Did it really have any effects outside of France?
Yes! There is a reason just about every single Western country's history curriculum spends such a disproportionate amount of time on this subject. Its importance can not be overstated enough and its effects are still being felt to this day. So firstly, what was the revolution? Well it was a trillion different things depending on who you asked but in general it was a gradual rejection of the Aristocratic and Religious establishment, at its absolute most basic level of motivations. How extreme this rejection was depends wholly on what year you're talking about and who you are talking to. In 1789 for instance it meant simple reforms while maintaining a king. In 1793/94 it meant killing every single man of aristocratic origin. But again, why does this matter outside of France? Because the French felt a zealous purpose to spread the revolution throughout Europe. What does this mean though, to "spread the revolution"?
Through the Revolution, and by extension Napoleon, aristocratic privileges were abolished in France and everywhere in Europe their reach extended. Notice how that functionally means "everywhere". While the level of breakdown would be greater and lesser in certain areas, as a whole, feudalism was utterly decimated in Western and Central Europe. In place was a 'new aristocracy', one based on merit. After Vienna most of that meritocratic 'aristocracy' still remained throughout Europe -- including the very King of Sweden -- leading Europe into the 20th century based off of (mostly) merit.
William Carr would likely argue this was one of the greatest propellants to the formation of Germany. This also leads to what should be its very own section: Napoleon abolished the Holy Roman Empire. Overnight 78 out of 81 Ecclesiastical principalities (ie: church territory, essentially) would be mediatized (ie: absorbed into secular neighbor states) overnight. 45 out of 51 'Imperial Cities', literal sovereign cities, would be mediatized into neighbor states. Primarily Baden, Bavaria, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Wurttemberg. Note how those were the 4 most powerful South German states and the states who resisted Prussian influence enough to be varying degrees of quasi-sovereign under Imperial Germany's (1871-1919) existence. That is not a coincidence. These were incredibly wealthy regions that provided a boon to these secular states and greatly simplified a ludicrously overcomplex set of borders to something that made a lot more sense.
Also worthy of mentioning was the neutering of Church authority. Laws against heresy, religious persecution, homosexuality, etc. were totally outlawed. Further, note above the Church being stripped of basically all of their territorial possession and political clout. This finalized what the Peace of Westphalia (1648) began -- the secular, sovereign state being the lead actor in global and domestic politics, not the Church. This was all a direct result of revolutionary ideals.
This is also called the 'Napoleonic Code'. It banned ex post facto laws. That means say tomorrow they banned drinking alcohol. The police can't come to your house because you have a picture on your facebook 2 years ago drinking alcohol. A standardized set of laws were created that had to be strictly followed. That means that Judges could not arbitrarily decide on what they felt was best. There was a law, it was strictly defined in how it would be committed and what the punishment would be, and you had to stick to that. Also coming out of this was the concept of trial by jury. Believe it or not, that was not standard to this point whatsoever. It would only be after Liberte and most importantly Egalite that being judged by your 'peers', and rather everyone being your 'peer', became the norm.
This is something that is grossly overlooked and it's something that also laid the foundations for just about every revolution afterwards -- from the 1848 German revolutions, to the 1871 formation of Germany, to the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in many ways. The concept of the 'enlightened prince' would spread -- a leader who led based on Enlightenment principles. But even more importantly was the proliferation of these ideas to the lower and middle classes. In the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars we would see nationalist clubs popping up all across Europe, notably Germany. Clubs celebrating both their shared past (a direct result of the French revolution!) and common liberal philosophy. Talking about free press, equal rights, voting!
Perhaps one of the most important aspects though. The French didn't just up and conquer Europe because they found some secret crystal or something. When everyone becomes equal, that includes an equal responsibility to protect the nation. When before armies would be a couple ten thousand men, at most, now the French would mobilize every man between 19 and 25 for combat. All. Armies of the hundreds of thousands would balloon and swarm across Europe and the princes and their little mercenary armies had no other option but to adapt. This led to an era of mass warfare, of unrestricted warfare, of total mobilization of the state. World War I. World War II. These concepts of "total war" were literally the concepts of Levee en Masse on just a 20th century context.
and lastly,
It created a back and forth that exists to this day. When the people provide all these services to the prince, you know, like fighting and dying for them, the prince or king or senate or whatever owes them in return. This comes in the form of social services such as welfare and free/cheap education, railways and roads, a level of democratic expression and free speech. However in a roundabout way, with these rights, the people are compelled to go to arms when at necessary. This would culminate in extreme forms of totalitarianism and Fascism. The balance of power between the state, the individual, and how much one 'owes' the other and how much one serves the other is a debate that exists to this day and was the central source of ideological conflict in the 20th century and it is one debate which was created by the French Revolution.
