What was the French Revolution?

The French Revolution was the most consequential political upheaval of the modern era. Beginning with the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, it overthrew the centuries-old Bourbon monarchy, abolished feudalism, and attempted to create an entirely new political and social order based on the principles of the Enlightenment.

The revolution had deep structural causes. France was bankrupt after decades of expensive wars and lavish royal spending. The rigid social system of three estates — clergy, nobility, and the commoners (Third Estate) who bore the overwhelming tax burden — was increasingly intolerable to a growing, educated bourgeoisie. The American Revolution had demonstrated that Enlightenment principles could actually be implemented. A series of poor harvests in the late 1780s pushed ordinary people toward desperation.

The revolution moved through distinct phases. The moderate constitutional phase (1789–1792) produced the Declaration of the Rights of Man, abolished feudal privileges, and created a constitutional monarchy. The radical phase (1792–1794) saw the execution of King Louis XVI, the declaration of a republic, and the Reign of Terror under Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety, during which perhaps 17,000 were executed by guillotine. The Thermidorian reaction (1794–1799) brought a more conservative government, the Directory, which proved corrupt and unstable.

The revolution ended in 1799 when Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in a coup d'état. But its impact was permanent. It demonstrated that the people could overthrow a monarchy and that sovereignty resided in the nation, not the king. The revolutionary principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity — however imperfectly realized — became the rallying cry for democratic movements worldwide for the next two centuries.