Page 34 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Paris

32  INTRODUCING P ARIS

Paris During the Revolution

In 1789, most Parisians were still living in squalor and poverty, as
they had since the Middle Ages. Rising inflation and opposition
to Louis XVI culminated in the storming of the Bastille, the king’s
prison; the Republic was founded three years later. However, the
Terror soon followed, when those suspected of betraying the
Revolution were executed without trial: more than 60,000
people lost their lives. The bloody excesses of Robespierre, the Extent of the City
zealous revolutionary, led to his overthrow and a new 1796 Today
government, the Directory, was set up in 1795.
The prison turrets
were set alight.
Declaration of the
Rights of Man and The French
the Citizen guards, who were
The Enlightenment on the side of the
ideals of equality revolutionaries,
and human dignity arrived late in the
were enshrined in afternoon with
the Declaration. This two cannons.
illustration is the
preface to the 1791
Constitution.

Paper Money
Bonds, called assignats,
were used to fund the
Revolution from 1790–93.
Drawbridge
Republican Calendar
The revolutionaries believed that the
world was starting again, so they
abolished the existing church
calendar and took 22 September
1792, the day the Republic was
declared, as the first day of the new
era. The Republican calendar had 12
equal months, each subdivided into
three ten-day periods, with the
remaining five days of each year set
aside for public holidays. All the
months of the year were given poetic A coloured engraving by Tresca
names which linked them to nature showing Ventôse, the windy month
and the seasons, such as fog, snow, (19 Feb–20 Mar) from the new
seed-time, flowers and harvest. Republican calendar

4 Aug Abolition 26 Aug Declaration of the 20 Jun Invasion
of feudalism Rights of Man and the Citizen of the Tuileries
14 Jul Fall of 17 Sep Law of Suspects
the Bastille passed: the Terror begins 10 Aug The storming
of the Tuileries
1789 1790 1791 1792
Cartoon on the three Lafayette, Commander
Estates: the clergy, the of the National Guard, 17 Jul Champ de
nobility and the takes his oath to the Mars massacre 25 Apr
awakening populace Constitution La Marseillaise
composed
5 May The Estates Council meets 14 Jul Fête de la Fédération

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