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The French Revolution (French: Révolution française [ʁevɔlysjɔ̃ fʁɑ̃sɛːz]) was a period of political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789, and ended with the coup of 18 Brumaire in November 1799 and the formation of the French Consulate.
Prior to the revolution, France was a de jure absolute monarchy, a system that became known as the Ancien Régime.In practice, the power of the monarchy was typically checked by the nobility, the Roman Catholic Church, institutions such as the judicial parlements, national and local customs and, above all, the threat of insurrection.
The first page of Qu'est-ce que le Tiers Etat?. Qu'est-ce que le Tiers-État? (transl. What Is the Third Estate?) is an influential political pamphlet published in January 1789, shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolution, by the French writer and clergyman Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1748–1836). [1]
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (French: Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du citoyen de 1789), set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human and civil rights document from the French Revolution; the French title can also be translated in the modern era as "Declaration of Human and Civic Rights".
Before the Revolution, French society—aside from royalty—was divided into three estates. The First Estate comprised the clergy; the Second Estate was the nobility. The rest of France—some 97 per cent of the population—was the Third Estate, which ranged from very wealthy city merchants to impoverished rural farmers.
The French Revolution of 1848 (French: Révolution française de 1848), also known as the February Revolution (Révolution de février), was a period of civil unrest in France, in February 1848, that led to the collapse of the July Monarchy and the foundation of the French Second Republic. It sparked the wave of revolutions of 1848.
The French Constitution of 1791 (French: Constitution française du 3 septembre 1791) was the first written constitution in France, created after the collapse of the absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime. One of the basic precepts of the French Revolution was adopting constitutionality and establishing popular sovereignty.
The French Revolution had a major impact on Europe and the New World. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in European history. [1] [2] [3] In the short-term, France lost thousands of its countrymen in the form of émigrés, or emigrants who wished to escape political tensions and save their lives.