summary of the course of the french revolution.

The Storming of the Bastille is normally considered the
opening volley of the French Revolution. France had been in terrible shape because of
lavish expenditures by Louis XiV, primarily on foreign wars. Louis presumably said on
his death bed, "I have made war too much." French society under the ancien
regime consisted of three estates, clergy, nobility and peasantry (translated
"everyone else.") Only the third estate paid taxes, the clergy and nobility were exempt.
The French Monarchy had raised money by selling titles of nobility (creating so-called
"nobility of the robe") whose recipients were themselves free from paying taxes as were
their heirs in perpetuity. The end result was an increasingly smaller tax base with
increasingly higher taxes.

Louis XVI was forced to call a
meeting of the three estates, the Estates General, which had not met in over 100 years
to ask for an increase in taxes. The three estates each voted separately, and the first
two always easily outvoted the third. When this appeared to happen again, the Third
Estate fled from the meeting and formed a new government known as the National Assembly
which passed the Declaration of the Rights of Man. It provided for
equality before the law and many civil liberties. This was the birth of the French
Republic. Louis XVI and his Austrian wife, Marie Antoinette, attempted to flee the
country in disguise, but were caught and imprisoned. They were later beheaded for
treason.

The revolution itself did not solve all the
problems of the people, particularly the working poor known as the sans
coulottes. It appeared that another revolution was at hand; but the Jacobins,
a radical group in the Assembly, instituted a Directory to maintain
order. The head of the Directory, Maximilien Robespierre, was determined that there
would not be another revolution. Hundreds were arrested and guillotined; but eventually
Robespierre lost the support of the Assembly and was himself
guillotined.

Incidentally, the Guillotine was developed by
a committee headed by a dentist, Dr. Guillotin. It was thought to be a more humane way
of execution, as close to painless as possible. It was so abused, however that Dr.
Guillotin's family changed their name.

Subsequently, a
large group of nobility marched on the Assembly, apparently ready to overthrow it. They
were stopped by a "whiff of grapeshot," that is cannon fire, by a French General known
as Napoleon Bonaparte, who soon took over the government and instituted the French
Empire.