About the Formation of the National Assembly

The French government has gone through seemingly infinite transformations from the time of the French Revolution in 1789. During this time, the National Assembly served as a band-aid, so to speak, until issues could be resolved over the Estates General, the then governing legislative body. As the events leading up to the revolution unfolded, it became unmistakable that the National Assembly would have to be overturned in favor of a more representative democracy as well.

Time Frame

To understand the advent of the National Assembly, it is critical to note the political tensions that existed in France during the 1770s and 1780s. Absolutism had long been the accepted form of government and all previous kings had been given the "divine right" to rule France. This monarchical approach left a huge gap between the wealthy and poor classes of France. Louis XIV had squandered most of France's financial resources on the construction and decoration of the Palace of Versailles. His wife, Marie Antoinette, was not much better when it came to reining in her spending habits. Known for her self-indulgence in matters pertaining to fashion and lifestyle, the queen of France fueled the fire of the peasants' rage toward a monarchy they felt could never comprehend the struggles they were enduring.

The Facts

The National Assembly began as the Estates General was crumbling into rival factions. Formerly the Third Estate of the Estates General, the National Assembly took its roots in the interest of representing the common man. Although this governing body of the Estates General was technically already supposed to fight for the political inclinations of the lower classes, it tended to favor the up and coming wealthy merchants and tradesmen, soon to be branded the bourgeoisie. The First Estate was comprised of religious officials, the Second Estate of the aristocracy, and the Third Estate of the common people. The Third Estate had unquestionably more people on whose behalf it was speaking for, and yet it could never feasibly have more votes than the First or Second Estates because the system was specifically set up to vote not by number of people, but by number of estates.

Function

The modern version of the National Assembly is comparable to the United States' House of Representatives or the United Kingdom's House of Commons. In the bicameral parliament of France, the Senate consists of fewer representatives than the National Assembly and tends to be more closely associated with reflecting the French people's sentiments.
When the National Assembly was first formed, its principal function was to signal change in standing up for the rights of the peasant class. As it has mutated over the last century, there have been moments when the power of the National Assembly has ballooned, only to be burst by a bout of waning popularity. Through all the changes, however, its purest purpose has always been to thwart the concentration of power in a single person and to ensure that the voice of the majority is heard.

History of

The birth of the National Assembly was, in effect, the death of absolutism in France. Ninety-six percent of the population was represented by the Third Estate, but one would never have been able to guess as much based on the living conditions of the people contained within this percentage. Tired of being antagonized by the First and Second Estates, the Third Estate broke off into its own political bloc, the National Assembly. Once this revolutionary action was taken, a formal constitution was drafted reiterating the king's powerlessness in the face of sheer contempt from the masses; the commoners of France seized the opportunity to rebel upon hearing of this news. Once the National Assembly declared itself to be the sovereign governmental body of France, the road was paved for the Tennis Court oath and the subsequent storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, heralding the revolution that would plague France for the next ten years.

Significance

With the creation of any new form of government comes dual consequences. While the National Assembly innovated the French concept of "liberty, equality, fraternity," it also later saw many divisive shifts in religious and political views that would debilitate it as a governmental force. In 1791, when Louis XIV was temporarily restored to power, the National Assembly essentially dissipated. The revolution roared on in some capacity for the next year without any meaningful contribution from the National Assembly. Another constitution was drafted in both 1793 and 1795, attesting to the extreme instability of France without any concrete legislative government to guide it.
Parliamentary dominance started to rise again once the revolution ended in 1799. Though a monarch would reign over France until 1870, the courageous move of the Third Estate in forming the National Assembly marked the first tangible change in modern French government.
The significance of the National Assembly can best be summed up by the second article of its preliminary constitution of 1789: "The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression."