The French Revolution – answers and explanations
Here are the answers to all 15 questions in the The French Revolution quiz, each with a short explanation. From the Bastille to Bonaparte — test your knowledge of France's great upheaval. Haven't played yet? Take the quiz first and compare your score.
Play the quiz · 15 questions1. In June 1789 the Third Estate broke away and declared itself what new body?
Answer: The National Assembly
On 17 June 1789 the deputies of the Third Estate, deadlocked with the clergy and nobility over voting by head rather than by order, proclaimed themselves the National Assembly at Versailles, claiming to represent the nation itself.
2. How many prisoners were actually being held in the Bastille when it was stormed?
Answer: Seven
When the Paris crowd took the Bastille on 14 July 1789 it held just seven inmates: four forgers, two men confined as insane, and a young aristocrat jailed at his family's request. The attackers were mainly after the gunpowder stored there.
3. Queen Marie Antoinette was born a princess of which country?
Answer: Austria
Marie Antoinette was born Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria at the Hofburg in Vienna on 2 November 1755, the youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa, and married the future Louis XVI in 1770 to cement the Franco-Austrian alliance.
4. Which nickname did contemporaries give to Maximilien Robespierre?
Answer: The Incorruptible
Maximilien Robespierre was called l'Incorruptible from around 1790 because of his rigid devotion to revolutionary virtue and refusal of personal gain; he was guillotined on 28 July 1794.
5. Which French king was executed by guillotine in January 1793?
Answer: Louis XVI
Louis XVI was tried by the National Convention and guillotined in Paris on 21 January 1793.
6. Louis XVI's June 1791 flight from France ended with his arrest in which town?
Answer: Varennes
On the night of 20-21 June 1791 Louis XVI and his family fled Paris in disguise, heading for the royalist fortress of Montmedy, but were stopped and arrested at Varennes-en-Argonne after postmaster Jean-Baptiste Drouet recognised the king.
7. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, namesake of the guillotine, had which profession?
Answer: Doctor
Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (1738-1814) was a French physician and deputy who on 10 October 1789 proposed a swift mechanical beheading device as a less painful, equal punishment; the prototype was actually designed by surgeon Antoine Louis.
8. On which date does France celebrate the storming of the Bastille?
Answer: 14 July
The Bastille was stormed on 14 July 1789, and the date became France's national holiday in 1880.
9. Which committee, dominated by Robespierre, ran France during the Reign of Terror?
Answer: The Committee of Public Safety
Created by the National Convention in April 1793, the Committee of Public Safety became France's de facto executive, and after Robespierre joined on 27 July 1793 it directed the Reign of Terror until his fall a year later.
10. What title did Napoleon Bonaparte hold immediately after seizing power in 1799?
Answer: First Consul
After the coup of 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799) Napoleon became a provisional consul and then First Consul under the Constitution of the Year VIII; he only took the title Emperor of the French in 1804.
11. Complete the revolutionary motto: 'Liberty, Equality, ...'
Answer: Fraternity
'Liberté, égalité, fraternité' arose during the Revolution and later became the official motto of the French Republic.
12. What were the Paris crowds mainly after when they stormed the Bastille in July 1789?
Answer: Gunpowder and weapons
On 14 July 1789 Parisians attacked the Bastille chiefly to seize the roughly 250 barrels of gunpowder stored there. They had already looted some 30,000 muskets from the Hotel des Invalides that morning but lacked powder for them; only seven prisoners were inside.
13. Which radical journalist was stabbed in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday in 1793?
Answer: Jean-Paul Marat
Jean-Paul Marat, radical publisher of L'Ami du Peuple, was stabbed in his medicinal bath on 13 July 1793 by Charlotte Corday, a Girondin sympathiser from Normandy. She was guillotined four days later, and the scene inspired David's painting The Death of Marat.
14. What is the name of France's national anthem, written in 1792?
Answer: La Marseillaise
La Marseillaise was written in 1792 by Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle and is named after volunteers from Marseille who sang it marching into Paris.
15. In 1798 Napoleon led a famous military expedition to which country?
Answer: Egypt
Napoleon's expedition sailed from Toulon on 19 May 1798 and landed near Alexandria on 1 July, aiming to threaten British trade routes to India. It brought about 150 scholars whose work, including the Rosetta Stone find, launched modern Egyptology.