• 48 strips
  • Checked October 2026

Comic Ideas for the French Revolution

One comic strip per press about the French Revolution, from the price of bread to the ten-hour clock.

Comic Ideas for the French Revolution

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  1. Five days left over at the end of the year1. Twelve months of thirty days: a clerk adds them up and gets 360.2. The year is five days longer, six in a leap year.3. The spare days go at the very end, with no month of their own.Fact: They were placed after the last month and called complementary days.

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Causes 12

  • A meeting nobody alive has ever seen 1. The king summons the Estates General to solve a money crisis. 2. Nobody alive has been to one. Clerks open the old chests to see how it is done. 3. One holds up the last set of papers. The date on them is 1614. Fact: The Estates General that opened on 5 May 1789 was the first since 1614.
  • A peddler pays a different tax in every province 1. First province: the peddler pays one rate. 2. Across the river: another rate, and another rule. 3. Third province: the collector names an amount that is on no list. Fact: Tax rates differed greatly between regions and were collected inconsistently.
  • A village writes its complaints and the pigeons make the list 1. Early 1789: the king orders lists of grievances from all three estates. 2. A village meets around one table. "Taxes." "Tithes." 3. "And the dovecote. Those pigeons are in our seed again." 4. The list is folded and sent on its way to Versailles. Fact: One parish asked that dovecotes be shut at planting and harvest so the pigeons could not leave.
  • An apprentice learns who gets to be the master 1. An apprentice sweeps the workshop and pictures his own shop sign. 2. Years on he is a journeyman, still at another man's bench. 3. The master retires. The shop goes to the master's son. 4. The journeyman compares notes with journeymen from other trades. Fact: Guilds limited the number of masters, and a mastership tended to pass down within a family.
  • Did the queen really say let them eat cake? 1. A storyteller begins: "The people had no bread, and the queen said..." 2. A historian raises a hand: "Check the date first." 3. She opens a book written in 1765. The line is already in it. 4. That year the future queen is nine and has never been to France. Fact: There is no evidence that the queen ever said it.
  • The harvest of 1788 has a very bad year 1. Spring 1788: a field cracks in a drought. 2. Summer: storms and floods flatten what did grow. 3. A farmer drives home with a nearly empty cart. Fact: Poor 1787 and 1788 harvests brought high food prices and unemployment.
  • The royal treasury has a small sack and a big one 1. A treasurer tips out a sack marked income: 475 million livres. 2. Beside it stands a bigger sack marked spending. 3. He chalks the gap on a slate: about 150 million short, every year. Fact: France was heavily in debt, in part from the money it gave the Americans in their war against Britain.
  • The same loaf costs more every week 1. A Paris worker counts out coins at the baker's door. 2. A week later the same loaf costs more. 3. The week after, the coins run short and the line is longer. 4. The whole line turns to the baker and complains. Fact: Bread was the staple of most city diets, so a sharp rise in its price was protested at once at bakers' shops.
  • Talent knocks at a door marked Birth Only 1. A door with a sign: "Birth only." A clever clerk waits outside. 2. Writers of the Enlightenment arrive with a new sign: "Talent." 3. The clerk holds one sign in each hand and looks at the door. Fact: Enlightenment writers proposed that talent, not birth, should decide a person's standing.
  • Ten paper figures stand in for all of France 1. Ten cut-out figures in a row, each standing for about three million people. 2. Eight of them walk off to villages. 3. Two are left to share every town and city. Fact: Of nearly 30 million French people, about 80 percent lived in villages of 2,000 or fewer.
  • Three men reach the tax collector's table 1. A clergyman passes the table with a nod. 2. A noble passes with a bow. 3. A commoner stops and turns out his pockets. Fact: The clergy and the nobles were exempt from most taxes, including the taille, the main direct tax.
  • Twice the deputies, still one vote in three 1. Good news for the commoners: the king doubles the Third Estate's deputies. 2. They count heads and cheer. 3. Then the old rule is read out: each order votes as one. 4. Clergy and nobles, two votes. Commoners, one. Fact: Doubling the deputies only counted if the vote was taken by head and not by order.

1789 12

  • A drum in the market starts a long walk 1. 5 October, morning: a young woman beats a drum at the edge of the market. 2. Market women gather, angry at the price of bread. 3. They set off for Versailles in the autumn rain. 4. About six hours later: the palace gates. 5. Next day the royal family rides back to Paris with the crowd. Fact: By the return on 6 October the crowd had grown to more than sixty thousand.
  • A fortress with seven prisoners 1. 14 July: all Paris is looking at the towers of the Bastille. 2. Inside, a jailer counts his prisoners on his fingers and stops at seven. 3. By nightfall the fortress has fallen and the city has a date to remember. Fact: The Bastille held only seven prisoners and was already scheduled for demolition.
  • Article one in a speech balloon 1. 26 August 1789: a deputy reads from a fresh page. 2. "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights." 3. Outside the hall an errand boy repeats it under his breath. Fact: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was adopted on 26 August 1789.
  • The king tells everyone to sit together after all 1. Late June: clergy cross the floor to the National Assembly a few at a time. 2. 27 June: the king orders the rest to follow. 3. Three orders, one room, and not enough chairs. Fact: On 27 June the king commanded the first two estates to sit with the third in the National Assembly.
  • Locked out, so they borrow a tennis court 1. 20 June, morning: the deputies find the door of their hall locked and guarded. 2. "Where now?" Someone points to an indoor tennis court nearby. 3. The court fills from wall to wall. 4. Every hand goes up: they will not separate until France has a constitution. Fact: 576 of the 577 Third Estate deputies took the oath.
  • The old papers in the manor chest 1. Villagers knock at the manor. They ask for one thing: the chest of old papers. 2. The papers that list what the village owes go on a bonfire. 3. The villagers walk home. Fact: In most cases the peasants left once the papers of feudal privilege were destroyed.
  • The one deputy who did not join in 1. Deputy after deputy raises a hand to take the oath. 2. One man keeps his hand down. 3. He answers to the king alone, he says. Fact: The only deputy who did not join said he would carry out only decisions made by the monarch.
  • The pigeons lose their privilege 1. Before: a lord's pigeons feast in a farmer's field, and the farmer can only watch. 2. The night of 4 August: the Assembly votes the old rights away. 3. After: at sowing time the dovecote door is shut. Fact: The August Decrees ended the exclusive right to keep a dovecote, and pigeons had to be locked up at set times.
  • Six weeks of arguing about how to count 1. May 1789: the nobles and clergy say, "Vote by order." 2. The commoners say, "Vote by head." 3. A wall calendar sheds its pages: six weeks, nothing decided. Fact: The dispute paralyzed the Estates General for six weeks, until the Third Estate declared itself the National Assembly on 17 June.
  • The summer of 1789 in six dated panels 1. 5 May: the Estates General opens. 2. 17 June: the Third Estate becomes the National Assembly. 3. 20 June: the oath in the tennis court. 4. 14 July: the Bastille falls. 5. 4 August: feudal rights are voted away. 6. 26 August: the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
  • Twelve hundred deputies wait for one king 1. 5 May 1789, Versailles: the deputies of all three estates fill one hall and wait. 2. Midday: the king arrives and takes his seat on a dais. 3. Every deputy hopes the first speech is about his own district's troubles. Fact: 1,208 deputies sat in the Estates General of 1789.
  • Two villages frighten each other all night 1. Late July: a rumor runs down the road. "Brigands are coming." 2. The first village rings its church bell and crowds to the gate. 3. The second village sees a crowd at a gate. "Brigands." It rings its bell too. 4. Dawn: both are still waiting for an enemy who is each other. Fact: In the Great Fear, 22 July to 6 August 1789, villages mistook their neighbors for brigands.

The republic 12

  • A club of their own 1. May 1793: women in Paris found their own political club. 2. First on the agenda: the shortage of food. 3. Late October: the Convention debates the women's clubs and shuts them. Fact: The best known was the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, founded in Paris in May 1793.
  • A laborer joins the line to vote 1. 1792: a notice calls an election for a new Convention. 2. A day laborer, 21 years old, reads it twice. 3. He joins the line behind a lawyer and a landowner. Fact: The Convention was the first French assembly elected without distinctions of class: men of 21 or older who lived by their work could vote.
  • A liter of water on a balance 1. A cube is filled with exactly one liter of water. 2. It goes on one pan of a balance. 3. The weight that levels it gets a new name: the kilogram. Fact: The kilogram came from the mass of one liter of water, and a reference copy was made in platinum.
  • A price list nailed to the shop door 1. September 1793: a law caps the price of grain, flour, soap and firewood. 2. A shopkeeper nails the list where every customer can read it. 3. A customer reads it twice, then counts her coins again. Fact: Under the General Maximum of 29 September 1793 merchants had to post their maximum prices in plain view.
  • A song walks from Marseille to Paris 1. 1792, Strasbourg: a new song is written for the army of the Rhine. 2. Volunteers in Marseille take it up. 3. They sing it on the road to Paris and enter the city on 30 July. 4. Paris names the song after the singers. Fact: The Convention adopted it as the republic's anthem in 1795.
  • A week with ten days and one day off 1. A baker reads the new calendar: twelve months, each of three ten-day weeks. 2. He counts on his fingers to the day of rest. 3. Day seven, working. Day nine, still working. 4. Day ten, asleep on a flour sack. Fact: The tenth day, called décadi, took over from Sunday as rest day.
  • The clockmaker paints a ten-hour dial 1. A clockmaker paints a new dial with ten hours on it. 2. A customer squints at it: "So noon is five o'clock?" 3. The clockmaker sighs and paints the old numbers around the edge as well. Fact: The day was divided into 10 hours of 100 minutes each. Mandatory use was suspended on 7 April 1795.
  • Every day of the year gets a name from the farm 1. A girl asks what today is called. Her mother opens the almanac: a plant. 2. Day five of the ten is an animal. 3. Day ten is a farm tool. 4. The girl works out whether her birthday is a plant, an animal or a tool. Fact: Every tenth day was named after a farm tool and every fifth after a common animal. Most of the rest were plants.
  • Five days left over at the end of the year 1. Twelve months of thirty days: a clerk adds them up and gets 360. 2. The year is five days longer, six in a leap year. 3. The spare days go at the very end, with no month of their own. Fact: They were placed after the last month and called complementary days.
  • Ten of these make one of those: the new money 1. 1795: a market stall, and a customer puzzling over her change. 2. A new coin is put in her hand: the franc. 3. She counts it out: ten décimes, a hundred centimes. Fact: The franc became the national currency in 1795 as a decimal unit.
  • Two astronomers measure France to make the meter 1. 1792: two astronomers set out along one line, one toward Dunkirk, one toward Barcelona. 2. They measure the land between in a chain of triangles. 3. The job takes more than six years. 4. A bar of platinum becomes the standard meter. Fact: The meter was set at a ten-millionth of the way from the North Pole to the Equator.
  • The year gets a new number 1. September 1792: the Convention replaces the monarchy with a republic. 2. A clerk dips his pen to date the next page. 3. He stops, then writes "Year I" at the top. Fact: The republican calendar counted from 22 September 1792, the first day of Year I.

What it left 12

  • A map cut into pieces a day's ride across 1. 1790: mapmakers divide France into 83 departments. 2. The rule: every settlement within a day's ride of its department's capital. 3. The new names come from rivers and other features of the land, not from the old provinces. 4. Today the map still has departments. Fact: France now has 101 departments, 96 of them in metropolitan France.
  • A new word for a new kind of argument 1. Before 1789: most people live under the kind of government their ancestors knew. 2. After 1789: every kind of government has to explain itself. 3. A new word appears for a worked-out idea of how a country should be run: ideology. Fact: The word ideology was first used during the French Revolution.
  • An argument crosses the Channel 1. 1790: a member of the British Parliament writes a book against the Revolution. 2. 1791: another writer answers with a defense of the rights of man. 3. 1792: a third asks about the rights of women. Fact: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, of 1792, argued that women should be educated like men.
  • The king's lands become the nation 1. Before: a map of France labeled "the king's lands." 2. During: the label is crossed out. 3. After: a new label, "the nation," and mapmakers abroad start to copy it. Fact: Modern nationalism began in France during the revolutionary decade.
  • Later revolutions open the costume trunk 1. A trunk labeled 1789: names, colors, songs, festivals. 2. Revolutionaries of the next century lift the lid and help themselves. 3. A historian wonders whether every revolution follows the same script. Fact: Nineteenth-century revolutionaries took up the names, terms, colors and rituals of the French Revolution.
  • The meter is refused, then returns 1. A cloth seller measures with the new meter stick. 2. Her customers ask for the old measures, and in 1812 the old names come back. 3. 1840: the metric system is the law again. 4. Today: a ruler in a pencil case, marked in centimeters. Fact: The metric system later spread to the whole world.
  • The nation starts keeping its papers 1. Before 1790: old charters and records are kept in many separate places. 2. 1790: a national archive is created. 3. Today: a reader fills in a slip and a box of old papers arrives at her desk. Fact: The Archives nationales were created in 1790 and preserve the archives of the French state.
  • One law book for the whole country 1. Before: the law changes from place to place, a patchwork of local customs. 2. 1804: one Civil Code for all of France. 3. Today: the same code, much amended, on a lawyer's shelf. Fact: The Civil Code of 1804 is still in force in France.
  • Sit on the left, sit on the right 1. 1789: the Assembly's hall, the president's chair in the middle. 2. Supporters of the old order take the seats to his right. 3. Supporters of the revolution gather on his left, and the two words stick. Fact: Left and right in politics come from this seating.
  • Ten years in six panels 1. 1789: the Estates General, the Bastille, the Declaration. 2. 1790: departments on the map and a festival in Paris. 3. 1792: the republic. 4. 1793: a new calendar. 5. 1795: the Directory and the franc. 6. 1799: the coup of 18 Brumaire. Fact: The Revolution is dated from 1789 to 1799.
  • Three inventions set out and one arrives 1. The ten-hour clock: no longer required after 1795. 2. The republican calendar: abolished on 1 January 1806. 3. The meter: still on the ruler. Fact: The calendar was adopted on 24 October 1793, so it lasted about twelve years.
  • Why 14 July is a holiday twice over 1. 14 July 1789: the Bastille falls. 2. 14 July 1790: a festival of unity, on a field that volunteers with wheelbarrows helped build. 3. 1880: France makes 14 July its national day. Fact: The holiday marks both anniversaries. It was made official on 6 July 1880.

How it works

These comic ideas for the French Revolution each give a premise and what happens in every panel: a loaf that costs more each week, deputies locked out of their hall, a week of ten days. No execution is drawn.

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What the strips cover

The Revolution is dated 1789 to 1799. In 1789 the Third Estate declared itself the National Assembly, the Bastille fell and feudal rights were voted away. In 1792 France became a republic.

Choose the part to tell

Causes is bread, taxes and the three estates. 1789 runs from the Estates General in May to the women's march in October. The republic has the new calendar and the meter. What it left is the map, the measures and the words that outlasted it. Strips of 3 panels carry one idea; longer ones follow an event.

  • Put the date in a caption box in the first panel, so the reader knows where the strip sits in the ten years.
  • The casts are ordinary people: a baker, a deputy, a clockmaker. Give each a hat or a tool so readers know them.
  • In a strip of 3 panels the last one is the result. Letter the Fact line as a caption under it.

Questions and answers

How do you make a comic strip about the French Revolution?

Pick one event or one cause, such as the Tennis Court Oath or the price of bread. Show the problem in the first panel, the turning point in the middle and the result in the last.

What caused the French Revolution?

Several things together: bad harvests in 1787 and 1788 that raised food prices, a crown that spent more than its income, taxes the clergy and nobles mostly did not pay, and a Third Estate that wanted votes counted by head.

What happened in the Tennis Court Oath?

On 20 June 1789 the deputies of the Third Estate found their hall locked. They met in an indoor tennis court nearby and swore not to separate until France had a constitution. All but one of 577 took the oath.

What did the French Revolution leave behind?

The metric system, France's departments, the national day on 14 July, a national archive and the political words left and right. The republican calendar was abolished in 1806.

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