Timeline of the French Revolution: The Terror 1792-1794
1792
August 10: The Tuileries Palace is stormed by a crowd containing fédérés, sans-culottes and National Guard. The Swiss guard of the King are massacred. The royal family take shelter with the Legislative Assembly who suspend the monarchy and call for the creation of a National Convention.
Storming of the Tuileries Palace
August 11: The Legislative Assembly elects new Executive Committee with Danton as justice minister
August 12: The Royal Family are imprisoned in the Temple
August 14: Lafayette calls on his army to march on Paris they refuse him.
August 17: Legislative Assembly create a Revolutionary Tribunal
August 18: Legislative Assembly abolishes religious orders who care for the sick in hospitals
August 19: Lafayette moves into exile.
September 2: Verdun falls to the Duke of Brunswick.
The British cartoonist James Gillray's view of the September Massacres
September 2-6: The September Massacres
September 20: The Legislative Assembly permits divorce and civil marriage.
September 20: Generals Dumouriez defeats the Prussians at the Battle of Valmy.
September 20: First session of the newly election National Convention.
September 21: The National Convention announces the abolition of royalty.
September 29: French troops occupy Nice and Savoy.
October 2: The creation of the Committee of General Security
October 23: French troops take Frankfurt.
October 27: The French army under Dumouriez invades the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium).
October 30: French troops seize Basel in Switzerland.
November 14: French troops occupy Brussels.
November 19: The National Convention states they have the right to intervene in any country "where people desire to recover their freedom".
November 20: An iron chest is discovered in the King’s apartment detailing correspondence between the former monarch and other royal families of Europe as well as the late Mirabeau
November 27: The National Convention formerly annexes Nice and the Savoy.
November 28 The French army take Liège.
December 10: The trial of Louis XVI begins.
December 27: Girondins propose a referendum on the fate of the King.
1793
January 14: The National Convention declares Louis XVI guilty of conspiracy against public liberty.
January 17: The National Convention vote for the execution of the King
January 21: Louis XVI is executed
January 24: Formal diplomatic relations cease between England and France.
February 1: The National Convention declares war against Britain and Holland.
February 24: Decree of levee of 300,000
March 1: Decree of the Convention annexes Belgium to France.
Representative on Mission supposedly by Jacques-Louis David
March 7: The National Convention declares war against Spain.
March 9: Representatives on Mission first sent out.
March 7: Uprising in the Vendée
March 10: Revolutionary Tribunal established in Paris.
March 19: The National Convention decrees the death penalty for any rebel in the Vendée.
March 27: General Dumouriez condemns the National Convention
March 28: Emigrés declared deceased.
April 5: Dumouriez defects to Austria having failed to inspire his troops to march on Paris.
April 6: Establishment of Committee of Public Safety.
April 6: Arrest and imprisonment of Philippe Égalité, the former Duke D’Orléans
April 13: Marat is arrested.
April 24: Marat is acquitted.
May 4: The National Convention fixes a maximum price for grain.
May 24: The Girondins in the National Convention orders the arrest of the enragés leaders Jacques René Hébert and Jean Varlet.
May 26: The Jacobin Club calls for a rebellion against the National Convention.
May 27: Release of Hébert and Varlet.
May 29: Lyon rebels.
May 31-June 2: The National Convention is surrounded by a mob led by François Hanriot and calls are made for the arrest of the twenty nine Girondins. On the 2nd of June the Girondins are expelled from the Convention.
June 5: Rebellion in Marseilles.
Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David
June 24: The National Convention votes on a new Constitution.
July 13: Marat is assassinated by Charlotte Corday.
July 17: Charlotte Corday is tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal and sentenced to death.
July 27: Robespierre elected to the Committee of Public Safety.
August 1: The National Convention declares a scorched earth policy against the enemy in the Vendée.
August 1: The Convention adopts the metric system.
August 1: Marie-Antoinette is moved to the Conciergerie.
August 9: An army led by Kellermann lays siege to the rebellious city of Lyon.
August 23: Levée en masse voted for by the Convention. All able-bodied non-married men between ages 18 and 25 are required to serve in the army.
August 25: Marseilles is captured by government forces.
September 4: Sans-culottes storm the National Convention and demand the arrest of opponents to the revolution. They also demand the creation of a revolutionary army.
September 17: National Convention votes for the adoption of the Law of Suspects.
September 18: Varlet arrested
September 21: Revolutionary cockade made compulsory for women.
September 29: General maximum on prices and wages introduced.
October 5: Revolutionary Calendar introduced
October 10: Lyon is captured by government forces. The National Convention orders it destroyed.
October 10: The government of France is declare revolutionary until peace. The adoption of the Constitution of 1793 is stalled (indefinitely).
October 14: Trial of Marie Antoinette begins.
October 16: Marie Antoinette found guilty and is executed
October 19: Kléber and government forces defeat Vendéen rebels at Cholet.
October 20: The Convention orders the repression of the ultra-revolutionary Enragés.
October 30: Dissolution of women’s political societies.
October 31: The Revolutionary Tribunal sentences the 20 Girondins deputies to death.
November 3: Olympe de Gouges is executed
November 7: Philippe Égalité is executed.
November 8: Madame Roland is executed.
November 10: The Cathedral of Notre Dame is turned into a Temple of Reason and made new home to the Cult of Reason in the Festival of Liberty.
November 12: Jean Sylvain Bailly, is executed.
November 20: Danton returns to Paris and calls for more indulgence in the Revolution and for the introduction of more tolerance.
November 23: The Paris Commune orders the closing of all churches and places of worship in Paris.
November 25: Marat’s remains are placed in the Pantheon.
December 4: Law of Revolutionary Government centralises the power of government in the hands of the Committee of Public Safety.
December 5: Camille Desmoulins publishes Le Vieux Cordelier in which he calls for national reconciliation.
December 7: Parents of children who are émigrés may have their property confiscated.
December 19: Toulon is recaptured with the assistance of Napoleon Bonaparte and the British navy expelled.
December 23: General Westermann destroys the Vendéen army at Savenay. Six thousand prisoners are executed.
1794
January 29: Death of Henri de la Rochejaquelein, royalist and leader of the Vendéens.
January 31: Drownings of perceived rebels at Nantes by representative on a mission Carrier.
February 4: The National Convention abolished slavery in the French colonies.
February 5: Robespierre tells the National Convention on the importance of terror.
February 6: Carrier is recalled from Nantes.
March 4: At the Cordeliers club Carrier calls for an insurrection against the National Convention.
March 13: Hébert and many other Cordeliers are arrested.
March 21: Trial of the Hébertists begins.
March 24: Hébert and many of his followers are found guilty and executed.
March 30: Danton and Camille Desmoulins and their supporters are arrested.
April 2: Trial of Danton at the Revolutionary Tribunal.
April 4: The Convention declares that those who speak against the NAtional Convention are not allowed to speak at their trials.
April 5: Danton and Desmoulins are found guilty and executed.
May 7: Robespierre proposes and sees passed a Decree on the creation of the Cult of the Supreme Being.
Philip James de Loutherbourg's painting entitled Lord Howe's action, or the Glorious First of June
June 1: Off Ushant the Royal Navy defeats a French naval force. Referred to as the Glorious 1st of June in Britain
June 4: Robespierre is elected president of the Convention.
June 8: Festival of the Supreme Being overseen by Robespierre.
June 10: Law of 22 Prairial passed
June 26: French forces under Jourdan defeat the Austrians at the Battle of Fleurus forcing them out of Belgium.
July 14: Joseph Fouché is expelled from the Jacobin Club.
July 26: Robespierre in a speech in the National Convention against traitors. He claims to have a list although he will not give names.
Lucien-Etienne Melingue's painting Morning of 10 thermidor An II
July 27-28: Events of Thermidor
July 29: Execution of Robespierre, Saint-Just and their allies.
August 1: Repeal of the Law of 22 Prairial
August 5: Large numbers of people arrested under Law of Suspects are released.
August 10: Reorganisation of the Revolutionary Tribunal
August 24: The National Convention reorganises the government. Which is to be based on sixteen committees.
September 18: The state stops spending all money on upkeep of churches.
November 12: Closure of the Paris Jacobin club after a spate of attacks by Muscadins.
December 16: Trial and execution of Carrier
The guillotine blade that executed Jean-Baptiste Carrier
December 24: The National Convention ends control of the maximum over prices.