France

===Revolutionary France (1789–1799)===
{{Main|History of France#Revolutionary France (1789–1799)}}
[[File:Prise de la Bastille.jpg|thumb|alt=drawing of the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, smoke of gunfire enveloping stone castle|The [[Storming of the Bastille]] on 14 July 1789 was the most emblematic event of the [[French Revolution]].]]
Facing financial troubles, Louis XVI summoned the [[Estates General of 1789|Estates-General]] (gathering the three [[Estates of the realm]]) in May 1789 to propose solutions to his government. As it came to an impasse, the representatives of the [[Commoner|Third Estate]] formed a [[National Assembly (French Revolution)|National Assembly]], signalling the outbreak of the [[French Revolution]]. Fearing that the king would suppress the newly created National Assembly, insurgents [[Storming of the Bastille|stormed the Bastille]] on 14 July 1789, a date which would become [[Bastille Day|France's National Day]].

In early August 1789, the [[National Constituent Assembly (France)|National Constituent Assembly]] [[Abolition of feudalism in France#August decrees|abolished the privileges]] of the [[French nobility|nobility]] such as personal [[serfdom]] and exclusive hunting rights. Through the [[Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen]] (27 August 1789), France established fundamental rights for men. The declaration affirms "the natural and imprescriptible rights of man" to "liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression". [[Freedom of speech]] and [[Freedom of the press|press]] were declared, and arbitrary arrests were outlawed. It called for the destruction of aristocratic privileges and proclaimed freedom and equal rights for all men, as well as access to public office based on talent rather than birth. In November 1789, the Assembly decided to nationalise and sell all property of the Catholic Church which had been the largest landowner in the country. In July 1790, a [[Civil Constitution of the Clergy]] reorganised the French Catholic Church, cancelling the authority of the Church to levy taxes, et cetera. This fueled much discontent in parts of France, which would contribute to the civil war breaking out some years later. While Louis XVI still enjoyed popularity among the population, his disastrous [[flight to Varennes]] in June 1791 seemed to justify rumours he had tied his hopes of political salvation to the prospects of foreign invasion. His credibility was so deeply undermined that the [[Abolition of monarchy|abolition of the monarchy]] and the establishment of a republic became an increasing possibility.

In the August 1791 [[Declaration of Pillnitz]], the Emperor of [[Habsburg monarchy|Austria]] and the King of [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussia]] threatened to restore the French monarch by force. In September 1791, the National Constituent Assembly forced Louis XVI to accept the [[French Constitution of 1791]], thus turning the French absolute monarchy into a [[Kingdom of France (1791–92)|constitutional monarchy]]. In the newly established [[Legislative Assembly (France)|Legislative Assembly]] (October 1791), enmity developed and deepened between a group later called the '[[Girondins]]', who favoured war with [[Habsburg monarchy|Austria]] and [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussia]], and a group later called '[[The Mountain|Montagnards]]' or '[[Jacobins]]' who opposed such a war. A majority in the Assembly in 1792 however saw a war with Austria and Prussia as a chance to boost the popularity of the revolutionary government and thought that such a war could be won and so [[French Revolutionary Wars|declared war on Austria]] on 20 April 1792.

[[File:Serment du Jeu de Paume - Jacques-Louis David.jpg|thumb|[[The Tennis Court Oath (David)|''Le Serment du Jeu de paume'']] by [[Jacques-Louis David]], 1791]]
On 10 August 1792, an angry crowd [[Insurrection of 10 August 1792|threatened the palace of Louis XVI]], who took refuge in the Legislative Assembly.<ref name=Shus-5/><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Censer |first1=Jack R. |title=Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution |last2=Hunt |first2=Lynn |date=2004 |publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press |location=[[Penn State University Park]]}}</ref> A Prussian army invaded France later in August 1792. In early September, Parisians, infuriated by the Prussian Army capturing Verdun and counter-revolutionary uprisings in the west of France, [[September Massacres|murdered between 1,000 and 1,500 prisoners]] by raiding the Parisian prisons. The Assembly and the [[Paris Commune (1789–1795)|Paris City Council]] seemed unable to stop that bloodshed.<ref name=Shus-5/><ref>{{Cite book |last=Doyle |first=William |title=The Oxford History of The French Revolution |date=1989 |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=191–192}}</ref> The [[National Convention]], chosen in the first elections under male [[universal suffrage]],<ref name="Shus-5">{{In lang|nl}} Noah Shusterman – ''De Franse Revolutie (The French Revolution).'' Veen Media, Amsterdam, 2015. (Translation of: ''The French Revolution. Faith, Desire, and Politics.'' Routledge, London/New York, 2014.) Chapter 5 (p. 187–221) : The end of the monarchy and the September Murders (summer-fall 1792).</ref> on 20 September 1792 succeeded the Legislative Assembly and on 21 September abolished the monarchy by proclaiming the [[French First Republic]]. Louis XVI [[Trial of Louis XVI|was convicted of treason]] and [[Execution of Louis XVI|guillotined in January 1793]]. France had declared war on Great Britain and the Dutch Republic in November 1792 and did the same on Spain in March 1793; in the spring of 1793, Austria and Prussia invaded France; in March, France created a "[[sister republic]]" in the "[[Republic of Mainz]]" and kept it under control.

Also in March 1793, a [[War in the Vendée|counter-revolution in Vendée]] began, evoked by both the [[Civil Constitution of the Clergy]] of 1790 and the nationwide army conscription in early 1793; elsewhere in France rebellion was brewing too. A factionalist feud in the National Convention, smouldering ever since October 1791, came to a climax on 2 June 1793 with the group of the Girondins being forced to resign and leave the convention. By July the counter-revolution had spread to [[Brittany (administrative region)|Brittany]], Normandy, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Toulon, and Lyon. Between October and December 1793, Paris' Convention government took brutal measures to subdue most internal uprisings at the cost of tens of thousands of lives. Some historians consider the civil war to have lasted until 1796 with a toll of possibly 450,000 lives.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Linton |first=Marisa |title=The Terror in the French Revolution |publisher=Kingston University |url=http://www.port.ac.uk/special/france1815to2003/chapter1/interviews/filetodownload,20545,en.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120117152123/http://www.port.ac.uk/special/france1815to2003/chapter1/interviews/filetodownload%2C20545%2Cen.pdf |archive-date=17 January 2012}}; Jacques Hussenet (dir.), ''" Détruisez la Vendée ! " Regards croisés sur les victimes et destructions de la guerre de Vendée'', La Roche-sur-Yon, Centre vendéen de recherches historiques, 2007</ref> By the end of 1793, the allies had been driven from France.

Political disagreements and enmity in the National Convention reached unprecedented levels, leading to dozens of Convention members being sentenced to death and guillotined. Meanwhile, France's external wars in 1794 were prospering, for example in Belgium. In 1795, the government seemed to return to indifference towards the desires and needs of the lower classes concerning freedom of (Catholic) religion and fair distribution of food. Until 1799, politicians, apart from inventing a new parliamentary system (the '[[French Directory|Directory]]'), busied themselves with dissuading the people from Catholicism and royalism.