National Constituent Assembly (France)

Nous sommes donc trois written by Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1790)

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.
• Patriotic Society of 1789

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.

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 National Assembly of France.

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

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]

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]

This article incorporates text from the public domain History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814, by François Mignet (1824), as made available by Project Gutenberg.

• 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
• 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 (2015).

• The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen 1789, 1791 public domain audiobook at LibriVox