1789 - Political Events

Political Events

The French Revolution that begins with the tennis court oath June 20 follows widespread rioting triggered by rumors that the nobility and the clergy (the first and second estates) have plotted to collect all the nation's grain and ship it abroad. An unusually cold winter has caused rivers and canals to freeze, halting deliveries of grain and milling of flour in many places. Finance minister Jacques Necker has ordered requisitioning of all grain in April to assure fair distribution, and Necker enjoys wide popularity, but rumors abound that the first and second estates intend to disrupt the Estates General and starve the people.

The Estates General calls itself the National Assembly beginning June 17 in the first real challenge to royal absolutism since the suppression of the Fronde in 1653; its meetings are suspended June 20, and members repair to a neighboring tennis court, where they take an oath not to split up until they have given France a constitution. They elect Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, 40, comte de Mirabeau, to head the assembly, and some members of the nobility and clergy join the bourgeois third estate (headed since May 5 by astronomer Jean-Sylvain Bailly) in the assembly. Louis XVI has ordered 20,000 troops into the city from June 27 to July 1, and the authorities gather up gunpowder, placing it in the Bastille prison for safekeeping. The king dismisses Jacques Necker July 11, he concentrates more troops near Paris, and there are rumors that he will dissolve the assembly. The price of bread reaches 4½ sous per pound at Paris in July, and in some places it is 6 sous. Widespread unemployment has reduced the people's ability to avoid starvation, the National Assembly permits duty-free grain imports to relieve the hunger, but rioters take to the streets of Paris July 12.

Journalist (Lucie-Simlice) Camille Desmoulins (-Benoist), 29, jumps onto a table in the garden outside the Café de Foy in front of the Palais Royal at Paris July 13 and announces with a stutter that the revolution has begun. His fellow revolutionists—including Georges Jacques Danton, 30; Jean Paul Marat, 46; and (Maximilien Marie Isidore de) Robespierre, 31—will gather in the next few years at the Café de Chartres. The apt phrase "Omelets are not made without breaking eggs" will be attributed to Robespierre, but he is probably just quoting a proverb. Desmoulins publishes a pamphlet under the title "Free France" ("La France Libre"), and rioters seize thousands of firearms from the government arsenal in the Hôtel des Invalides.

Members of the third estate have attacked the Bastille July 12, its small garrison has resisted, dozens of Parisians are killed before it falls July 14 (only seven prisoners are inside the old fortress), and the revolutionists overthrow the regime of Louis XVI, maintaining the monarchy in name only.

Image Pop-Up

Storming the Bastille prison at Paris began a French Revolution that would end in a Napoleonic empire.

Political economist Victor Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau, dies at Argenteuil July 13 at age 73. He has paid the debts of his corpulent, hard-drinking, Paris-born son André-Boniface-Louis, 34, vicomte de Mirabeau, a staunch monarchist who is elected to the States General by the nobility of Limoges and opposes his revolutionist brother Honoré-Gabriel, comte de Mirabeau, who heads the National Assembly but whose Secret History of the Court of Berlin (Histoire secrète de la cour de Berlin) creates a scandal because it incorporates material gained from a mission to Prussia.

Jean-Sylvain Bailly is proclaimed the first mayor of Paris July 15, and all but four of France's 30 largest cities have similar uprisings. The National Assembly recalls Jacques Necker, names General Lafayette commander of the new National Guard, and adopts le drapeau tricolore as the flag of France (its blue and red represent the city of Paris, its white the Bourbons). Louis XVI travels to Paris July 17 and puts on a blue, white, and red cockade.

The National Assembly hears a proposal from Paris physician Joseph Ignace Guillotin, 51, that a beheading machine be used for executions. A deputy of the Estates General who was the first to demand a doubling of third-estate representatives, Guillotin says, "My victim will feel nothing but a slight sense of refreshing coolness on the neck. We cannot make too much haste, gentlemen, to allow the nation to enjoy this advantage." Various types of beheading machines have been used for centuries in Ireland, Scotland, and elsewhere, and there has been a French one called a louisette after a Dr. Antoine Louis. Supporters of Guillotin's idea say that it will bring equality to execution rather than having some people hanged, burnt, or shot to death by firing squads while those of gentler birth are beheaded, but critics call the idea barbaric and the machine will not be built and used until 1792.

The 33-year-old nobleman Louis-Marie, vicomte de Noailles, begins what the comte de Mirabeau calls an "orgie" August 4. Elected earlier in the year to the States General, Noailles responds to the abolition of all aristocratic privileges (see 1790).

Camille Desmoulin's pamphlet "The Streetlamp's Address to the Parisians" ("Discours de la lanterne aux Pariesiens") is published in September, a Paris mob riots from October 5 to 6, and a revolutionary band made up mostly of women marches to Versailles. General Lafayette rescues the royal family and moves it to Paris; France's nobility begins to emigrate as peasants rise against their feudal lords.

The Austrian Netherlands (Belgian provinces) declare their independence from Vienna. The Holy Roman Emperor Josef II has ordered peasants to pay more than 12 percent of the value of their land in taxes to the state, plus nearly 18 percent to their feudal landlords. Journalist-lawyer Simon-Nicolas-Henri Linguet received titles of nobility and 1,000 ducats from the emperor at Brussels 5 years ago but nevertheless pleads the case of the Belgian insurgents (see 1790).

The Ottoman sultan Abdul Hamid dies of poison at Constantinople April 7 at age 65 after a 15-year reign. A 27-year-old nephew will reign until 1807 as Selim III.

Austrian forces under the command of Gideon von Loudon, now 72, capture Belgrade from the Ottoman Turks.

Persia's 10-year-old civil war continues as tribal chieftains vie for power. The Zand chieftain Jafar Khan dies after a 4-year reign and is succeeded by his 20-year-old son, who returns to the Zand capital of Shiraz, executes a rival, proclaims himself king, and will reign until his death in 1794 as Lotf Ali Khan, struggling against the larger forces of his Kajar enemies (see 1791).

Portuguese authorities in Brazil capture revolutionary Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, 41, who began an insurrection when the Portuguese tried to collect back taxes. Widely known as "the toothpuller" ("tiradentes"), he has worked as a dentist (as well as a physician, merchant, and soldier), was educated by his brother (a priest), has read the French philosophers, carried copies of the constitutions of the new American states, and favored complete independence from Portugal (see 1792).

The U.S. House of Representatives holds its first meeting April 1 at New York.

George Washington assumes office as president of the United States April 30 at New York's Federal Hall (the city's second city hall before being remodeled by French architect Pierre L'Enfant, 34, it will revert to use as city hall next year and continue as such until 1812). Washington has been rowed to the city from Elizabethtown Point by a crew of 13 ships' captains. He is sworn in by diplomat Robert R. Livingston, now 42, and begins the first of two terms as the nation's first president, taking care not to set any unfortunate precedents. He rejected suggestions made 2 years ago at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia that he be king, but he does not shake hands with visitors, choosing instead merely to bow. The president has taken up residence in the four-story house of importer Walter Franklin at 1 Cherry Street (a cherry orchard once grew in the vicinity, and the area will later be called Franklin Square). His five-man staff shares a house nearby at 39 Broadway.

Tammany Hall (the Society of St. Tammany, or Columbian Order) is organized officially May 12, alleged birth date of the legendary Delaware Algonquin chief Tamanend, who is reputed to have been wise and devoted to freedom (other Tammany societies have been started in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia). New York's Tammany began 2 years ago as a charitable, social, and patriotic order, mostly by craftsmen as an alternative to the city's more exclusive clubs; its members call themselves a "fraternity of patriots," protest rule by the aristocracy, and adopt pseudo-Native American titles and symbols (council members are called "sachems," ordinary members "braves"), but the organization will evolve into a powerful political machine. Initiation fees are $2 to $8, depending on ability to pay, quarterly dues are 24¢, and by the autumn of 1791 Tammany will have more than 300 members (see 1812).

Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen dies at Burlington, Vermont, February 12 at age 51; former Continental Congress envoy Silas Deane boards a Boston-bound ship at Deal, England, and dies under mysterious circumstances September 23 at age 51, having lived in exile since 1780.

The Judiciary Act signed by President Washington September 24 establishes the United States Supreme Court under terms of the Constitution. Elbridge Gerry, now 45, has drafted the measure, Washington nominates Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice William Cushing, 67, as the first member of the new federal court, and New Yorker John Jay, now 43, is nominated soon afterward as the court's first chief justice (all nominations are subject to confirmation by the Senate). Jay will preside until his resignation in 1795.

The United States Army established September 29 replaces the former Continental Army.

Maine-born New York lawyer Rufus King, 34, wins election to the state legislature, whose members elect him one of the state's two U.S. senators. King moved to the city last year.

North Carolina ratifies the Constitution November 21 to become the 12th state of the Union, having refused to join unless the Constitution was amended with a bill of rights.

James Madison rises in the House of Representatives at New York in what later will be called Federal Hall June 8 to propose a number of amendments to the Constitution. Both houses pass 12 of them and submit them to the states for ratification September 25 (see Bill of Rights, 1791).