The French Revolution

Question 1

What name was commonly used for the Society of the Friends of the Constitution, an off-shoot of the Breton Club?

Answer 1

Jacobins

Question 2

Which former Director-General of Finance was recalled to his post in 1788 and agreed that the Estates-General should be summoned for the first time in over 170 years?

Answer 2

Jacques Necker

Question 3

Where was the Tennis Court in which the Third Estate took an oath in 1789 to never disband until a written constitution had been established for France?

Answer 3

Versailles Palace

Question 4

Which group got its name because its members sat on the highest benches in the assembly?

Answer 4

Montagnards (Men of the Mountains)

Question 5

Whose last words to his executioner in 1794 were “Show my head to the people. It is worth the trouble”?

Answer 5

Georges Danton

Question 6

What innovation was designed by the playwright and poet Fabre d’Eglantine and adopted by the convention in 1793, despite being privately opposed by Robespierre?

Answer 6

The Revolutionary Calendar

Question 7

Which civic religion did Robespierre create to replace Christianity and the Cult of Reason

Answer 7

Cult of the Supreme Being

Question 8

Which English radical was elected to represent Calais in 1793 as a Deputy to the National Assembly?

Answer 8

Thomas Paine

Question 9

Which item of clothing, a symbol of freedom in Ancient Rome, was adopted by the revolutionaries as a symbol of their cause?

Answer 9

Phrygian Cap of Liberty - Bonnet Rouge

Question 10

Which political group were also known as the Brissotins, after their founder Jacque-Pierre Brissot?

Answer 10

Girondins

Question 11

What was the name of the Girondin sympathiser who murdered Jean-Paul Marat on 13 July 1793 while he was taking a bath?

Answer 11

Charlotte Corday

Question 12

In June 1791, the Royal Family escaped from Paris. In which town were they arrested and turned back to the capital?

Answer 12

Varennes

Question 13

Which body was established in April 1793 to work alongside the Committee of General Security?

Answer 13

Committee of Public Safety

Question 14

Which painter and revolutionary, who was later banised to Brussels by the Bourbons, created pictures of the Tennis Court Oath and the Death of Murat

Answer 14

Jacques-Louis David

Question 15

Which agreement of 1790 effectively turned the clergy into employees of the state?

Answer 15

Civil Constitution of the Church

Question 16

What was the name of the Roman Catholic priest who was the confessor to Louis XVI on the night before his execution, and was with him as he mounted the steps to the guillotine?

Answer 16

Abbé Edgeworth

Question 17

Which title did the Prince known as Prince Egalité renounce after the fall of the monarchy in 1792?

Answer 17

Duke of Orleans

Question 18

What name was given to the extreme radicals, led by Jacque Roux, who were concerned primarily with the critical food shortage of 1793, and attacked the Girondins in the Convention

Answer 18

Enragés

Question 19

Who composed the song that became known as La Marseillaise?

Answer 19

Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle

Question 20

To what position was Napoleon Bonaparte appointed under the Constitution of December 1799? It was later confirmed by a public referendum

Answer 20

First Consul

Question 21

By what nickname was the journalist Francois-Noel Babeuf known, because his agrarian reforms resembled those of a second century BC Roman Statesman

Answer 21

Gracchus

Question 22

What alternative name was gien to the Jour Complimentaires, the spare days in the Revolutionary calendar that resulted from the year being made up of twelve 30 day months?

Answer 22

Sans Coulttides or Jours Epagomenes

Question 23

Which frequently vulgar newspaper was established by Jacque-René Hébert and became the best selling newspaper after the death of Marat?

Answer 23

Le Père Duchense

Question 24

On the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, where in Paris did the Fête de la Federation take place?

Answer 24

Champs de Mars

Question 25

Joseph Foucé crushed a revolt against the Convention in which major city in 1793? His brutality against un-armed civilans leading to a rift with Robespierre

Answer 25

Lyons

Question 26

What was the name of Robespierre’s brother, who was guillotined along with him during the Thermidorean Reaction?

Answer 26

Augustin

Question 27

What name was given to the smaller of the two Chambers of the Directory?

Answer 27

Council of Elders

Question 28

Which date in 1792 was adopted as the beginning of Year One of the French Revolutionary Calendar and renamed primidi vendemiaire?

Answer 28

22 September

Question 29

In 1792, at which battle did the French defeat an allied army led by the Duke of Brunswick?

Answer 29

Valmy

Question 30

Which politician and lawyer was President of the National Convention and a member of the Committee of Public Safety. He was later guillotined alongside Danton

Answer 30

Marie-Jean Herault de Sechelles