Monarchy to Republic

Monarchy to Republic
Main articles: France in the long nineteenth century and France in the twentieth century
See also: French Revolution, Napoleonic era, and French colonial empire
The Storming of the Bastille, on 14 July 1789, was the starting event of the French Revolution.

After the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, the absolute monarchy was abolished and France became a constitutional monarchy. Through the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the French Republic established fundamental rights for French citizens and all men without exception. The Declaration affirms "the natural and imprescriptible rights of man" to "liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression". It called for the destruction of aristocratic privileges by proclaiming an end to exemptions from taxation, freedom and equal rights for all men, and access to public office based on talent rather than birth. The monarchy was restricted, and all citizens were to have the right to take part in the legislative process. Freedom of speech and press were declared, and arbitrary arrests outlawed. The Declaration also asserted the principles of popular sovereignty, in contrast to the divine right of kings that characterized the French monarchy, and social equality among citizens, eliminating the privileges of the nobility and clergy.
Napoleon I, Empereur des Français, built a Great Empire across Europe.

In 1792, the French Republic was proclaimed. As European monarchies attacked the new Republic to restore the French monarchy, Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, were convicted of treason and guillotined in 1793. Facing increasing pressures from European monarchies and facing internal guerrilla wars and counterrevolutions, like the War in the Vendée or the Chouannerie, the young Republic fell into the Reign of Terror, between 1793 and 1794, where 16,000 to 40,000 persons were executed. In Western France, the civil war between the Bleus (the "Blues", supporters of the Revolution) and the Blancs (the "Whites", supporters of the Monarchy) last from 1793 to 1796 and cost around 450,000 lives (200,000 Patriotes and 250,000 Vendéens).[42] Both foreign armies and French counterrevolutionnaries were crushed and the French Republic survived. Furthermore, the French Republic extended greatly its boundaries, following its victories, and established "Sister Republics" in the surrounding countries.