For more than a century before the accession of King Louis XVI in 1774, the French government had undergone economic crisis, resulting from wars during the reign of Louis XIV, the losses brought from the the French and Indian War in1756-63, and debts from loans to the American colonies during the American Revolution 1775-83.

The event at the end of the eighteenth century that ended the thousand-year rule of kings in France and established the nation as a Republic. The revolution began in 1789, after King Louis XVI had the French Parlament deal with an enormous national debt. Things such as corruption and authoritarianism of of the ancient regime, extortion through taxation of the poor peasants led to the revolution. They were tired of being starved and abused by their arrogant kind, and the rising middle class was tired of being excluded from power by the aristocracy.

The French Revolution led to the development of a a much more powerful state than had ever existed before. More organization, more efficient, more centralized, and brought the masses into the political process and touched every aspect of society. A new religion: "Supreme Being" and a new calendar, with 12 renamed months, were invented. For the first time, all the French people became partners in nationhood. The French Revolution put an end to the old style of gentlemanly warfare, and became a popular army fueled by patriotism. By the 18th century roads and maps were better. Military theorist were teaching new principles involving massive troop concentrations a a new kind of mobile warfare.

The common people's division of the parliament declared itself the true legislature of France, and when the king seemed to resist the move, a crowd destroyed the royal prison (the Bastille") A constitutional monarchy was set up, but after King Louis and his queen , Marie Antoninette, tried to flee the country, they were arrested, tried for treason an were beheaded.

The Kings followers and monarchies of Europe were horrified when the king was beheaded in 1793. (Constitutional Monarchy: A form of national government in which the power of the monarch (king or queen) is restrained by a parliament, by law, or by custom. Several nations, especially in modern times, have passed from Absolute Monarchy to a constitutional monarchy, including Britian, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain.) Britain, Holland, Spain, Austria and Prussia formed a coalition to attack France while it was disorganized and weakened by internal conflict.

In Toulon, royalist supporters of the guillotined king had called in the British to help them fight the revolutionary government, which had sent troops to lay siege to Toulon and recapture it. The soldiers were untrained and short on supplies.

Control of the government passed to Robespierre and other radicals, the extreme Jacobins and the Reign of Terror followed in 1793, when thousands of French nobles and others considered enemies of the revolution were executed. After a new ruling body, the Directory, came into power. Its incompetence and corruption allowed Napoleon Bonaparte to emerge in 1799 as dictator and, eventually, to become emperor. Napoleans's ascent to power is considered the official end of the revolution.

Captain Napoleon Bonaparte who was 24 years old, was on his way to a minor post on the Italian front, decided to make a stop at Toulon. The officer in charge of the French artillery had been badly wounded, and Napoleon Bonaparte was offered the command. This was the begining of one of the most meteoric rises to fame and power the world has ever known.

Napoleon Bonaparte had appeared at a point in history when all his talents could only send him to the top of this new kind of state that was so well geared to a new kind of warfare.

After studying the situation, he saw that the entire siege was poorly organized and moved cannons to better positions, brought in food, horses, ammunition and guns, trained his men and then proceeded to direct all his firepower on the one weak spot in the enemy defenses. The British were pushed out of their strongest position and a few days later Napoleon Bonaparte was promoted to the rank of major and after beating back a British attack, he was promoted to adjutant general. By December, he was a brigadier general, after storming the gates of Toulon.

On August 10, 1792, Napoleon was in Paris when the rabble invaded the Tuileries palace and took the king prisoner. Two months later Napoleon returned to Corsica. Some of the Corsican revolutionaries had turned against France and were trying to break away from the revolutionary government in Paris. Napoleon opposed them and fought on the side of the Corsicans who remained loyal to France. In April 1793 Corsica plunged into civil war, and Napoleon left for France, taking the Bonaparte family with him.

During his seven and a half years in the French service, he had actually been on duty for only 30 months. He was still more attached to Corsica than to France. But by the time of his dramatic victory at Toulon, Napoleon had decided to tie his destiny to France.

"We have finished the romance of the Revolution, we must now begin its history, only seeking for what is real and practicable in the application of its principles, and not what is speculative and hypothetical."

Cultural Literacy and Essay on Leadership Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.