53 Establishment of the National Assembly
22.3.2: Establishment of the National Assembly
Following the storming of the Bastille on July 14, the National Assembly became the effective government and constitution drafter that ruled until passing the 1791 Constitution, which turned France into a constitutional monarchy.
Learning Objective
Critique the National Assembly, its establishment, and its goals
Key Points
- After the Third Estate discovered that the royal decree granting double representation upheld the traditional voting by orders, its representatives refused to accept the imposed rules and proceeded to meet separately. On June 17, with the failure of efforts to reconcile the three estates, the Third Estate declared themselves redefined as the National Assembly, an assembly not of the estate but of the people.
- After Louis XVI’s failed attempts to sabotage the Assembly and to keep the three estates separate, the Estates-General ceased to exist, becoming the National Assembly. It renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly on July 9 and began to function as a governing body and constitution-drafter. Following the storming of the Bastille on July 14, the National Assembly became the effective government of France.
- The leading forces of the Assembly at this time were the conservative foes of the revolution (“The Right”); the Monarchiens inclined toward arranging France along lines similar to the British constitution model; and “the Left,” a group still relatively united in support of revolution and democracy. A critical figure in the Assembly was Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, who authored a pamphlet called “What Is the Third Estate?”
- In August 1789, the National Constituent Assembly abolished feudalism and published the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, but the financial crisis continued largely unaddressed and the deficit only increased.
- In November, the Assembly suspended the old judicial system and declared the property of the Church to be “at the disposal of the nation.” In 1790, religious orders were dissolved and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which turned the remaining clergy into employees of the state, was passed.
- In the turmoil of the revolution, the Assembly members gathered the various constitutional laws they had passed into a single constitution and submitted it to recently restored Louis XVI, who accepted it. Under the Constitution of 1791, France would function as a constitutional monarchy.
Key Terms
- What Is the Third Estate?
- A political pamphlet written in January 1789, shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolution, by French thinker and clergyman Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès. The pamphlet was Sieyès’ response to finance minister Jacques Necker’s invitation for writers to state how they thought the Estates-General should be organized.
- Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
- A fundamental document of the French Revolution and in the history of human and civil righ