The University of Paris, metonymically known as the Sorbonne, was the main university in Paris, France, active from 1150 to 1970, with the exception of 1793–1806 under the French Revolution. In 2019, University of Paris V and University of Paris VII merged to form a new University of Paris, leaving the number of successor universities at 11. In 2017, University of Paris IV and University of Paris VI merged to form Sorbonne University.
Jean Sylvain Bailly was a French astronomer, mathematician, freemason, and political leader of the early part of the French Revolution. He presided over the Tennis Court Oath, served as the mayor of Paris from 1789 to 1791, and was ultimately guillotined during the Reign of Terror.
Jacques Necker was a Genevan banker who served as finance minister for Louis XVI and a statesman. Necker played a key role in French history before and during the first period of the French Revolution.
Albert Auguste Gabriel Hanotaux, known as Gabriel Hanotaux was a French statesman and historian.
Lucie-Simplice-Camille-Benoît Desmoulins was a journalist and politician who played an important role in the French Revolution. Desmoulins was tried and executed alongside Danton when the Committee of Public Safety reacted against Dantonist opposition. He was a schoolmate of Maximilien Robespierre and a close friend and political ally of Georges Danton, who were influential figures in the French Revolution.
The Society of the Friends of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, mainly known as Cordeliers Club, was a populist political club during the French Revolution from 1790 to 1794, when the Reign of Terror ended and the Thermidorian Reaction began. The club campaigned for universal suffrage and direct democracy, including the referendum. It energetically served as a watchdog looking for signs of abuse of power by the men in power. By 1793, it was challenging the centralization of power by Robespierre and his Committee of Public Safety. They responded by arresting the leadership, charging them with conspiring to overthrow the Convention. The leaders were guillotined and the club disappeared.
Henri Jean-Baptiste Grégoire, often referred to as the Abbé Grégoire, was a French Catholic priest, Constitutional bishop of Blois and a revolutionary leader. He was an ardent abolitionist of human slavery and supporter of universal suffrage. He was a founding member of the Bureau des longitudes, the Institut de France, and the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers.
Louis Pierre Vieillot was a French ornithologist.
The September Massacres were a series of killings of prisoners in Paris that occurred from 2–6 September 1792 during the French Revolution. They lasted from Sunday afternoon until Thursday evening. Charlotte Corday held Jean-Paul Marat responsible, as is laid out in great detail by Stanley Loomis. But for Madame Roland it was Georges Danton. Danton was also accused by the French historians Adolphe Thiers, Alphonse de Lamartine, Jules Michelet, Louis Blanc and Edgar Quinet. Danton appears to have done nothing to stop them.
The Law of Suspects was a decree passed by the French National Convention on 17 September 1793, during the French Revolution. Some historians consider this decree the start of the Reign of Terror; they argue that the decree marked a significant weakening of individual freedoms that led to "revolutionary paranoia" that swept the nation.
18th-century French literature is French literature written between 1715, the year of the death of King Louis XIV of France, and 1798, the year of the coup d'État of Bonaparte which brought the Consulate to power, concluded the French Revolution, and began the modern era of French history. This century of enormous economic, social, intellectual and political transformation produced two important literary and philosophical movements: during what became known as the Age of Enlightenment, the Philosophes questioned all existing institutions, including the church and state, and applied rationalism and scientific analysis to society; and a very different movement, which emerged in reaction to the first movement; the beginnings of Romanticism, which exalted the role of emotion in art and life.
The Chouannerie was a royalist uprising or counter-revolution in twelve of the western départements of France, particularly in the provinces of Brittany and Maine, against the First Republic during the French Revolution. It played out in three phases and lasted from spring 1794 to 1800.
The Society of the Friends of the Blacks was a French abolitionist society, founded by mostly white French men and women. They opposed slavery, which was institutionalized in the French colonies of the Caribbean and North America, and the African slave trade. The Society was created in Paris in 1788, and operated until 1793, during years of the French Revolution. It was led by Jacques Pierre Brissot, with advice from British Thomas Clarkson, who led the abolitionist movement in the Kingdom of Great Britain. At the beginning of 1789, the Society had 141 members.
Jean-Pierre-André Amar or Jean-Baptiste-André Amar was a French political figure of the Revolution and Freemason.
The Service d'ordre légionnaire was a collaborationist militia created by Joseph Darnand, a far right veteran from the First World War. Too radical even for other supporters of the Vichy regime, it was granted its independence in January 1943, after Operation Torch and the German occupation of the South Zone, until then dubbed "Free Zone" and controlled by Vichy. Pierre Laval himself passed the law which accorded the SOL its independence and transformed it into the Milice, which participated in battles alongside the Nazis against the Resistance and committed numerous war crimes against civilians. After the Liberation, some members of the Milice escaped to Germany, where they joined the ranks of the SS. Those who stayed behind in France faced either drumhead courts-martial, generally followed by summary execution, or simple lynching at the hands of résistants and enraged civilians.
Antoine Jean Galiot Mandat, known as the Marquis de Mandat, was a much-admired French nobleman, general and politician. A knight and lord of Berny-en-Santerre and Les Pins in the Vendômois, he became a colonel in the Gardes-Françaises, then succeeded La Fayette as commander of the National Guard in 1792. He was assassinated by insurgents in the events of the 10 August during the French Revolution.
The Army of the Interior was a name given to two field armies of the French Revolutionary Army.
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre was a French lawyer and statesman who was one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution. As a member of the Constituent Assembly and the Jacobin Club, he campaigned for universal manhood suffrage and the abolition both of celibacy for the clergy, and slavery. In 1791, Robespierre became an outspoken advocate for the citizens without a political voice, for their unrestricted admission to the National Guard, to public offices, and for the right to carry arms in self-defence. Robespierre played an important part in the agitation which brought about the fall of the French monarchy on 10 August 1792 and the summoning of a National Convention. His goal was to create a one and indivisible France, equality before the law, to abolish prerogatives and to defend the principles of direct democracy.
François Louis Michel Chemin des Forgues was a French politician, and Foreign Minister.
Charles Hyacinthe Leclerc de Landremont was the commander in chief of the Rhine in 1793 during the French revolution. He was also a descendant of the painter Jean LeClerc.
