1791 in France

Incumbents

• Monarch: Louis XVI
• The Legislative Assembly

  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

• 11 July – The ashes of Voltaire are transferred to the Panthéon in Paris.
• 17 July – French Revolution: The Champ de Mars massacre occurs in Paris.

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

• French Revolution

  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