1791 in France
 |
| |||||
| Decades: | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| See also: | Other events of 1791 History of France • Timeline • Years | ||||
.svg)
Events from the year 1791 in France.
Incumbents
- Monarch: Louis XVI
- The Legislative Assembly (after 1 October)
Events
February
- 28 February – Day of Daggers.
March
- 2 March
- Claude Chappe and his brothers first demonstrated the optical telegraph.
- The abolition of guilds is enacted.
- March – The National Constituent Assembly accepts the recommendation of its Commission of Weights and Measures that the nation should adopt the metric system.
June
- 14 June – The Le Chapelier Law 1791 is passed.
- 20–21 June – During the Flight to Varennes, Louis XVI and his family attempt to escape Paris, but are instead arrested at Varennes.
July
- 17 July – French Revolution: The Champ de Mars massacre occurs in Paris.
.jpg)
August
- 21 August – Haitian Revolution: A slave rebellion breaks out in the French colony of Saint-Domingue.
- 27 August
- Declaration of Pillnitz: A proclamation by Frederick William II of Prussia and the Habsburg Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor, affirms their wish to "put the King of France in a state to strengthen the bases of monarchic government."
- Third Anglo-Mysore War: Battle of Tellicherry: Off the south-west coast of India: a British Royal Navy patrol forces a French convoy bound for Mysore to surrender.
- 29 August-5 September – 1791 French legislative election.
September
- 3 September – The French Constitution of 1791 is accepted.
- 4 September – Louis XVI receives the title of King of the French.
- 13 September – Louis XVI accepts the final version of the completed constitution.
- 14 September – The Papal States lose Avignon to France.
- 28 September – Law on Jewish emancipation is promulgated, the first such legislation in modern Europe.
October
- 1 October – The Legislative Assembly convenes.
- 6 October – The French Penal Code of 1791 is adopted.
- 16–17 October – Massacres of La Glacière.
- 28 October – The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen is published.
Ongoing
Births
- 28 January – Ferdinand Hérold, composer
- 26 May – Jean Vatout
- 30 June – Félix Savart, physicist
- 19 July – Odilon Barrot
- 26 September – Théodore Géricault, painter
- 17 November – Louis-Étienne de Thouvenin
- 24 December – Eugène Scribe
Deaths
- 2 April – Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, revolutionary leader
- 10 June – Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte, admiral
- 9 July – Jacques-Nicolas Tardieu, engraver
- 26 November – Nicolas Bricaire de la Dixmerie, man of letters
- 12 December – Etteilla, occult cartomancer
- 13 December – Mathieu Tillet, botanist
