice over how to defuse the situation without the mass violence that was brewing. In the end, on the 6th, he consented to the crowds demand to come back with them and stay in Paris. After much worrying on the part of the king, a decision was taken to try and flee to a loyal army.
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