This is a glossary of the French Revolution. It generally does not explicate names of individual people or their political associations; those can be found in List of people associated with the French Revolution.
The terminology routinely used in discussing the French Revolution can be confusing, even daunting. The same political faction may be referred to by different historians (or by the same historian in different contexts) by different names. During much of the revolutionary period, the French used a newly invented calendar that fell into complete disuse after the revolutionary era. Different legislative bodies had rather similar names, not always translated uniformly into English. This article is intended as a central place to clarify these issues.
Read more about Glossary Of The French Revolution: The Three Estates, Social Classes, Constitutions, Governmental Structures, Political Groupings, Ancien Régime Taxes, Months of The French Revolutionary Calendar, Events Commonly Known By Their Gregorian Dates, Events Commonly Known By Their Revolutionary Dates, War, Symbols, Religion, Other Terms
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“The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes. Change is the one quality we can predicate of it. The systems that fail are those that rely on the permanency of human nature, and not on its growth and development. The error of Louis XIV was that he thought human nature would always be the same. The result of his error was the French Revolution. It was an admirable result.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“They are our brothers, these freedom fighters.... They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance. We cannot turn away from them, for the struggle here is not right versus left; it is right versus wrong.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“I see every day more clearly the value, necessity, and sanative qualities of the three B’s: Bench, Ballot, Barricade.”
—Aurora C. Phelps, U.S. women’s magazine contributor. The Revolution (May 21, 1868)