British General John Burgoyne surrenders at the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777. He attempted to infiltrate the American colonies by entering from Canada. Just 12 years after this scene, the French Revolution began, having been influenced in part by the American struggle.
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The guillotine is named for Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin, who endeavored to commission a device that would deliver a swift and honorable death to people of all classes. Before the French Revolution, only nobles were executed by decapitation -- other lower-class capital criminals were subjected to burning, drowning and maiming.
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Alexandre Debelle's famous painting "The Day of the Tiles, 13 July 1788" captures the frenetic energy of an uprising in Grenoble that preceded the fall of the Bastille. Some historians claim that this was actually the start of the revolution.
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Today, France still celebrates Bastille Day. When the people stormed the Bastille, King Louis XVI finally got the hint that revolution was nigh.
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The chaos surrounding the fall of the Bastille resulted in bloody death and the desecration of the 14th-century fortress.
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The French tricolour with the motto "Live Free or Die," circa 1792
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When Parisian women marched to Versailles, they wanted two things: bread and Marie Antoinette's head. They triumphantly returned with flour and the entire royal family.
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A rendering of Louis and his family being captured in Varennes. The royal family had earlier disguised themselves as servants and escaped from the Tuileries in Paris, where they were being held.
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The royal family was moved to the Tuileries Palace. Not too shabby for political prisoners.
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A colored engraving shows the runaway royal family busted by French democrats. Large Louis and extravagant Marie Antoinette were apprehended in Varennes, just miles from the Austrian border. Some say the strong scent of the queen's perfume gave their whereabouts away.
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When Marie Antoinette stood trial for treason and counter-revolutionary activity, she quietly bore the charges. However, when she was accused of molesting her son, she passionately denied it.
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Louis Baader's painting of "The Last Morning of Marie Antoinette" is a little more polished than reality. On the morning of her execution, Marie Antoinette's hair was cropped close to her scalp, and she was wearing a threadbare underskirt, stained with the blood she'd been hemorrhaging for days.
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Reviled French queen Marie Antoinette seems to glow supernaturally in this oil on canvas painting. She was put to death at the guillotine on Oct. 16, 1793.
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Marie Antoinette's last inscription in her prayer book, which reads, "My God, have pity on me! My eyes have no more tears to cry for you my poor children; adieu! adieu!"
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Louis XVI's execution, on Jan. 20, 1793, nearly split the National Convention in half. While some wanted to see the monarch pay for his crimes against the state, others weren't so sure he should be sent to the guillotine.
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In this engraving, titled "The Awakening of the Third Estate," an aristocrat and clergyman are horrified to see a man casting off the shackles of his class. Theorist Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes wrote that "Nothing can succeed without [the Third Estate]."
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Sensational revolutionary journalist Jean Paul Marat was murdered by Charlotte Corday as he lay soaking in a medicinal bath. She committed this premeditated murder with a dinner knife, hoping his death would signal the end of the revolution.
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Charlotte Corday was sentenced to die at the guillotine on July 17, 1793, for the murder of Marat. The executioner claimed that the eyes in Corday's severed head glared defiantly at him. This set a precedent for executioners to order a victim to blink his or her eyes after the blade came down, their belief being that people could blink their eyes for 30 seconds after they'd been decapitated.
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Voltaire was the leading philosopher of the Enlightenment.
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Circa 1755: Swiss-born French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778).
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Maximilien de Robespierre, an Enlightenment thinker, dared to ask why only the Third Estate had to pay taxes. He would later demand for people to worship reason and to join the Cult of the Supreme Being, much less sensible things to ask.
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Jean Joseph Weerts' haunting oil on canvas painting of "The Vision of Robespierre." As the revolution bore on, the once respectable lawyer and politician became power-hungry and unhinged.
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The French people turned against Maximilien Robespierre, orchestrator of the Great Fear and mastermind of the revolution. He tried to avert death at the guillotine by committing suicide, but he only succeeded in blowing off his jaw -- an agonizing injury.
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A French Revolutionary-era Phrygian cap is patched with a red, white and blue cockade. The Phyrgian cap has been a symbol of liberty since antiquity.
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This oil on canvas painting illustrates a scene from the Battle of Cholet, a skirmish that took place during the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793.
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This watercolor image on cardstock shows the motley assortment of people to whom the French Revolution gave a voice. Any French citizen who wasn't a member of the aristocracy or clergy wanted liberty, equality, brotherhood and bread.
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The 1791 slave rebellion in Santo Domingo, which gave way to the Haitian Revolution, was inspired, in part, by the French Revolution. The world was rife with revolutionary fervor, given that the French Revolution, in turn, had been influenced by the American Revolution.
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James Gillray's print "Promis'd Horrors of the French Invasion" imagines "monarch-killers" descending upon Britain during Napoleon's campaign. The cartoon was meant to ridicule the Whig mindset that peace could be achieved with the French.
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This Eugene Delacroix painting, "Liberty Leading the People, 1830," depicts the French rising up against Charles X. After Napoleon's death, Louis XVI's brother reclaimed the throne for the Bourbon family, but he was eventually ousted. The tricolour of the French Revolution flies above.
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Napoleon Bonaparte, the answer to France's monarchical and Republican woes.
Now that you've seen these depictions of La Grande Révolution's major players and incidents take our French Revolution quiz and see what you've gleaned from this gallery.
Image Credit: Hippolyte Delaroche
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