About the Tennis Court Oath

The Tennis Court Oath was one of the great moments in French history, and the central moment of the early stages of the French Revolution. Denied of what they insisted were their rights and confronted with intransigence on the part of the King, the entrenched nobility and clergy, the commoners of France took a stand and swore not to be disbanded. The King gave way, and in a matter of days some of the most famous and violent incidents of the French Revolution exploded.

Identification

The Tennis Court Oath was sworn by members of the French Estates General on June 20th, 1789. Deadlocked in a dispute with the King over their powers within the Estates General, the Third Estate proclaimed itself a National Assembly. They invited the other two Estates to join them, but insisted that they, and not the Estates General as a whole, were the sole, legitimate legislative body of France. The king ordered their chambers closed, but they went instead to meet on the Royal Tennis Courts and swore the Tennis Court Oath: a promise to continue to meet until a new constitution had been decided.

Significance

The Tennis Court Oath was the pivotal event of the French Revolution's early period, marking the first firm stand taken by the French commoners against the monarchy, nobles and clergy. The king's efforts to prevent the usurpation of the Estates General by the commoners all failed, and by July the nobles, clergy and monarchy had all accepted the fait accompli. On July 9, 1789, the National Assembly became the National Constituent Assembly, charged with writing a new French constitution.

Effects

The events that led the Third Estate to become the National Assembly and overthrow the Estates General unleashed the powerful social forces that came to mark the French Revolution. Only five days after the National Assembly renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly, a mob of radicals stormed the Bastille.

Expert Insight

The leading personalities of the Tennis Court Oath were Honore Mirabeau and Abbe Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyes. Mirabeau, a constitutional monarchist, became an adviser to the King, but died in 1791. Abbe Sieyes was later instrumental in engineering the coup that brought Napoleon Bonaparte to power.

Considerations

The Estates General was the little-used legislative body of monarchical France. While the body had legislative origins similar to that of the English Parliament (with its House of Commons and House of Lords), the French Estates General never evolved into an equal or superior governmental body. In France, the body saw its power rise and fall with the relative fortunes of the monarchy. Basically, when the country was in crisis or the monarchy needed to raise extra revenues, the Estates General enjoyed a revival of power and influence. It would then lapse back into obscurity. By the time of the Revolution in 1789, the Estates General had not met since 1614. The Parliament of England, by contrast, was able to build upon and expand its powers over time.

There were three Estates represented in the Estates General. The First Estate represented the clergy of Catholic France. The Second Estate was drawn from the nobility. The Third Estate represented commoners.

By the late eighteenth century, one of the problems with the Estates General was its disproportional representation. The First and Second Estates were legislative equals with the Third Estate, with the same number of seats, yet the clergy and nobility combined were a mere 3 percent of the population of France. This was the cause of the disputes that led to the Tennis Court Oath.