Cardinal Richelieu
(1585–1642), French theologian and politician. He was created a cardinal in 1622; he became President of the Council of Ministers in 1624 and from 1629 he was chief minister of France. Seeking to ...
French Revolution
(1789)The political upheaval that ended with the overthrow of the Bourbon monarchy in France and marked a watershed in European history. Various groups in French society opposed the ancien régime ...
Gabriel Bonnot de Mably
1709–1785, French historian, moralist, and political writer. Mably's works exerted a wide influence on political thought in eighteenth-century France, but little is known about his life. He was born ...
Guillaume Raynal, abbé
(1713–96),French author, usually called Abbé Raynal because as a young man he received orders as a Jesuit. He is best known as the author of L'Histoire philosophique et politique ...
Henri Grégoire
(1750–1831), French priest, revolutionary, abolitionist, and scholar. Born in Lorraine, Grégoire was ordained as a priest in 1775. He earned his earliest acclaim in the world of letters by winning ...
Jacobin
Originally a name of the French friars of the order of St Dominic, so called because the church of St Jacques in Paris was given to them and they built their first convent nearby. From them the name ...
Jacques Necker
(1732–1804)Swiss-born banker. He began work as a bank clerk in Switzerland, moving to his firm's headquarters in Paris in 1750. He rose to hold the office of director-general of French finances on ...
Le Tiers État
The third of the three orders or estates that the society of the ancien régime was divided into, the first two being the clergy and the nobility. It therefore included ...
Louis XVI
(1754–93)The last King of France (1774–92) before the French Revolution. Weak and vacillating, unwisely advised by his Austrian wife, Marie Antoinette, he could neither avert the Revolution by ...
Marquis d'Argenson
(1694–1757).1 French political theorist and author of a valuable Journal. The son and brother of ministers, Minister of Foreign Affairs himself in 1744–7, and a friend of Voltaire, he ...
Marquis de Lafayette
(1757–1834) soldier and statesman, born in Chavaniac, France. Lafayette was a major general in the Continental army and fought at Brandywine (1777); led an abortive expedition to invade Canada; and ...
National Assembly
The revolutionary assembly formed by members of the Third Estate on 17 June 1789 when they failed to gain the support of the whole of the French States-General. Three days later the members signed ...
Pamphlets
One or more printed sheets, stabbed or sewn together, containing a single essay, treatise, exposition, or other matter too short to make a book. From Lat. Pamphilus, the title of ...
Philip IV
(1268–1314)King of France (1285–1314). He inherited the throne from his father and strengthened royal control over the nobility as well as improving the law. Pope Boniface VIII resisted his claim to ...
Talleyrand
(1754–1838)French statesman. Foreign Minister under the Directory from 1797, he was involved in the coup that brought Napoleon to power, and held the same position under the new leader (1799–1807); ...
Tennis Court Oath
A dramatic incident that took place at Versailles in the first stage of the French Revolution. On 17 June 1789 the Third Estate of the States‐General under the presidency of Jean Bailly, a ...
