French judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher (1689–1755)
This article is about the French philosopher. For other uses, see Montesquieu (disambiguation).
MontesquieuPortrait by an anonymous artist, c. 1753–1794Born(1689-01-18)18 January 1689Château de la Brède, La Brède, Aquitaine, FranceDied10 February 1755(1755-02-10) (aged 66)Paris, FranceSpouse
Jeanne de Lartigue (m. 1715)Children3Era18th-century philosophyRegionWestern philosophySchoolEnlightenmentClassical liberalismMain interestsPolitical philosophyNotable ideasSeparation of state powers: executive, legislative, judicial; classification of systems of government based on their principles
Signature
Charles Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu[a] (18 January 1689 – 10 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher.
He is the principal source of the theory of separation of powers, which is implemented in many constitutions throughout the world. He is also known for doing more than any other author to secure the place of the word despotism in the political lexicon.[3] His anonymously published The Spirit of Law (1748), which was received well in both Great Britain and the American colonies, influenced the Founding Fathers of the United States in drafting the U.S. Constitution.
Biography[edit]
Château de la Brède, Montesquieu's birthplace
Montesquieu was born at the Château de la Brède in southwest France, 25 kilometres (16 mi) south of Bordeaux.[4] His father, Jacques de Secondat (1654–1713), was a soldier with a long noble ancestry, including descent from Richard de la Pole, Yorkist claimant to the English crown. His mother, Marie Françoise de Pesnel (1665–1696), who died when Charles was seven, was an heiress who brought the title of Barony of La Brède to the Secondat family.[5]
His family was of Huguenot origin.[6][7] After the death of his mother he was sent to the Catholic College of Juilly, a prominent school for the children of French nobility, where he remained from 1700 to 1711.[8] His father died in 1713, and he became a ward of his uncle, the Baron de Montesquieu.[9] In 1714, he became a counselor of the Bordeaux Parlement. He showed a preference for Protestantism.[10][11]
In 1715 he married the Protestant Jeanne de Lartigue, with whom he eventually had three children.[12] The Baron died in 1716, leaving him his fortune as well as his title, and the office of président à mortier in the Bordeaux Parlement,[13] a post that he held for twelve years.
Montesquieu's early life was a time of significant governmental change. England had declared itself a constitutional monarchy in the wake of its Glorious Revolution (1688–1689), and joined with Scotland in the Union of 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. In France, the long-reigning Louis XIV died in 1715, and was succeeded by the five-year-old Louis XV. These national transformations had a great impact on Montesquieu, and he referred to them repeatedly in his work.
Montesquieu's 1748 De l'Esprit des loix
Montesquieu eventually withdrew from the practice of law to devote himself to study and writing. He achieved literary success with the publication of his 1721 Persian Letters (French: Lettres persanes), a satire representing society as seen through the eyes of two Persian visitors to Paris, cleverly criticizing absurdities of contemporary French society. The work was an instant classic and accordingly was immediately pirated.
In 1722, he went to Paris and entered social circles with the help of friends including the Duke of Berwick whom he had known when Berwick was military governor at Bordeaux. He also acquainted himself with the English politician Viscount Bolingbroke, some of whose political views were later reflected in Montesquieu's analysis of the English constitution. In 1726 he sold his office, bored with the parlement and turning more toward Paris. In time, despite some impediments he was elected to the Académie Française in January 1728.
In April 1728, with Berwick's nephew Lord Waldegrave as his traveling companion, Montesquieu embarked on a grand tour of Europe, during which he kept a journal. His travels included Austria and Hungary and a year in Italy. He went to England at the end of October 1729, in the company of Lord Chesterfield, where he was initiated into Freemasonry at the Horn Tavern Lodge in Westminster.[14] He remained in England until the spring of 1731, when he returned to La Brède. Outwardly he seemed to be settling down as a squire: he altered his park in the English fashion, made inquiries into his own genealogy, and asserted his seignorial rights. But he was continuously at work in his study, and his reflections on geography, laws and customs during his travels became the primary sources for his major works on political philosophy at this time.[15]
In 1734, he published Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline, among his three best known books. In 1748, he published The Spirit of Law, quickly translated into English. It quickly rose to influence political thought profoundly in Europe and America. In France, the book met with an enthusiastic reception by many, but was denounced by the Sorbonne and, in 1751, by the Catholic Church (Index of Prohibited Books). It received the highest praise from much of the rest of Europe, especially Britain.
Lettres familières à divers amis d'Italie, 1767
Montesquieu was highly regarded in the British colonies in North America as a champion of liberty. According to a survey of late eighteenth-century works by political scientist Donald Lutz, Montesquieu was the most frequently quoted authority on government and politics in colonial pre-revolutionary British America, cited more by the American founders than any source except for the Bible.[16] Following the American Revolution, his work remained a powerful influence on many of the American founders, most notably James Madison of Virginia, the "Father of the Constitution". Montesquieu's philosophy that "government should be set up so that no man need be afraid of another"[17] reminded Madison and others that a free and stable foundation for their new national government required a clearly defined and balanced separation of powers.
Montesquieu was troubled by a cataract and feared going blind. At the end of 1754 he visited Paris and was soon taken ill. He died from a fever on 10 February 1755. He was buried in the Église Saint-Sulpice, Paris.
Philosophy of history[edit]
Montesquieu's philosophy of history minimized the role of individual persons and events. He expounded the view in Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline, that each historical event was driven by a principal movement:
It is not chance that rules the world. Ask the Romans, who had a continuous sequence of successes when they were guided by a certain plan, and an uninterrupted sequence of reverses when they followed another. There are general causes, moral and physical, which act in every monarchy, elevating it, maintaining it, or hurling it to the ground. All accidents are controlled by these causes. And if the chance of one battle—that is, a particular cause—has brought a state to ruin, some general cause made it necessary for that state to perish from a single battle. In a word, the main trend draws with it all particular accidents.[18]
In discussing the transition from the Republic to the Empire, he suggested that if Caesar and Pompey had not worked to usurp the government of the Republic, other men would have risen in their place. The cause was not the ambition of Caesar or Pompey, but the ambition of man.
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Montesquieu is credited as being among the progenitors, who include Herodotus and Tacitus, of anthropology—as being among the first to extend comparative methods of classification to the political forms in human societies. Indeed, the French political anthropologist Georges Balandier considered Montesquieu to be "the initiator of a scientific enterprise that for a time performed the role of cultural and social anthropology".[19] According to social anthropologist D. F. Pocock, Montesquieu's The Spirit of Law was "the first consistent attempt to survey the varieties of human society, to classify and compare them and, within society, to study the inter-functioning of institutions."[20] "Émile Durkheim," notes David W. Carrithers, "even went so far as to suggest that it was precisely this realization of the interrelatedness of social phenomena that brought social science into being."[21]
Montesquieu's political anthropology gave rise to his influential view that forms of government are supported by governing principles: virtue for republics, honor for monarchies, and fear for despotisms. American founders studied Montesquieu's views on how the English achieved liberty by separating executive, legislative, and judicial powers, and when Catherine the Great wrote her Nakaz (Instruction) for the Legislative Assembly she had created to clarify the existing Russian law code, she avowed borrowing heavily from Montesquieu's Spirit of Law, although she discarded or altered portions that did not support Russia's absolutist bureaucratic monarchy.[22]
Montesquieu's most influential work divided French society into three classes (or trias politica, a term he coined): the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the commons.[clarification needed] Montesquieu saw two types of governmental power existing: the sovereign and the administrative. The administrative powers were the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. These should be separate from and dependent upon each other so that the influence of any one power would not be able to exceed that of the other two, either singly or in combination. This was a radical idea because it does not follow the three Estates structure of the French Monarchy: the clergy, the aristocracy, and the people at large represented by the Estates-General, thereby erasing the last vestige of a feudalistic structure.
The theory of the separation of powers largely derives from The Spirit of Law:
In every state there are three kinds of power: the legislative authority, the executive authority for things that stem from the law of nations, and the executive authority for those that stem from civil law.
By virtue of the first, the prince or magistrate enacts temporary or perpetual laws, and amends or abrogates those that have been already enacted. By the second, he makes peace or war, sends or receives embassies, establishes the public security, and provides against invasions. By the third, he punishes criminals, or determines the disputes that arise between individuals. The latter we shall call the judiciary power, and the other, simply, the executive power of the state.
— The Spirit of Law, XI, 6.
Montesquieu argues that each power should only exercise its own functions; he is quite explicit here:
When in the same person or in the same body of magistracy the legislative authority is combined with the executive authority, there is no freedom, because one can fear lest the same monarch or the same senate make tyrannical laws in order to carry them out tyrannically.
Again there is no freedom if the authority to judge is not separated from the legislative and executive authorities. If it were combined with the legislative authority, power over the life and liberty of the citizens would be arbitrary, for the judge would be the legislator. If it were combined with the executive authority, the judge could have the strength of an oppressor.
All would be lost if the same man or the same body of principals, or of nobles, or of the people, exercised these three powers: that of making laws, that of executing public resolutions, and that of judging crimes or disputes between individuals.
— The Spirit of Law, XI, 6.
If the legislative branch appoints the executive and judicial powers, as Montesquieu indicated, there will be no separation or division of its powers, since the power to appoint carries with it the power to revoke.
The executive authority must be in the hands of a monarch, for this part of the government, which almost always requires immediate action, is better administrated by one than by several, whereas that which depends on the legislative authority is often better organized by several than by one person alone.
If there were no monarch, and the executive authority were entrusted to a certain number of persons chosen from the legislative body, that would be the end of freedom, because the two authorities would be combined, the same persons sometimes having, and always in a position to have, a role in both.
— The Spirit of Law, XI, 6.
Montesquieu identifies three main forms of government, each supported by a social "principle": monarchies (free governments headed by a hereditary figure, e.g. king, queen, emperor), which rely on the principle of honor; republics (free governments headed by popularly elected leaders), which rely on the principle of virtue; and despotisms (unfree), headed by despots which rely on fear. The free governments are dependent on constitutional arrangements that establish checks and balances. Montesquieu devotes one chapter of The Spirit of Law to a discussion of how the England's constitution sustained liberty (XI, 6), and another to the realities of English politics (XIX, 27). As for France, the intermediate powers (including the nobility) the nobility and the parlements had been weakened by Louis XIV, and welcomed the strengthening of parlementary power in 1715.
Montesquieu advocated reform of slavery in The Spirit of Law, specifically arguing that slavery was inherently wrong because all humans are born equal,[23] but that it could perhaps be justified within the context of climates with intense heat, wherein laborers would feel less inclined to work voluntarily.[23] As part of his advocacy he presented a satirical hypothetical list of arguments for slavery. In the hypothetical list, he'd ironically list pro-slavery arguments without further comment, including an argument stating that sugar would become too expensive without the free labor of slaves.[23]
While addressing French readers of his General Theory, John Maynard Keynes described Montesquieu as "the real French equivalent of Adam Smith, the greatest of your economists, head and shoulders above the physiocrats in penetration, clear-headedness and good sense (which are the qualities an economist should have)."[24]
Meteorological climate theory[edit]
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Another example of Montesquieu's anthropological thinking, outlined in The Spirit of Law and hinted at in Persian Letters, is his meteorological climate theory, which holds that climate may substantially influence the nature of man and his society, a theory also promoted by the French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. By placing an emphasis on environmental influences as a material condition of life, Montesquieu prefigured modern anthropology's concern with the impact of material conditions, such as available energy sources, organized production systems, and technologies, on the growth of complex socio-cultural systems.
He asserted that certain climates are more favorable than others, the temperate climate of France being ideal. His view is that people living in very warm countries are "too hot-tempered", while those in northern countries are "icy" or "stiff". The climate of middle Europe is therefore optimal. On this point, Montesquieu may well have been influenced by a similar pronouncement in The Histories of Herodotus, where he makes a distinction between the "ideal" temperate climate of Greece as opposed to the overly cold climate of Scythia and the overly warm climate of Egypt. This was a common belief at the time, and can also be found within the medical writings of Herodotus' times, including the "On Airs, Waters, Places" of the Hippocratic corpus. One can find a similar statement in Germania by Tacitus, one of Montesquieu's favorite authors.
Philip M. Parker, in his book Physioeconomics (MIT Press, 2000), endorses Montesquieu's theory and argues that much of the economic variation between countries is explained by the physiological effect of different climates.
From a sociological perspective, Louis Althusser, in his analysis of Montesquieu's revolution in method,[25] alluded to the seminal character of anthropology's inclusion of material factors, such as climate, in the explanation of social dynamics and political forms. Examples of certain climatic and geographical factors giving rise to increasingly complex social systems include those that were conducive to the rise of agriculture and the domestication of wild plants and animals.
Memorialization[edit]
Between 1981 and 1994, a depiction of Monetesquieu appeared on the 200 French franc note.[26]
Montesquieu on the 200 French franc note
Since 1989, the annual Montesquieu prize has been awarded by the French Association of Historians of Political Ideas for the best French-language thesis on the history of political thought.[27]
On Europe Day 2007, the Montesquieu Institute opened in The Hague, the Netherlands, with a mission to advance research and education on the parliamentary history and political culture of the European Union and its member states.[28]
The Montesquieu tower in Luxembourg was completed in 2008 as an addition to the headquarters of the Court of Justice of the European Union.[29] The building houses many of the institution's translation services. Until 2019, it stood, with its sister tower, Comenius, as the tallest building in the country.[29]
List of principal works[edit]
Memoirs and discourses at the Academy of Bordeaux (1718–1721): including discourses on echoes, on the renal glands, on weight of bodies, on transparency of bodies and on natural history, collected with introductions and critical apparatus in volumes 8 and 9 of Œuvres complètes, Oxford and Naples, 2003–2006.
Spicilège (Gleanings, 1715 onward)
Lettres persanes (Persian Letters, 1721)
Le Temple de Gnide (The Temple of Gnidos, a prose poem; 1725)
Histoire véritable (True History, an "Oriental" tale; c. 1723–c. 1738)
Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence (Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline, 1734) at Gallica
Arsace et Isménie (Arsace and Isménie, a novel; 1742)
De l'esprit des lois ((On) The Spirit of Law, 1748) (volume 1 and volume 2 from Gallica)
Défense de "L'Esprit des lois" (Defense of "The Spirit of Law", 1750)
Essai sur le goût (Essay on Taste, published posthumously in 1757)
Mes Pensées (My Thoughts, 1720–1755)
A critical edition of Montesquieu's works is being published by the Société Montesquieu. It is planned to total 22 volumes, of which (as of February 2022) all but five have appeared.[30]
See also[edit]
Environmental determinism
Liberalism
List of abolitionist forerunners
List of political systems in France
List of liberal theorists
Napoleon
Politics of France
Jean-Baptiste de Secondat (1716–1796), his son
U.S. Constitution, influences
Bibliography of the United States Constitution — Contains numerous works regarding Montesqui's influence on American constitutionalism.
Notes[edit]
^ US: /ˈmɒntəskjuː/,[1] UK: /ˌmɒntɛˈskjɜː/,[2] French: [ʃaʁl lwi də səɡɔ̃da baʁɔ̃ də la bʁɛd e də mɔ̃tɛskjø].
References[edit]
^ "Montesquieu" Archived 21 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine. Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
^ Wells, John C. (2008). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.). Longman. ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0.
^ Boesche 1990, p. 1.
^ "Bordeaux · France". Bordeaux · France.
^ Sorel, A. Montesquieu. London, George Routledge & Sons, 1887 (Ulan Press reprint, 2011), p. 10. ASIN B00A5TMPHC
^ Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670-1752. OUP Oxford. 12 October 2006. ISBN 978-0-19-927922-7.
^ Agreeable Connexions: Scottish Enlightenment Links with France. Casemate Publishers. 5 November 2012. ISBN 9781907909085.
^ Sorel (1887), p. 11.
^ Sorel (1887), p. 12.
^ Montesquieu's Liberalism and the Problem of Universal Politics. Cambridge University Press. 23 August 2018. ISBN 9781108552691.
^ Civil Religion: A Dialogue in the History of Political Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. 25 October 2010. ISBN 9781139492614.
^ Sorel (1887), pp. 11–12.
^ Sorel (1887), pp. 12–13.
^ Berman 2012, p. 150
^ Li, Hansong (25 September 2018). "The space of the sea in Montesquieu's political thought". Global Intellectual History. 6 (4): 421–442. doi:10.1080/23801883.2018.1527184. S2CID 158285235.
^ Lutz 1984.
^ Montesquieu, The Spirit of Law, Book 11, Chapter 6, "On the English Constitution." Archived 28 September 2013 at the Wayback Machine Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library, Retrieved 1 August 2012
^ Montesquieu (1734), Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline, The Free Press, archived from the original on 6 August 2010, retrieved 30 November 2011 Ch. XVIII.
^ Balandier 1970, p. 3.
^ Pocock 1961, p. 9.Tomaselli 2006, p. 9, similarly describes it as "among the most intellectually challenging and inspired contributions to political theory in the eighteenth century. [... It] set the tone and form of modern social and political thought."
^ Carrithers, 1977, p. 27, citing Durkheim 1960, pp. 56–57)
^ Ransel 1975, p. 179.
^ a b c Mander, Jenny. 2019. "Colonialism and Slavery". p. 273 in The Cambridge History of French Thought, edited by M. Moriarty and J. Jennings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
^ See the preface Archived 10 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine to the French edition of Keynes' General Theory.See also Devletoglou 1963.
^ Althusser 1972.
^ "200 Francs Montesquieu | Grand choix de billets de collection de la BDF". Bourse du collectionneur (in French). Retrieved 1 October 2023.
^ "Prix Montesquieu - Association Française des Historiens des idées politiques". univ-droit.fr : Portail Universitaire du droit (in French). Retrieved 1 October 2023.
^ "Start Montesquieu Instituut". www.montesquieu-instituut.nl (in Dutch). Retrieved 1 October 2023.
^ a b "Montesquieu Tower". Europa (web portal). Retrieved 1 October 2023.
^ "Œuvres complètes". Institut d'histoire des représentations et des idées dans les modernités. Archived from the original on 7 July 2017. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
Sources[edit]
Articles and chapters
Boesche, Roger (1990). "Fearing Monarchs and Merchants: Montesquieu's Two Theories of Despotism". The Western Political Quarterly. 43 (4): 741–761. doi:10.1177/106591299004300405. JSTOR 448734. S2CID 154059320.
Devletoglou, Nicos E. (1963). "Montesquieu and the Wealth of Nations". The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science. 29 (1): 1–25. doi:10.2307/139366. JSTOR 139366.
Kuznicki, Jason (2008). "Montesquieu, Charles de Second de (1689–1755)". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). Knight, Frank H. (1885–1972). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Cato Institute. pp. 341–342. doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n164. ISBN 978-1412965804. LCCN 2008009151. OCLC 750831024.
Lutz, Donald S. (1984). "The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late Eighteenth-Century American Political Thought". American Political Science Review. 78 (1): 189–197. doi:10.2307/1961257. JSTOR 1961257. S2CID 145253561.
Tomaselli, Sylvana. "The spirit of nations". In Mark Goldie and Robert Wokler, eds., The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). pp. 9–39.
Books
Althusser, Louis, Politics and History: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Marx (London and New York: New Left Books, 1972).
Balandier, Georges, Political Anthropology (London: Allen Lane, 1970).
Berman, Ric (2012), The Foundations of Modern Freemasonry: The Grand Architects – Political Change and the Scientific Enlightenment, 1714–1740 (Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2012).
Pocock, D. F., Social Anthropology (London and New York: Sheed and Ward, 1961).
Ransel, David L., The Politics of Catherinian Russia: The Panin Party (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1975).
Shackleton, Robert, Montesquieu: a Critical Biography (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961).
Shklar, Judith, Montesquieu (Oxford Past Masters series). (Oxford and New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1989).
Spurlin, Paul M., Montesquieu in America, 1760–1801 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1941; reprint, New York: Octagon Books, 1961).
Volpilhac-Auger, Catherine, Montesquieu (Folio Bibliographies) (Paris: Gallimard, 2017). Montesquieu: Let there be Enlightenment, English translation by Philip Stewart, Cambridge University Press, 2023.
External links[edit]
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Société Montesquieu, [1]
A Montesquieu Dictionary, on line: "[2] Archived 27 February 2022 at the Wayback Machine"
Ilbert, Courtenay (1913). "Montesquieu". In Macdonell, John; Manson, Edward William Donoghue (eds.). Great Jurists of the World. London: John Murray. pp. 1–16. Retrieved 14 February 2019 – via Internet Archive.
Works by Montesquieu at Project Gutenberg
Works by or about Montesquieu at the Internet Archive
Works by Montesquieu at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
Free full-text works online
The Spirit of Laws (Volume 1) Audio book of Thomas Nugent translation
[3] Archived 27 February 2022 at the Wayback Machine The Spirit of Law, trans. Philip Stewart, open access.
[4] Archived 13 December 2020 at the Wayback Machine Persian Letters, trans. Philip Stewart, open access.
Complete ebooks collection of Montesquieu in French.
Lettres persanes at athena.unige.ch (in French)
Montesquieu, "Notes on England"
Montesquieu in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
"Montesquieu", Institut d'histoire des représentations et des idées dans les modernités (in French)
Links to related articles
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Valentin Conrart (1634)
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Significant civil and political events by year1788
Day of the Tiles (7 Jun 1788)
Assembly of Vizille (21 Jul 1788)
1789
What Is the Third Estate? (Jan 1789)
Réveillon riots (28 Apr 1789)
Convocation of the Estates General (5 May 1789)
Death of the Dauphin (4 June 1789)
National Assembly (17 Jun – 9 Jul 1790)
Tennis Court Oath (20 Jun 1789)
National Constituent Assembly (9 Jul – 30 Sep 1791)
Storming of the Bastille (14 Jul 1789)
Great Fear (20 Jul – 5 Aug 1789)
Abolition of Feudalism (4–11 Aug 1789)
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (26 Aug 1789)
Women's March on Versailles (5 Oct 1789)
Nationalization of the Church properties (2 Nov 1789)
1790
Abolition of the Parlements (Feb–Jul 1790)
Abolition of the Nobility (23 Jun 1790)
Civil Constitution of the Clergy (12 Jul 1790)
Fête de la Fédération (14 Jul 1790)
1791
Flight to Varennes (20–21 Jun 1791)
Champ de Mars massacre (17 Jul 1791)
Declaration of Pillnitz (27 Aug 1791)
The Constitution of 1791 (3 Sep 1791)
National Legislative Assembly (1 Oct 1791 – Sep 1792)
1792
France declares war (20 Apr 1792)
Brunswick Manifesto (25 Jul 1792)
Paris Commune becomes insurrectionary (Jun 1792)
10th of August (10 Aug 1792)
September Massacres (Sep 1792)
National Convention (20 Sep 1792 – 26 Oct 1795)
First republic declared (22 Sep 1792)
1793
Execution of Louis XVI (21 Jan 1793)
Revolutionary Tribunal (9 Mar 1793 – 31 May 1795)
Reign of Terror (27 Jun 1793 – 27 Jul 1794)
Committee of Public Safety
Committee of General Security
Fall of the Girondists (2 Jun 1793)
Assassination of Marat (13 Jul 1793)
Levée en masse (23 Aug 1793)
The Death of Marat (painting)
Law of Suspects (17 Sep 1793)
Marie Antoinette is guillotined (16 Oct 1793)
Anti-clerical laws (throughout the year)
1794
Danton and Desmoulins guillotined (5 Apr 1794)
Law of 22 Prairial (10 Jun 1794)
Thermidorian Reaction (27 Jul 1794)
Robespierre guillotined (28 Jul 1794)
White Terror (Fall 1794)
Closing of the Jacobin Club (11 Nov 1794)
1795–6
Insurrection of 12 Germinal Year III (1 Apr 1795)
Constitution of the Year III (22 Aug 1795)
Directoire (1795–99)
Council of Five Hundred
Council of Ancients
13 Vendémiaire 5 Oct 1795
Conspiracy of the Equals (May 1796)
1797
Coup of 18 Fructidor (4 Sep 1797)
Second Congress of Rastatt (Dec 1797)
1798
Law of 22 Floréal Year VI (11 May 1798)
1799
Coup of 30 Prairial VII (18 Jun 1799)
Coup of 18 Brumaire (9 Nov 1799)
Constitution of the Year VIII (24 Dec 1799)
Consulate
Revolutionary campaigns1792
Verdun
Thionville
Valmy
Royalist Revolts
Chouannerie
Vendée
Dauphiné
Lille
Siege of Mainz
Jemappes
Namur
1793
First Coalition
War in the Vendée
Battle of Neerwinden
Battle of Famars (23 May 1793)
Expedition to Sardinia (21 Dec 1792 - 25 May 1793)
Battle of Kaiserslautern
Siege of Mainz
Battle of Wattignies
Battle of Hondschoote
Siege of Bellegarde
Battle of Peyrestortes (Pyrenees)
Siege of Toulon (18 Sep – 18 Dec 1793)
First Battle of Wissembourg (13 Oct 1793)
Battle of Truillas (Pyrenees)
Second Battle of Wissembourg (26–27 Dec 1793)
1794
Battle of Villers-en-Cauchies (24 Apr 1794)
Second Battle of Boulou (Pyrenees) (30 Apr – 1 May 1794)
Battle of Tourcoing (18 May 1794)
Battle of Tournay (22 May 1794)
Glorious First of June (1 Jun 1794)
Battle of Fleurus (26 Jun 1794)
Chouannerie
Battle of Aldenhoven (2 Oct 1794)
Siege of Luxembourg (22 Nov 1794 - 7 Jun 1795)
1795
Siege of Luxembourg (22 Nov 1794 - 7 Jun 1795)
Peace of Basel
1796
Italian campaign (1796)
Battle of Lonato (3–4 Aug 1796)
Battle of Castiglione (5 Aug 1796)
Battle of Theiningen
Battle of Neresheim (11 Aug 1796)
Battle of Amberg (24 Aug 1796)
Battle of Würzburg (3 Sep 1796)
Battle of Rovereto (4 Sep 1796)
First Battle of Bassano (8 Sep 1796)
Battle of Emmendingen (19 Oct 1796)
Battle of Schliengen (26 Oct 1796)
Second Battle of Bassano (6 Nov 1796)
Battle of Calliano (6–7 Nov 1796)
Battle of Arcole (15–17 Nov 1796)
Ireland expedition (Dec 1796)
1797
Italian campaign (1797)
Naval Engagement off Brittany (13 Jan 1797)
Battle of Rivoli (14–15 Jan 1797)
Battle of the Bay of Cádiz (25 Jan 1797)
Treaty of Leoben (17 Apr 1797)
Battle of Neuwied (18 Apr 1797)
Treaty of Campo Formio (17 Oct 1797)
1798
French invasion of Switzerland (28 January – 17 May 1798)
French Invasion of Egypt (1798–1801)
Irish Rebellion of 1798 (23 May – 23 Sep 1798)
Quasi-War (1798–1800)
Peasants' War (12 Oct – 5 Dec 1798)
1799
Second Coalition (1798–1802)
Siege of Acre (20 Mar – 21 May 1799)
Battle of Ostrach (20–21 Mar 1799)
Battle of Stockach (25 Mar 1799)
Battle of Magnano (5 Apr 1799)
Battle of Cassano (27–28 Apr 1799)
First Battle of Zurich (4–7 Jun 1799)
Battle of Trebbia (17–20 Jun 1799)
Battle of Novi (15 Aug 1799)
Second Battle of Zurich (25–26 Sep 1799)
1800
Battle of Marengo (14 Jun 1800)
Convention of Alessandria (15 Jun 1800)
Battle of Hohenlinden (3 Dec 1800)
League of Armed Neutrality (1800–02)
1801
Treaty of Lunéville (9 Feb 1801)
Treaty of Florence (18 Mar 1801)
Algeciras campaign (8 Jul 1801)
1802
Treaty of Amiens (25 Mar 1802)
Treaty of Paris (25 Jun 1802)
Military leaders FranceFrench Army
Eustache Charles d'Aoust
Charles-Pierre Augereau
Alexandre de Beauharnais
Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte
Louis-Alexandre Berthier
Jean-Baptiste Bessières
Napoléon Bonaparte
Guillaume Brune
Jean François Carteaux
Jean-Étienne Championnet
Chapuis de Tourville
Adam Philippe, Comte de Custine
Louis-Nicolas Davout
Louis Desaix
Jacques François Dugommier
Thomas-Alexandre Dumas
Charles François Dumouriez
Pierre Marie Barthélemy Ferino
Louis-Charles de Flers
Paul Grenier
Emmanuel de Grouchy
Jacques Maurice Hatry
Lazare Hoche
Jean-Baptiste Jourdan
François Christophe de Kellermann
Jean-Baptiste Kléber
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Jean Lannes
Charles Leclerc
Claude Lecourbe
François Joseph Lefebvre
Étienne Macdonald
Jean-Antoine Marbot
Marcellin Marbot
François Séverin Marceau
Auguste de Marmont
André Masséna
Bon-Adrien Jeannot de Moncey
Jean Victor Marie Moreau
Édouard Mortier, Duke of Trévise
Joachim Murat
Michel Ney
Pierre-Jacques Osten [fr]
Nicolas Oudinot
Catherine-Dominique de Pérignon
Jean-Charles Pichegru
Józef Poniatowski
Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr
Barthélemy Louis Joseph Schérer
Jean-Mathieu-Philibert Sérurier
Joseph Souham
Jean-de-Dieu Soult
Louis-Gabriel Suchet
Belgrand de Vaubois
Claude Victor-Perrin, Duc de Belluno
French Navy
Charles-Alexandre Linois
Opposition Austria
József Alvinczi
Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen
Count of Clerfayt (Walloon)
Karl Aloys zu Fürstenberg
Friedrich Freiherr von Hotze (Swiss)
Friedrich Adolf, Count von Kalckreuth
Pál Kray (Hungarian)
Charles Eugene, Prince of Lambesc (French)
Maximilian Baillet de Latour (Walloon)
Karl Mack von Leiberich
Rudolf Ritter von Otto (Saxon)
Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
Peter Vitus von Quosdanovich
Prince Heinrich XV of Reuss-Plauen
Johann Mészáros von Szoboszló (Hungarian)
Karl Philipp Sebottendorf
Dagobert von Wurmser
Britain
Sir Ralph Abercromby
James Saumarez, 1st Baron de Saumarez
Edward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth
Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany
Netherlands
William V, Prince of Orange
Prussia
Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick
Frederick Louis, Prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen
Russia
Alexander Korsakov
Alexander Suvorov
Andrei Rosenberg
Spain
Luis Firmin de Carvajal
Antonio Ricardos
Other significant figures and factionsPatriotic Society of 1789
Jean Sylvain Bailly
Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette
François Alexandre Frédéric, duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
Isaac René Guy le Chapelier
Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau
Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès
Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord
Nicolas de Condorcet
Feuillantsand monarchiens
Grace Elliott
Arnaud de La Porte
Jean-Sifrein Maury
François-Marie, marquis de Barthélemy
Guillaume-Mathieu Dumas
Antoine Barnave
Lafayette
Alexandre-Théodore-Victor, comte de Lameth
Charles Malo François Lameth
André Chénier
Jean-François Rewbell
Camille Jordan
Madame de Staël
Boissy d'Anglas
Jean-Charles Pichegru
Pierre Paul Royer-Collard
Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac
Girondins
Jacques Pierre Brissot
Jean-Marie Roland de la Platière
Madame Roland
Father Henri Grégoire
Étienne Clavière
Marquis de Condorcet
Charlotte Corday
Marie Jean Hérault
Jean Baptiste Treilhard
Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud
Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve
Jean Debry
Olympe de Gouges
Jean-Baptiste Robert Lindet
Louis Marie de La Révellière-Lépeaux
The Plain
Abbé Sieyès
de Cambacérès
Charles-François Lebrun
Pierre-Joseph Cambon
Bertrand Barère
Lazare Nicolas Marguerite Carnot
Philippe Égalité
Louis Philippe I
Mirabeau
Antoine Christophe Merlin de Thionville
Jean Joseph Mounier
Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours
François de Neufchâteau
Montagnards
Maximilien Robespierre
Georges Danton
Jean-Paul Marat
Camille Desmoulins
Louis Antoine de Saint-Just
Paul Barras
Louis Philippe I
Louis Michel le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau
Jacques-Louis David
Marquis de Sade
Georges Couthon
Roger Ducos
Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois
Jean-Henri Voulland
Philippe-Antoine Merlin de Douai
Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville
Philippe-François-Joseph Le Bas
Marc-Guillaume Alexis Vadier
Jean-Pierre-André Amar
Prieur de la Côte-d'Or
Prieur de la Marne
Gilbert Romme
Jean Bon Saint-André
Jean-Lambert Tallien
Pierre Louis Prieur
Antoine Christophe Saliceti
Hébertistsand Enragés
Jacques Hébert
Jacques-Nicolas Billaud-Varenne
Pierre Gaspard Chaumette
Charles-Philippe Ronsin
Antoine-François Momoro
François-Nicolas Vincent
François Chabot
Jean Baptiste Noël Bouchotte
Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Gobel
François Hanriot
Jacques Roux
Stanislas-Marie Maillard
Charles-Philippe Ronsin
Jean-François Varlet
Theophile Leclerc
Claire Lacombe
Pauline Léon
Gracchus Babeuf
Sylvain Maréchal
OthersFigures
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Louis Antoine, Duke of Enghien
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Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé
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Jean Chouan
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Jacques Necker
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Index
Category:Political philosophy
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