Key Figures and Events of the French Revolution

French Revolution Terminology

Key Factions and Groups

• Girondins: Members of the National Convention group of deputies of the French Revolution (1792). They represented a more modern bourgeoisie, distinct from the Jacobins. They defended freedom and the right to property as inalienable rights.
• Jacobin Club: Led the radical political life in France. Based on radical ideas, they defended an alliance with the masses.
• Bordeaux: Members of the bourgeois convention group who defended freedom and the right to property as an inalienable right.
• Cordeliers: A radical political society created during the French Revolution. Its members favored and supported social measures.
• Sans-culottes: Paris militias who aspired to deepen reforms and proclaimed the Republic.

Political Concepts and Institutions

• States General: The name given in France to the meeting of representatives of the three estates of the former regime (clergy, nobility, and Third Estate). Its function was to approve the royal tax system.
• National Sovereignty: A concept established during the French Revolution stating that the authority of political power is vested in the nation, considered as a real entity distinct from the individuals involved, rather than the monarch.
• National Assembly: A meeting of deputies of the Third Estate who agreed to draft a constitution reflecting the will of the people of France.
• The Bastille: A French fortress that was entered by the representatives of the Third Estate.
• Veto: The right of the monarch, or any other institution, to oppose the entry into force of a law adopted by the legislature under absolutism.

Revolutionary Acts and Measures

• Confiscation: The process by which the State nationalized church properties and those of various civil organizations to auction them and convert them into private property.
• Suspicious Act: An act that punished suspected counterrevolutionaries with prison or death.
• Maximum of Law: A law that aided the sans-culottes by controlling prices and wages to help the poor.

Significant Events

• Flight to Varennes (Fuga de Varennes): The Royal Family fled Paris to join the Austrian army, which planned to invade France and restore absolutism.
• Robespierre: A political figure in the Convention who promulgated Jacobin politics of terror.
• Mass Levy (Cam mass): An army mobilization where all men were required to serve.
• Battle of Waterloo: The battle in 1815 where Napoleon was defeated against the defenders of the established order (absolutism).
• Concordat: A treaty concerning ecclesiastical affairs negotiated between a state government and the Holy See.