Answer:
As other contributors have already pointed out, the French Revolution's first stage entailed a transition from an Absolutist Monarchy to a Constitutional one. Traditionally, the monarchy was understood as being the central institution around which allegiances and political identities turned--the monarchy stood at the center of the Early Modern State. The French Revolution overturned this notion, however, assigning the people of France and the idea of nationhood itself as the defining center-points around which notions of sovereignty and political identities were defined.
Additionally, it should be noted, one of the key moments in this history came with the October Days of 1789, when the French government was relocated and brought back to Paris. When reading about the French Revolution, you might get the sense that Paris was a center of Revolutionary turbulence (and a center of Revolutionary radicalism). This relocation, then, rendered the Royal Family vulnerable to that turbulence
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