An Introduction to the History of Western Europe

by James Harvey Robinson

Desire of the nation for a constitutional, instead of an absolute, monarchy.

Almost all the cahiers agreed that the prevailing disorder and the vast and ill-defined powers of the king and his ministers were perhaps the fundamental evils. One of the cahiers says: "Since arbitrary power has been the source of all the evils which afflict the state, our first desire is the establishment of a really national constitution, which shall define the rights of all and provide the laws to maintain them." No one dreamed at this time of displacing the king or of taking the government out of his hands. The people only wished to change an absolute monarchy into a limited, or constitutional, one. All that was necessary was that the things which the government might not do should be solemnly and irrevocably determined and put upon record, and that the Estates General should meet periodically to grant the taxes, give the king advice in national crises, and expostulate, if necessary, against any violations of the proposed charter of liberties.[397]

The Estates General meet May 5, 1789.

The representatives of the third estate declare themselves a 'National Assembly.'

221. With these ideas in mind, the Estates assembled in Versailles and held their first session on May 5, 1789. The king had ordered the deputies to wear the same costumes that had been worn at the last meeting of the Estates in 1614; but no royal edict could call back the spirit of earlier centuries. In spite of the king's commands the representatives of the third estate refused to organize themselves in the old way as a separate order. They sent invitation after invitation to the deputies of the clergy and nobility, requesting them to join the people's representatives and deliberate in common on the great interests of the nation. Some of the more liberal of the nobles—Lafayette, for example—and a large minority of the clergy wished to meet with the deputies of the third estate. But they were outvoted, and the deputies of the third estate, losing patience, finally declared themselves, on June 17, a "National Assembly." They argued that, since they represented at least ninety-six per cent of the nation, the deputies of the privileged orders might be neglected altogether. This usurpation of power on the part of the third estate transformed the old feudal Estates, voting by orders, into the first modern national representative assembly on the continent of Europe.

The 'Tennis-Court' oath.

Under the influence of his courtiers the king tried to restore the old system by arranging a solemn joint session of the three orders, at which he presided in person. He presented a long programme of excellent reforms, and then bade the Estates sit apart, according to the old custom. But it was like bidding water to run up hill. Three days before, when the commons had found themselves excluded from their regular place of meeting on account of the preparations for the royal session, they had betaken themselves to a neighboring building called the "Tennis Court." Here, on June 20, they took the famous "Tennis-Court" oath, "to come together wherever circumstances may dictate, until the constitution of the kingdom shall be established." They were emboldened in their purpose to resist all schemes to frustrate a general reform by the support of over half of the deputies of the clergy, who joined them the day before the royal session.

The nobility and clergy forced to join the third estate.

Consequently, when the king finished his address and commanded the three orders to disperse immediately in order to resume their separate sessions, most of the bishops, some of the parish priests, and a great part of the nobility obeyed; the rest sat still, uncertain what they should do. When the master of ceremonies ordered them to comply with the king's commands, Mirabeau, the most distinguished statesman among the deputies, told him bluntly that they would not leave their places except at the point of the bayonet. The weak king almost immediately gave in and a few days later ordered all the deputies of the privileged orders who had not already done so to join the commons.