French Revolution

noun

French History.

1. the revolution that began in 1789, overthrew the absolute monarchy of the Bourbons and the system of aristocratic privileges, and ended with Napoleon's overthrow of the Directory and seizure of power in 1799.

French Revolution

noun

1. the anticlerical and republican revolution in France from 1789 until 1799, when Napoleon seized power

French Revolution

1. The event at the end of the eighteenth century that ended the thousand-year rule of kings in France and established the nation as a republic. The revolution began in 1789, after King Louis xvi had convened the French parliament to deal with an enormous national debt. The common people's division of the parliament declared itself the true legislature of France, and when the king seemed to resist the move, a crowd destroyed the royal prison (the Bastille). A constitutional monarchy was set up, but after King Louis and his queen, Marie Antoinette, tried to flee the country, they were arrested, tried for treason, and executed on the guillotine. Control of the government passed to Robespierre and other radicals — the extreme Jacobins — and the Reign of Terror followed (1793–1794), when thousands of French nobles and others considered enemies of the revolution were executed. After the Terror, Robespierre himself was executed, and a new ruling body, the Directory, came into power. Its incompetence and corruption allowed Napoleon Bonaparte to emerge in 1799 as dictator and, eventually, to become emperor. Napoleon's ascent to power is considered the official end of the revolution. (See Georges Danton and Jean-Paul Marat.)

Example Sentences

Kaunitz’s efforts to shape a favorable balance guided Prince Metternich, Austria’s foreign minister and later its chancellor, when France again became Austria’s foe after the French Revolution.

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“The Declaration in an Age of Revolutions” outlines the document’s 18th- and 19th-century impacts abroad, including on the French Revolution and national liberation movements in the Caribbean and Central and South America.

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Until its abolition, capital punishment in France was carried out by beheading with the guillotine, a practice dating back to the French Revolution of 1789.

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If France do play the Lions, it would be for the first time since a 1989 fixture that was arranged to celebrate 200 years since the French Revolution.

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The Lions have faced France only once before, crossing the Channel for a 1989 fixture that commemorated the bicentenary of the French Revolution.

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