Title: The French Revolution
Headings: 
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
JULY 14, 1789 AND THE ORIGINS OF BASTILLE DAY
WOMEN AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
ROBESPIERRE AND THE TERROR
TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE AND THE SLAVE REVOLT
IN SAINT DOMINGUE
THE VENDÉE
NAPOLEON

Content: Still, as considerable historiography has shown, one should not assume that because a woman could becomes a powerful symbol of revolution that women obtained any significant political, social, or economic advantages during the French Revolution. As Joan Landes has argued, "Marianne" was nothing more than a picture; the new Republic was a discursive republic based on laws and texts, which emptied the symbol of any real political significance. ROBESPIERRE AND THE TERROR
On June 20, 1791, after revolutionaries had turned parish priests into civil servants who had to swear allegiance to a secular, national, state, Louis Capet, King of France, fled Paris with his family, hoping to meet up with Austrian forces, which would help him restore the traditional monarchy. He was recognized and captured at Varennes, brought back to Paris, then executed after a trial on January 21, 1793. In the midst of war abroad and severe economic crises at home, the French Revolution moved into a second phase after the King's death, which emphasized social equality and fraternity whereas the earliest years of the revolution accentuated liberty. Men and women from the working class, believing that they had received few benefits from the revolution, began to demand universal suffrage and participatory democracy. Eventually, Maximilien Robespierre, a lawyer from Arras, emerged as the head of the Jacobin Club when it gained control of the National Convention. When the National Convention conveyed power to the twelve member Committee of Public Safety, of which Robespierre was a member, he gradually assumed dictatorial control of the country. Often thought to have been a disciple of the philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau because of his early defense of the principles of direct democracy, Robespierre later defended some forms of representation and then rhetorically identified the interests of the people with those of the Convention and the Committee of Public Safety.