National Constituent Assembly (France)

The National Constituent Assembly (French: Assemblée

nationale constituante) was formed from the National Assembly
National Constituent
on 9 July 1789 during the first stages of the French Revolution. It Assembly
dissolved on 30 September 1791 and was succeeded by the Assemblée nationale
Legislative Assembly.[1] constituante
Kingdom of France

Contents
Background
Estates-General
Tennis Court Oath
Structure in summer 1789
Proceedings
Restoration of king
Dissolution
References
Further reading
Primary sources
Type
Type Unicameral
Background History
Established 9 July 1789

Estates-General Disbanded 30 September 1791

Preceded by National Assembly
The Estates General of 1789, (Etats Généraux) made up of
Succeeded by National Legislative
representatives of the three estates (clergy, aristocracy, and
commoners), which had not been convened since 1614, met on 5 Assembly
May 1789. The Estates-General reached a deadlock in its Seats Variable; 1315 in total
deliberations by 6 May. [2]:xv The representatives of the Third Meeting place
Estate attempted to make the whole body more effective and so
met separately from 11 May as the Communes. On 12 June, the Variable
Communes invited the other Estates to join them: some members
of the First Estate did so the following day. On 17 June 1789, the Communes approved the motion made by
Sieyès that declared themselves the National Assembly[3] by a vote of 490 to 90. The Third Estate now
believed themselves to be a legitimate authority equal to that of the King. Elements of the First Estate,
primarily parish priests who were closer in wealth to the Third Estate compared to the bishops who were
closer in wealth to the Second Estate, joined the assembly from 13 June onwards and, on 19 June, the whole
of the clergy voted to join the National Assembly.[2]:xvi A legislative and political agenda unfolded.

Tennis Court Oath

There were soon attempts by King Louis XVI and the Second
Estate to prevent the delegates from meeting, as well as
misunderstandings on both sides about each other's intentions.
Locked out of its chamber, the new assembly, led by its president
Jean-Sylvain Bailly, was forced to relocate to a nearby tennis
court, on 20 June;[4] there, it swore the Tennis Court Oath, (Le
serment du Jeu de Paume) promising "not to separate, and to
reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution
of the kingdom is established and consolidated upon solid
foundations."[5] Failing to disperse the delegates, Louis started to
recognize their validity on 27 June.[6]
Le serment de Jeu de Paume. Copper
plate by Pierre-Gabriel Berthault after a
The Assembly renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly
drawing by Jean-Louis Prieur (1789). The
on 9 July and began to function as a governing body and a
representatives swore not to depart until
constitution-drafter.[6] However, it is common to refer to the body they had given France a new constitution.
even after then as the "National Assembly" or the "Constituent
Assembly".

Structure in summer 1789

Following the storming of the Bastille on 14 July, the National Constituent Assembly became the effective
government of France. In the words of historian François Mignet:

The assembly had acquired the entire power; the corporations depended on it; the national guards
obeyed it... the royal power, though existing of right, was in a measure suspended, since it was
not obeyed, and the assembly had to supply its action by its own.[7]

The number of the Estates-General increased significantly during the election period, but many deputies took
their time arriving, some of them reaching Paris as late as 1791. According to Timothy Tackett, there were a
total of 1,177 deputies in the Assembly by mid-July 1789. Among them, 278 belonged to the nobility, 295 to
the clergy, and 604 were representatives of the Third Estate. For the entire duration of the Assembly, a total of
1,315 deputies were certified: 330 clerics, 322 nobles, and 663 deputies of the Third Estate. Tackett noted that
the majority of the Second Estate had a military background, and the Third Estate was dominated by men of
legal professions.[8]

Some of the leading figures of the Assembly at this time were:

The conservative foes of the revolution, later known as "The Right":

Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazalès – a forthright spokesman for aristocracy
the abbé Jean-Sifrein Maury – a somewhat inflexible representative of the Church
The Monarchiens ("Monarchists", also called "Democratic Royalists") allied with Jacques
Necker, inclined toward arranging France along lines similar to the British constitution model
with a House of Lords and a House of Commons:
Pierre Victor, baron Malouet
Trophime-Gérard, marquis de Lally-Tollendal
Stanislas Marie Adelaide, comte de Clermont-Tonnerre
Jean Joseph Mounier
 "The Left" (also called "National Party") was still relatively united in support of revolution and
democracy, representing mainly the interests of the middle classes but strongly sympathetic to
the broader range of the common people. In the early period, its most notable leaders included
Honoré Mirabeau, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Jean-Sylvain Bailly (the first two of aristocratic
background). Mignet also points to Adrien Duport, Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave, and
Alexander Lameth as leaders among the "most extreme of this party" in this period, leaders in
taking "a more advanced position than that which the revolution had [at this time] attained."
Lameth's brother Charles also belonged to this group.

One must add the role played by the Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, especially in regard to the proposition of
legislation in this period, as the man who, for a time, managed to bridge the differences between those who
wanted a constitutional monarchy and those who wished to move towards more democratic, even republican
directions.

Proceedings
For a detailed description of the proceedings in the National Constituent Assembly and related events, see the
following articles:

French Revolution from the abolition of feudalism to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy
French Revolution from the summer of 1790 to the establishment of the Legislative Assembly

For a list of presidents of the National Constituent Assembly, see List of Presidents of the French National
Assembly.

For a partial list of members of the National Constituent Assembly, see Alphabetical list of members of the
National Constituent Assembly of 1789.

Restoration of king
In the summer of 1791, the National Constituent Assembly decided that the king needed to be restored to the
throne if he accepted the constitution. The decision was made after the king's failed flight to Varennes.[9] That
decision enraged many Parisians into protesting, and one major protest devolved into the Champ de Mars
Massacre, with 12 to 50 people killed by the National Guard.[10]

Dissolution
After surviving the vicissitudes of a revolutionary two years, the National Constituent Assembly dissolved
itself on 30 September 1791. The following day, the Constitution of 1791 went into effect, which granted
power to the Legislative Assembly.[11]

References
1. Leo Gershoy, The French Revolution and Napoleon (1964) pp. 107–71
2. Paul R. Hanson (15 January 2015). Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution (https://book
s.google.com/books?id=mOJdBgAAQBAJ&pg=PR15). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
ISBN 978-0-8108-7892-1.
3. Gershoy, The French Revolution and Napoleon (1964) pp. 100–07
 4. Simon Schama (5 August 2004). Citizens: A Chronicle of The French Revolution (https://books.
google.com/books?id=mz3vM4-F788C&pg=PT125). Penguin Books Limited. p. 125.
ISBN 978-0-14-101727-3.
5. Fred Morrow Fling; Helene Dresser Fling (1913). Source Problems on the French Revolution
(https://books.google.com/books?id=79kaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA26). Harper & Brothers. p. 26.
6. Paul R. Hanson (23 February 2007). The A to Z of the French Revolution (https://books.google.
com/books?id=yYJ4AAAAQBAJ&pg=PR14). Scarecrow Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-1-4617-1606-
8.
7. Mignet, François (1856). History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814. France. p. 61.
8. Tackett, Timothy. Becoming a Revolutionary: The Deputies of the French National Assembly
and the Emergence of a Revolutionary Culture (1789–1790). Princeton University Press, 1996
9. C. J. Mitchell (1 January 1988). The French Legislative Assembly of 1791 (https://books.googl
e.com/books?id=tcsUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA213). Brill Archive. p. 15. ISBN 978-90-04-08961-7.
10. Woodward, W. E. Lafayette.
11. Jeremy Bentham (2002). Rights, Representation, and Reform: Nonsense Upon Stilts and Other
Writings on the French Revolution (https://books.google.com/books?id=3C1NRsqMt4cC&pg=P
R41). Oxford University Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-0-19-924863-6.

This article incorporates text from the public domain History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 (htt
ps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9602), by François Mignet (1824), as made available by Project Gutenberg.

Further reading
Fitzsimmons, Michael P. The remaking of France: the National Assembly and the Constitution
of 1791 (Cambridge University Press, 2002)
Gershoy, Leo. The French Revolution and Napoleon (1964) pp. 107–71
Hampson, Norman. Prelude to Terror: The Constituent Assembly and the Failure of
Consensus, 1789–1791 (Blackwell, 1988)
Tackett, Timothy. "Nobles and Third Estate in the revolutionary dynamic of the National
Assembly, 1789–1790." American Historical Review (1989): 271–301. in JSTOR (https://www.j
stor.org/stable/1866828)
Thompson, Eric. Popular Sovereignty and the French Constituent Assembly, 1789–91
(Manchester University Press, 1952)
Whiteman, Jeremy J. "Trade and the Regeneration of France, 1789–91: Liberalism,
Protectionism and the Commercial Policy of the National Constituent Assembly." European
History Quarterly 31.2 (2001): 171–204.
von Guttner, Darius. The French Revolution (https://www.academia.edu/9869783/The_French_
Revolution) [1] (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283319192_The_French_Revolution)
(2015).

Primary sources
Stewart, John Hall. A documentary survey of the French Revolution (Macmillan, 1951).
pp. 101–270

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