French Revolution: Key Terms and Definitions

Posted on Mar 10, 2025 in History

Key Terms of the French Revolution

  • Absolute Monarchy: A system of government in which the King or Queen has all the power.
  • Ancien Régime: The social and political system in France between the 15th and the late 18th centuries, and similar systems in other parts of Europe during this time.
  • Enlightenment: An 18th-century intellectual movement that believed in reason, science, and knowledge, and proposed a new, more liberal way of organizing society.
  • Manorialism: A medieval system of organizing the economy, based on the distribution and ownership of land.
  • Neoclassicism: The revival of ancient Greek and Roman artistic styles in the early 19th century.
  • Popular Sovereignty: The principle that the government is created by and subject to the will of the people.
  • Rococo: An 18th-century style that has a lot of detail and decorations.
  • Third Estate: Peasants, working classes, and the bourgeoisie.
  • Triangular Trade: A system of commerce across the Atlantic Ocean between 3 regions.

Key Figures

  • Louis XVI: He was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution.
  • Marie Antoinette: She was the Queen of France (as wife of Louis XVI) and she was guillotined along with her husband.

Political Actions and Institutions

  • Coup: A sudden and decisive action in politics, especially one resulting in a change of government illegally or by force.
  • Estates General: An assembly of the estates of an entire country, especially the sovereign body of the Dutch republic from the 16th to 18th centuries.
  • National Assembly: The elected legislature in France during the first part of the Revolution, 1789–91.
  • Tennis Court Oath: On 20 June 1789, the members of the French Estates-General for the Third Estate, who had begun to call themselves the National Assembly, took the Tennis Court Oath.
  • Storming of the Bastille: It occurred in Paris (14 July 1789), when the medieval fortress, armory, and political prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the center of Paris.
  • The Great Fear: A period of panic and riot by peasants fearing the king and the privileged would overthrow the Third Estate.
  • Census Suffrage: A system where the votes cast by those eligible to vote are not equal.
  • Right of Veto: The power, used by an officer of the state, to stop an official action.
  • The Flight to Varennes: A significant episode in the French Revolution in which King Louis XVI of France, his queen Marie Antoinette, and their family attempted to escape from Paris in order to initiate a counter-revolution.
  • National Convention: The first government of the French Revolution which was organized as a republic, abandoning the monarchy.
  • Girondins: Members of a loosely knit political faction during the French Revolution.
  • Jacobins: The most influential political club during the French Revolution.

Key People of the Revolution

  • Jean Paul Marat: He was a French scientist and doctor, but who is best known as an activist, journalist, and politician during the French Revolution.
  • Maximilien Robespierre: He was one of the most prominent leaders of the French Revolution, deputy, president of the National Convention.

Events and Concepts

  • Guillotine: An apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading.
  • Thermidorian Reaction: It occurred when Robespierre was denounced by members of the National Convention as “a tyrant”.

Napoleonic Era

  • Napoleon Bonaparte: He was a military and French ruler, Republican general during the Revolution and the Directory, architect of the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire.
  • Autocratic Rule: A country or state that is governed by a single person with unlimited power.
  • Joseph Bonaparte: He was a French diplomat and nobleman, the elder brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, who made him King of Naples and Sicily, and later King of Spain.
  • Waterloo: A town of Belgium in which took place a combat between the French army, commanded by the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, against the British, Dutch, and German troops.
  • Island of Saint Helena: A volcanic tropical island in the South Atlantic Ocean.