The French Revolution: KS3 History Guide

The French Revolution (1789–1799) was a decade of radical political and social upheaval in France that overthrew the monarchy, executed the king, and reshaped ideas about power, liberty, and equality across the Western world.

What caused the French Revolution?

No single cause explains the Revolution. Historians identify a combination of long-term, medium-term, and immediate triggers — a useful analytical framework for any KS3 history essay.

Long-term causes built up over decades. France was governed by an absolute monarchy under King Louis XVI, where the First Estate (clergy) and Second Estate (nobility) paid virtually no tax, while the Third Estate — which made up roughly 97 per cent of the population, from wealthy merchants to rural peasants — shouldered the burden. The Enlightenment philosophers, including Voltaire and Rousseau, had spent the preceding century questioning whether kings had any divine right to rule at all, planting ideas about natural rights, popular sovereignty, and the social contract.

Medium-term causes destabilised the existing order. France had spent heavily supporting the American Revolution (1775–1783), leaving the state effectively bankrupt by the late 1780s. The harvest failures of 1788 sent bread prices soaring at the same moment ordinary people were already struggling.

Immediate causes broke the system open. In May 1789, Louis XVI summoned the Estates-General — a representative assembly not convened since 1614 — hoping to raise taxes. Instead, delegates from the Third Estate broke away and declared themselves the National Assembly, claiming the right to govern France. On 14 July 1789, Parisian crowds stormed the Bastille fortress, a royal prison and symbol of royal tyranny, and the Revolution had begun.

What were the key events of the French Revolution?

Date | Event
May 1789 | Estates-General convened; Third Estate forms the National Assembly
14 July 1789 | Storming of the Bastille — celebrated today as Bastille Day
August 1789 | Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen adopted
1791 | Constitutional monarchy established; Louis XVI accepts a new constitution
September 1792 | The First French Republic declared
21 January 1793 | Louis XVI executed by guillotine
1793–1794 | The Reign of Terror under the Committee of Public Safety and Robespierre
July 1794 | Robespierre executed; the Terror ends (Thermidorian Reaction)
November 1799 | Napoleon Bonaparte seizes power in a coup (18 Brumaire)

What was the Reign of Terror?

The Terror (September 1793 – July 1794) was the most violent phase of the Revolution. Led by Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety, the revolutionary government executed tens of thousands of people accused of being enemies of the Republic. Estimates suggest around 17,000 were officially executed by guillotine and up to 40,000 more died in prison or without trial. The guillotine became the most visible symbol of the Terror's logic: that the Revolution must protect itself by destroying its enemies — real or suspected.

Historians debate whether the Terror was an unavoidable response to a France under military attack from multiple directions, or an example of revolutionary ideology spiralling into tyranny. Both arguments have merit, which is what makes the Terror a rich subject for source-based history questions. The National Archives holds documents from this period that show how ordinary accusations were processed and how quickly the line between political opponent and condemned criminal dissolved.

Robespierre himself was arrested and executed in July 1794 — by the very mechanisms of the Terror he had built — in an episode known as the Thermidorian Reaction.

What were the effects of the French Revolution?

The Revolution's consequences were felt far beyond France.

In France: The monarchy was eventually restored in 1814, but France would never return to the pre-revolutionary system. The Revolution permanently established the ideas of citizenship, national sovereignty, and legal equality as the basis of the French state.

Across Europe: Other monarchies were alarmed. Britain, Austria, Prussia and others formed coalitions against Revolutionary France, fearing that revolutionary ideas would spread. They were right: revolutionary nationalism became one of the defining forces of nineteenth-century European politics.

In ideas: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) articulated principles — liberty, equality, popular sovereignty, freedom from arbitrary arrest — that would influence constitutions and revolutionary movements worldwide, from Latin America to the 1848 revolutions across Europe.

How do historians interpret the French Revolution?

Historians have argued for centuries about whether the Revolution was a triumph or a disaster.

Progressive interpretations emphasise the destruction of feudal privilege, the establishment of legal equality, and the spread of Enlightenment ideas that eventually underpinned modern democracy.

Conservative interpretations stress the catastrophic violence of the Terror, the instability that led to Napoleon's dictatorship, and the argument that gradual reform might have achieved similar ends without mass killing.

At KS3, the most important skill is not choosing a side but weighing the evidence for both: looking at what the Revolution achieved and at what cost, and asking whose experience you are reading about when you evaluate any source. A Parisian merchant in 1790 experienced the Revolution very differently from a Norman peasant or an aristocratic émigré.

Frequently asked questions

When did the French Revolution start and end?

Historians conventionally date the French Revolution from the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 to Napoleon Bonaparte's coup on 9 November 1799 (18 Brumaire in the revolutionary calendar). Some historians end it earlier, at the fall of Robespierre in 1794, or later, at Napoleon's defeat in 1815.

Why did the French Revolution happen?

The Revolution resulted from a combination of financial crisis, political inequality, Enlightenment ideas challenging royal authority, food shortages, and the failure of Louis XVI's government to reform. No single cause was sufficient — together they created conditions in which the existing system could not survive.

What was the significance of the Declaration of the Rights of Man?

Adopted in August 1789, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen stated that all men are born free and equal in rights, that sovereignty belongs to the nation rather than the king, and that citizens have the right to resist oppression. It became one of the founding documents of modern democracy and human rights law.

What happened to Louis XVI?

Louis XVI was arrested in 1792 when the monarchy was abolished, tried by the new National Convention for treason, convicted, and executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793. His execution shocked European monarchies and accelerated the formation of military coalitions against France.

For Socratic history tutoring that helps you weigh evidence and build your own arguments, visit aitutors.me.