Unit 5

Author: The National Assembly

Author Bio: Its members had been elected to represent the estates of the realm: the First Estate (the clergy), the Second Estate (the nobility) and the Third Estate (which, in theory, represented all of the commoners and, in practice, represented the bourgeoisie). The Third Estate had been granted "double representation" that is, twice as many delegates as each of the other estates.

Date/Context: From its inception, the Estates-General was in contention over organizational practices. To combat this, the Third Estate convened to form a new legislative body known as the National Assembly which was formed on June 17, 1789. Three days later, the members of this were locked out of their meeting place (albeit unintentionally) and so they marched to a tennis court to draft a new constitution for France; this would come to be one of the most important documents of the revolution.

Summary: The Tennis Court Oath was due to growing discontent of the Third Estate in France. Louis XVI wanted to maintain the absolute monarchy while rulers of the Third Estate banned together to meet and dicuss reform proposed by Necker the Prime Minister.  As such, the estates came together in order to vote on the reforms by head count instead of just estate; causing the Third Estate to have a greater impact in the votes.  The plan was to meet at Menus Plaisirs, but when the group arrived they found the doors locked.  Instead of breaking up and being ruled by the king, once again, they relocated to a nearby indoor tennis court, and as such, the Tennis Court Oath began.  The Third Estate truly believed in the reforms and a debate quickly arose as to how the reforms would take place and discussed how they could protect themselves from those in royal authority.  A retreat to Paris was proposed in order to protect themselves from the king’s army, but Mounier, a major playor in the TCO, said it would be too revolutionary and cause even more conflict.  As a result, Mounier proposed that they write an oath of allegiance to stating that the estate would remain assembled until the constitution was written and all actions to disband the group by the king’s army would be resisted at all cost.  The document was quickly agreed upon, written, and signed by 576 men of the Third Estate, and later named the Tennis Court Oath.  The oath simply stated that the power of the people resided not in the king, but in the people themselves and as a result, a week later, Louis XVI called a meeting of the Estate General with the plans to write a constitution. 

Quotes: "Decrees that all members of this assembly shall immediately take a solemn oath not to separate".