The first meeting of the estates general since 1614. It was called to discuss how to best handle the French debt. From all over France 1,200 deputies had arrived. The Third Estate were the greatest in number. The ceremony began on May 5th. The convocation had been sent out a year before. In Louis speech he reviewed the circumstances that had led to the convocation and what he expected from the Estates General. This meeting ended when the Third Estate called themselves a National Assembly against the wishes of the king.
tennis court oath
The Third Estate had formed a national assembly because they feared they would not be able to get reform and that they would be outvoted by the first and second. However they found themselves locked out of their usual meeting hall so moved to a nearby indoor tennis court. This was where they took an oath to never separate until a written constitution had been established. Louis relented and on June 27th ordered the clergy and nobility to join the third estate in the national convention.
Dismissal of Jacques Necker
His dismissal was provoked by his decision to not attend Louis XVI's speech to the Estates General. The people of France were enraged at Louis and rumours were started that the King was going to arrest the deputies. Necker was later recalled after his absence caused riots.
Storming of the Bastille
The revolutionaries who stormed the Bastille were mostly made up of the Third Estate. They stormed the Bastille because they had recently made demands that the commoners got more of a say in government. They were worried that he was preparing the French army for an attack. The Bastille was rumoured to be full of political prisoners. It also had gunpowder they needed for their weapons. De Launay surrendered the fort and the revolutionaries took control.
October Days
Women marched 12 miles to Versailles. Some did this because they were starving, some seeked retribution and others wanted the king to leave Versailles and return to Paris. After 24 hours the King and the assembly agreed to leave Versailles and accompany the mob back to Paris. The October Days brought a century of royal government at Versailles to an end.
Flatford Mill
Flatford Mill (Scene on a Navigable River) is an oil painting by English artist John Constable, painted in 1816. It is Constable's largest exhibition canvas to be painted mainly outdoors, the first of his large "six-foot" paintings [more]
The Fighting Temeraire
The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838 is an oil painting by the English artist J. M. W. Turner. HMS Temeraire was one of the last second-rate ships of the line to have played a distinguished role in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. [more]
Liberty Leading the People
Liberty Leading the People is a painting by Eugène Delacroix commemorating the July Revolution of 1830, which toppled King Charles X of France. [more]
Ophelia
Ophelia is a painting by British artist Sir John Everett Millais, completed between 1851 and 1852. It depicts Ophelia, a character from Hamlet, singing before she drowns in a river in Denmark. [more]
The Music Lesson
The Music Lesson or Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman by Jan Vermeer, is a painting of young female pupil receiving the titular music lesson. [more]
