During the French Revolution, the National Assembly, which existed from
June 13, 1789 to July 9, 1789, was a revolutionary assembly formed by the
representatives of the Third Estate of the Estates-General; thereafter it was
known as the National Constituent Assembly, though popularly the shorter
form persisted. Background
Estates-General had been called on May 5, 1789 to deal with France's financial
crisis, but promptly fell to squabbling over its own structure. Its members had
been elected to represent the estates of the realm: the 1st Estate, the 2nd
Estate and the 3rd Estate. The Third Estate had been granted "double
representation"—that is, twice as many delegates as each of the other
estates—but at the opening session on May 5, 1789 they were informed that all
voting would be "by power" not "by head", so their double representation
was to be meaningless in terms of power. They refused this and proceeded to meet
separately. Shuttle diplomacy among the estates
continued without success until May 27; on May 28, the representatives of the
3rd Estate began to meet on their own, calling themselves the Communes and
proceeding with their "verification of powers" independently of the other
bodies; from June 13 to June 17 they were gradually joined by some of the
nobles and the majority of the clergy and other people such as the peasants.
On June 13, this group began to call itself the National Assembly.
The Assembly convenes This newly created assembly immediately
attached itself to the capitalists — the sources of the credit needed to fund the
national debt — and to the common people. They consolidated the public
debt and declared all existing taxes to have been illegally imposed, but voted
in these same taxes provisionally, only as long as the Assembly continued to
sit. This restored the confidence of the capitalists and gave them a strong
interest in keeping the Assembly in session. As for the common people, the
Assembly established a committee of subsistence to deal with food
shortages... The King resists
Jacques Necker, finance minister to Louis XVI, had earlier proposed that the
king hold a Séance Royale in an attempt to reconcile the divided Estates. The
king agreed; but none of the three orders were formally notified of the
decision to hold a Royal Session. All debates were to be put on hold until the
séance royale took place. Events soon overtook Necker's complex
scheme of giving in to the Communes on some points while holding firm on
others. No longer interested in Necker's advice, Louis XVI, under the influence
of the courtiers of his privy council, resolved to go in state to the Assembly,
annul its decrees, command the separation of the orders, and dictate
the reforms to be effected by the restored Estates-General. On June 19, he
ordered the Salle des États, the hall where the National Assembly met, closed,
and remained at Marly for several days while he prepared his address.
Confrontation and recognition Two days later, deprived of use of the
tennis court as well, the National Assembly met in the Church of Saint
Louis, where the majority of the representatives of the clergy joined
them: efforts to restore the old order had served only to accelerate events.
When, on June 23, in accord with his plan, the king finally addressed the
representatives of all three estates, he encountered a stony silence. He
concluded by ordering all to disperse. The nobles and clergy obeyed; the
deputies of the common people remained seated in a silence finally broken by
Mirabeau, whose short speech culminated, "A military force surrounds the
assembly! Where are the enemies of the nation? Is Catiline at our gates? I
demand, investing yourselves with your dignity, with your legislative power,
you inclose yourselves within the religion of your oath. It does not
permit you to separate till you have formed a constitution." The deputies
stood firm. Necker, conspicuous by his absence from
the royal party on that day, found himself in disgrace with Louis, but back
in the good graces of the National Assembly. Those of the clergy who had
joined the Assembly at the church of Saint Louis remained in the Assembly;
forty-seven members of the nobility, including the Duke of Orléans, soon
joined them; by June 27, the royal party had overtly given in, although the
likelihood of a military counter-coup remained in the air. The French military
began to arrive in large numbers around Paris and Versailles.
In the séance royale of June 23, the King granted a Charte octroyée, a
constitution granted of the royal favour, which affirmed, subject to the
traditional limitations, the right of separate deliberation for the three
orders, which constitutionally formed three chambers. This move failed; soon
that part of the deputies of the nobles who still stood apart joined the
National Assembly at the request of the king. The Estates-General had ceased to
exist, having become the National Assembly, though these bodies consisted
of the same deputies elected by the separate orders
Reconstitution Messages of support poured into the
Assembly from Paris and other French cities. On July 9, 1789, the Assembly,
reconstituting itself as the National Constituent Assembly, addressed the king
in polite but firm terms, requesting the removal of the troops, but Louis
declared that he alone could judge the need for troops, and assured them that
the troops had deployed strictly as a precautionary measure. Louis "offered"
to move the assembly to Noyon or Soissons: that is to say, to place it
between two armies and deprive it of the support of the Parisian people. Public
outrage over this troop presence precipitated the Storming of the
Bastille, beginning the Revolution. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and
of the Citizen In August of 1789, the National Assembly
drafted and instituted the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the
Citizen". The legislation proclaimed: "Man is born and remains free and equal
in rights". The declaration guaranteed equal and inalienable rights for all
citizens of France, and protected those rights from any government actions or
legislation. After the passage of the Declaration, within the National
Assembly, minority groups throughout the French empire fought to be included as
French citizens and thus receive equal rights. The most notable group to
petition for citizenship was the gens de couleur of Saint-Domingue. Their
unsuccessful petition would eventually culminate in the Haitian Revolution.
Notes References
This article incorporates text from the public domain History of the French
Revolution from 1789 to 1814, by François Mignet, as made available by
Project Gutenberg. This article incorporates text from a
publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "French
Revolution". Encyclopædia Britannica. Cambridge University Press.
External links http:www.assemblee-nationale.fr8am.asp
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