The French Revolution
The grim-looking prison of the Bastille was stormed by the people of Paris on July 14, 1789. The people saw the attack on the Bastille as an attack on the injustice of the Old Regime generally and the insurrection spread rapidly throughout France. French nobles who opposed the revolution emigrated to other European countries and encouraged foreign rulers to declare war on France. When foreign armies gathered on the eastern frontier, the French king began to conspire with his monarchist friends in Austria and Prussia. This inaugurated a more radical phase of the revolution. A republic was proclaimed, open war with Austria and Prussia ensued, and the king was tried and executed for treason to his people.

The Revolution had largely started to protect private property from taxation but its equalitarian formula led soon to the abolition of priviliges, titles and serfdom. There arose a great flame of enthusiasm for France and the Republic. France assumed the role of protector of all revolutionaries not only at home but throughout Europe. French armies exported revolutionary ideas; everywhere kings were expelled and republics set up. While French soldiers were fighting abroad for the revolution, often never quite clear in their minds wether they were looting or liberating the countries into which they poured, the republican enthusiasm in Paris was spending itself in a less glorious fashion. Rival political cliques fought for power and a great Reign of Terror began to destroy one group of 'traitors' after another. Finally in 1794, the radical leader during the reign of terror, Robespierre himself was overthrown and executed.

Robespierre was succeeded by a Directory of five men which held France together for five years. In 1799 however, a successful young general, Napoleon Bonaparte, overthrew the Directory and eventually crowned himself emperor of France. Napoleon consolidated many reforms of the revolution, but his intense egotism carried him to a belated attempt to restore the Western Empire. He tried to destroy the remains of the old Holy Roman empire, intending to replace it with a new one centering upon Paris. French armies conquered Italy and Spain and they defeated Prussia and Austria. But Napoleon never won command of the sea from the British and his fleets sustained a decisive defeat by the British Admiral Nelson at Trafalgar (1805).

In 1812, Napoleon undertook a disastrous invasion of  Russia, whereupon a coalition of almost all the powers of Europe invaded France, and the emperor was forced to abdicate. Napoleon had given France ten years of glory and the humiliation of a final defeat. The forces released by the French revolution were exhausted, the French monarchy was restored and a revolutionary era came to an end.
(see Napoleonic Wars)