A radical turn on August 10th, 1792; the legislative assembly suspended the monarchy and agreed to establish a national convention to hammer out a new republican constitution.

Georges Jacques Danton 1759-1794

Maximilien Robespierre 1758-1794; aimed radically to eliminate the king and to establish a true republic under a central controlling state

The Plain; the moderate center

The committee of public safety run by Jacqueline and Robespierre

• war preparations
• social engineering
• terror

Levee en Masse 1793, a national conscription

The reign of terror

The king was tried and found guilty in 1793, and the immediate execution won by one vote.

Anyone can be charged with the vague "crime against liberty" and the accused were deprived of legal counsel.

Edmund Burke's prediction 1729-1797

Thermidorean reaction, Robespierre and his followers were arrested and executed in 1794.

The Directory, the new constitution

Napoleon Bonaparte 1769-1821

Paul-Francois Vicomte de Barras 1755-1829

French fleet was defeated by Admiral Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) in the battle of Nile in 1798.

France is ruled today through Napoleonic bureaucratic procedures.

Treaty of Amiens 1801

Napoleon's new laws