After the coup, the Law of Brumaire established a new government under the direction of three consuls although Napoleon held the real power as First Consul.
21st June 1919: The German High Seas naval fleet is scuttled at Scapa Flow
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Having been found guilty of treason, she was instead sentenced to death and transported to the guillotine in an open cart.
The demonstrators soon surrounded the palace and demanded an audience with the king, who met with a small delegation of women, but tensions escalated as the palace was broken into and some royal guards were beaten or even killed by the mob.
The Reign of Terror began in France when Bertrand Barère, a member of the Committee of Public Safety, made a speech in favour of it that ended with the exclamation, “Let’s make terror the order of the day!”
With the prisons full of suspected counter-revolutionaries, the radical journalist and politician Jean-Paul Marat urged the citizens of Paris to take up arms and eliminate these ‘enemies of the revolution’.
The levée en masse affected the entire population and represented an unprecedented move by a government, as it extended the responsibility of national defence beyond professional soldiers to the general population.
In his proclamation he also released all the states and princes of the Empire from their oaths of loyalty to him but continued to rule as Francis I, Emperor of Austria.
The turning point came when the French flagship, L’Orient, caught fire and exploded. The massive blast illuminated the night sky and demoralized the French sailors.
In an attempt to evade capture Robespierre only succeeded in shattering his jaw when he reputedly attempted to shoot himself with a pistol, and spent the rest of the night on a table in the Committee of General Security before he was executed by guillotine.
The French declaration of war was part of a broader strategy by the revolutionary government to pre-empt foreign intervention and unite the French people behind the revolutionary cause.
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