# 1791 in France

Events from the year 1791 in France.

## Incumbents

* Monarch: Louis XVI
* The Legislative Assembly (after 1 October)

## Events
### January

* On 28 January Robespierre discussed the organisation of the National Guard in the Assembly; for three years a hot topic in French newspapers.

### February

* 28 February – Day of Daggers; a confrontation between the guards and nobles.

### March

* 2 March
** Claude Chappe and his brothers first demonstrated the optical telegraph.
** Early March provincial militias were abolished and the Département de Paris was placed above the Paris Commune (1789-1795) in all matters of general order and security.
* March – The National Constituent Assembly accepts the recommendation of its Commission of Weights and Measures that the nation should adopt the metric system.

### May

* On 9 May, the Assembly discussed the right to petition.
* On Sunday 15 May the Constituent Assembly declared full and equal citizenship for all free people of color.
* On 16–18 May when the elections began, Robespierre proposed and carried the motion that no deputy who sat in the Constituent assembly could sit in the succeeding Legislative assembly.
* On 28 May, Robespierre proposed all Frenchmen should be declared active citizens and eligible to vote.
* On 30 May, Robespierre delivered a speech on the abolishment of the death penalty but without success.

### June

* 14 June – The abolition of the guild system was sealed; the Le Chapelier Law 1791 passed, which prohibited any kind of workers' coalition or assembly.
* 20–21 June – During the Flight to Varennes, Louis XVI and his family attempt to escape Paris, but are instead arrested at Varennes.

### July

* 11 July – The ashes of Voltaire are transferred to the Panthéon. An estimated million people attended the procession.
* Between 13 and 15 July the Assembly debated the restoration of the king and his constitutional rights.
* Saturday 17 July – The Champ de Mars massacre occurs in Paris. Jean Sylvain Bailly and Marquis de LaFayette declared a ban on gathering followed by martial law.
* 19 July, the King was restored in his functions.

### 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.
* On 29 September, the day before the dissolution of the Assembly, Robespierre opposed Jean Le Chapelier, who wanted to proclaim an end to the revolution and restrict the freedom of the clubs.

### October

* 1 October – The Legislative Assembly convenes.
* 6 October – The French Penal Code of 1791 is adopted.
* On 14 October a law passed to reorganize the Garde Nationale in cantons and districts; officers and sub-officers were to be elected for only one year.
* 16–17 October – Massacres of La Glacière.
* 28 October – The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen is published.

### November

* On 16 November 1791 Pétion de Villeneuve was elected mayor of Paris in a contest against Lafayette.

## 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