French Revolution: National Assembly (1789–91)
The years 1789 to 1791 mark the foundational phase of the French Revolution — the period in which an absolute monarchy in acute financial crisis was transformed, almost overnight, into a constitutional order built on the principles of liberty and equality. This transformation unfolded through a remarkable sequence of events: the failed financial reforms of Turgot and Necker, the fateful summoning of the States-General, its dramatic self-declaration as the National Assembly, the storming of the Bastille, the abolition of feudal privileges, and finally the drafting of France’s first written constitution by the Constituent Assembly. At the centre of this story stood an unlikely and ultimately tragic figure — Louis XVI — alongside towering personalities such as Mirabeau, whose statesmanship might have saved the constitutional experiment had it been heeded in time. This article traces this critical two-year period in full: the king’s character and his failed attempts at financial reform, the revolutionary transformation of the States-General, the fall of the Old Regime, the work and defects of the Constituent Assembly, and Europe’s evolving reaction to the unfolding Revolution.
Accession of Louis XVI (1774–1793)
His Character
- Louis XVI succeeded his grandfather to the French crown in 1774.
- He was the unhappy monarch under whom the long-accumulating evils of France reached their culminating point.
- He was honest, well-intentioned, and possessed a genuine desire to serve his people.
- He wanted to reform the abuses undermining the fabric of the State, but he was weak and irresolute, and easily influenced by others.
- As a result, he could not resist the pressure of a corrupt court whose privileges were threatened by any scheme of reform.
- He was largely under the influence of his wife, Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria.
- She was lovely, vivacious, and possessed a strong will and a capacity for rapid decision — qualities the king himself conspicuously lacked.
- But she too, like her husband, was young and inexperienced, lacking wisdom and breadth of judgment. Her influence over the king ultimately proved fatal both to him and to France.
Attempt at Financial Reform
Chronic Financial Deficit Threatened Bankruptcy
- At his succession, Louis XVI faced a serious financial situation. The debts left by Louis XIV had been further increased by the wars and extravagances of Louis XV.
- To these were added the costs of France’s participation in the American Revolution.
- All this, coupled with the excessive and unregulated expenditure of the state and the wastefulness of the court, completed the derangement of national finances and foreshadowed bankruptcy.
- The finances remained in a chronic state of deficit, and the central problem was how to make revenues cover expenditures.
Financial Reforms of Turgot
- At the beginning of his reign, Louis entrusted the management of finances to a man of rare ability, Turgot.
- Turgot sought to extricate the national finances through two processes: enforcing strict economy in expenditure, and developing public wealth so that receipts would increase.
- He suppressed useless expenditures, introduced free trade in corn by sweeping away internal customs barriers, and abolished the trade guilds, which had restricted production by limiting the number of workers in each trade.
- The odious corvée (forced labour) was abolished, and a land tax payable by all proprietors was proposed in its place — a measure that would, to a certain extent, have equalised the burden of taxation.
- All these reforms involved the curtailment of privilege, and so raised a host of enemies against Turgot.
- Those whose interests were affected joined in a clamour against him, and Louis, yielding to the pressure of the privileged classes, ultimately dismissed Turgot — thereby losing the ablest supporter the throne had.
Necker’s Reforms
- After Turgot’s fall, Necker became director of finances.
- He too encountered opposition the moment he proposed the economy urgently required given the ruinous expenditure caused by France’s aid to the Americans.
- Necker abolished the system of tax farming, and for the first time published a financial report showing the state’s income and expenditure.
- The publicity thus given to the national accounts infuriated members of the court, who demanded — and obtained — his dismissal.
The Summoning of the States-General and the Fall of the Old Regime
Louis XVI Compelled to Summon the States-General
- After Necker’s fall came a succession of worthless and incompetent finance ministers, whose mismanagement hastened the coming catastrophe.
- Bankruptcy was now impending, and there was no alternative but to propose new taxes.
- The Parlement of Paris opposed any new scheme of taxation, demanding instead the convocation of the States-General, which, it declared, was the only body legally competent to impose taxes.
- The king attempted to overawe the Parlement, which in turn defied him. Riots broke out in many places, and the demand for the States-General swelled in volume.
- With no other resources to fall back upon, the king at last, in despair, summoned the States-General in 1789, and recalled Necker to head the ministry.
Significance of the Summoning of the States-General
- This appeal to the nation — after a hiatus of roughly two centuries — was, in itself, a revolution, for it amounted to an admission that absolute monarchy had failed, introducing a shift from absolute to constitutional monarchy.
- Every member of the States-General brought from his constituency a statement of grievances known as a cahier.
- All three orders agreed in demanding a constitution and reforms in taxation, but the Third Estate additionally demanded the abolition of feudal rights.
- The mind of France, as revealed in these cahiers, was not republican — they contained no fundamental resentment against monarchy as an institution.
Nature and Composition of the States-General
- The States-General, the feudal Parliament of France, was a three-chambered body composed of elected representatives of the three orders: the clergy, the nobles, and the commons.
- It had not met for 176 years, and so was, in effect, a dead institution — its revival at a moment of grave national crisis made the question of its composition paramount.
- Previously, each of the three orders held an equal number of delegates, each voting separately.
- Since the first two chambers (clergy and nobility) were composed of the privileged classes, the Third Estate — the commons — remained a permanent minority, meaning the privileged orders’ actions had always been decisive.
- At the time of summoning the States-General, Necker had allowed the Third Estate as many members as the other two orders combined.
- However, the value of this concession was neutralised by uncertainty over the mode of voting.
- If voting continued to be by order, the doubled membership of the Third Estate would be of no avail. If, instead, voting was to be by individual, the commons would command a clear majority, bringing the government under popular control — an outcome the privileged orders were certain to resist.
States-General Converted into the National Assembly
The Third Estate Demands Voting by Individual
- As soon as the States-General met (5 May 1789), the members of the Third Estate held that it was not a feudal assembly but one representing the whole nation.
- They accordingly demanded that the three orders meet as a single chamber, in which each individual would have a vote.
- Since the Third Estate had been permitted twice as many members as either the clergy or nobility, substituting individual votes for voting by order would mean transferring power from the privileged classes to the commonality.
- The clergy and nobility offered stubborn resistance, but the Commons remained firm.
The Estate Declares Itself the National Assembly
- At last, after much contention, the Third Estate took the momentous step of declaring itself the National Assembly (17 June 1789).
- By adopting this title, the Commons claimed the right to speak and act for the whole nation, even without the support of the privileged orders.
- This action was undeniably revolutionary, since it was not sanctioned by the existing constitution of France — it brought matters to a crisis and set in motion the further steps in the development of the Revolution.
Attitude of the King
The King Opposed the Session of the National Assembly
- The king, under pressure from the court, sought to oppose the revolutionary proceedings of the Third Estate.
- He closed the hall in order to prevent the session of the National Assembly.
- The members, in anger, rushed to a neighbouring tennis court, where all assembled took an oath not to separate until the constitution of the realm had been definitively established — the famous Tennis Court Oath.
- In a subsequent royal session, the king declared the actions of the Third Estate illegal, tried to cow the Commons into submitting to the old procedure of meeting in three separate chambers, and ordered the Third Estate to disperse.
- At this, Mirabeau, a noble who had cast in his lot with the people, gave vent to strong words of defiance against the king’s orders.
The King Yields Before the Firm Attitude of the Commons
- Perceiving the firm resolution of the commoners, the king ultimately gave way, ordering the clergy and nobility to join the Third Estate.
- Thus, the three orders formed a single chamber, completing the formation of the National Assembly.
- The people had scored their first triumph over the king. Thus, at the very outset of the Revolution, power passed out of the hands of the king and the privileged orders and into those of the people.
The Rising of the Mob in Paris
- Having recognised the National Assembly, the king — urged on by his courtiers — sought to suppress it.
- Considerable bodies of soldiers began appearing near Paris, and the popular minister Necker was dismissed.
- These measures alarmed the people, who believed the king was determined to use armed force to suppress the National Assembly.
- The mob of Paris rose in fury against the king, whom popular orators denounced as a tyrant.
Fall of the Bastille
- The enraged populace stormed the state prison known as the Bastille, which, to the mob, was an odious symbol of the tyranny and abuses of the Old Regime.
- After a bloody encounter with the royal troops, it was razed to the ground on 14 July 1789.
- The fall of the Bastille was everywhere regarded across France as a triumph of liberty, producing widespread enthusiasm.
Formation of the National Guard
- The Parisian mob followed up the fall of the Bastille by assuming control of the city.
- A new form of municipal government was established in Paris, and a city militia — the National Guard — was organised to maintain order, with Lafayette appointed its commander.
- The Revolution had now entered its municipal phase.
Effects of the Fall of the Bastille
The King Yields
- Alarmed at the critical state of affairs, the king immediately yielded to the storm — sending away the troops, recalling Necker, and recognising the National Guard.
Rising in the Provinces
- Order was, for the time being, restored in Paris, but news of the Bastille’s fall spread like wildfire, exciting popular feeling in the provinces to a high pitch.
- Other cities set up municipal governments similar to that of Paris, and organised provincial national guards.
- Outside the towns, the Revolution took the form of a rising against feudalism. Peasants rose everywhere, sacked the castles of the nobles, and destroyed the records of their feudal services — the Revolution was now in full tide.
Abolition of Feudal Privileges Completed the Destruction of the Old Regime
- The rising of the peasants in the provinces produced immediate and startling effects.
- In a memorable session of the National Assembly on 4 August 1789, the nobles voluntarily surrendered their feudal rights and privileges.
- Rights of hunting, corvées, and other customary services were abolished; the guilds and similar close corporations were swept away; and tithes were abandoned.
- Offices ceased to be purchasable and were thrown open to all — in a word, class distinctions were abolished, and the principle of equality was declared to be the basis of state and society.
- The last relics of feudalism were swept out of France, and the overthrow of the Old Regime was thereby completed.
March of Women to Versailles to Fetch the King
- Meanwhile, renewed intrigues at court excited the suspicion of the people, intensified further by fears of famine amid a scarcity of bread in Paris.
- On 5 October, a large number of women, pale and haggard from long suffering, set out for Versailles to fetch the king, dragging cannons with them.
- The king, frightened by this demonstration, agreed to leave Versailles and returned to Paris, escorted by the fierce women.
- Henceforth, the king was practically a prisoner in the hands of the mob; the monarchy was, in effect, all but ruined.
Work of the Constituent Assembly (1789–1791)
Having destroyed the feudal privileges of the nobles as well as the old constitution, the National Assembly set about framing the future constitution of France — henceforth becoming known as the Constituent Assembly, its chief task being the drafting of this new constitution. This was no easy task: its members, though intelligent, lacked political experience, and very often sacrificed considerations of practicability to a desire for logical perfection.
The New Constitution
Basic Principles of the New Order
- The Assembly, in imitation of American usage, formulated the principles on which the new constitution of France was to be based.
- These were enshrined in the famous Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which proclaimed that all men are free and equal in rights, and that sovereignty resides in the people.
- This manifesto thus swept away the principles of the Old Regime, laying the foundation of a new order in France.
The Executive
- The Constituent Assembly worked out a constitution finally adopted in 1791.
- Under it, France was to be governed by a king and a parliament known as the Legislative Assembly.
- The king was to be head of the executive and would choose his own ministers, who, however, were not permitted to sit in the legislature — thus rigidly separating the executive from the legislature.
- The king was to control the army and navy and to conduct foreign affairs, but could not declare war without the consent of the legislature.
- He was given only a suspensive veto — that is, he could delay the passing of a measure by holding it up until it had been passed by three successive assemblies.
The Legislature
- All legislative power was entrusted to the Legislative Assembly.
- It was to consist of a single chamber of 745 members, elected for two years through a system of indirect representation based on a limited franchise.
- Property qualifications excluded a large number of citizens from voting — a direct violation of the principle of equality that the Declaration of Rights had itself proclaimed.
The Judicial System
- The judicial system of France was thoroughly remodelled.
- Torture and lettres de cachet were abolished; new central and local courts were established; and trial by jury was introduced.
- Judges were to be elected — a system that would soon prove very unsatisfactory.
Administrative Division
- For purposes of administration and local government, the Constituent Assembly practically remade France.
- The old provinces were abolished, and France was divided into eighty-three departments of uniform size and equal rights.
- Each department was subdivided into districts, cantons, and communes, with the affairs of every department managed by an elected council; similar local councils were provided in the smaller administrative units.
- In this way, France was unified and given a fair amount of local self-government — a highly centralised system of government was thus completely decentralised.
Financial Measures
- The Assembly was called upon to resolve the pressing financial difficulty that had originally compelled the king to summon the States-General.
- After several futile attempts to fill the treasury, the Assembly confiscated all the endowment lands of the Church, declaring them national property.
- It then devised the expedient of issuing paper money, known as assignats, secured against these Church lands.
Reorganisation of the Church
- The Revolution had derived from the French philosophers a strong anti-clerical bias, and the Church was accordingly marked out for drastic action.
- First came the abolition of tithes, followed by the nationalisation of Church property and the suppression of the religious orders.
- The Assembly then proceeded to reorganise the government of the Church.
- Under the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the old dioceses were abolished, and each new department was made a bishopric.
The Clergy to Be Elected
- Bishops and priests were to be elected by popular vote and paid by the State.
- The Pope was no longer required to confirm bishops in their seats, but was merely to be informed of their election — the clergy thereby becoming, in effect, so many salaried state officials.
- The most offensive feature of this arrangement was the method of election by all citizens.
- Henceforth, Catholic bishops and priests might be chosen by Protestants, or even atheists — a arrangement that gave a rude shock to the religious convictions of much of the population.
- This produced a cleavage not merely within the Church, but across the whole nation, with disastrous results for the course of the Revolution.
Estimate of the Work of the Constituent Assembly
Defects of the Constitution
- Reflecting on the work of the Constituent Assembly, Mirabeau remarked: “The disorganisation of the kingdom could not have been better planned.” He hit upon the truth.
- The members of the Constituent Assembly were guided more by logic and abstract principles than by knowledge and insight — much of their work was accordingly, and speedily, undone.
- The constitution as framed carried serious defects:
A Weak Executive
- It showed a fatal distrust of executive authority — the power left to the king was too weak to be effective.
Separation of Power
- The executive and legislature were so sharply separated that communication between the king’s ministers and the people’s representatives was well-nigh impossible.
- This left ample room for mutual suspicion, and in the event of any divergence of aims, a deadlock or revolution could easily ensue.
Limited Franchise
- The franchise was limited by property qualification — a direct contradiction of the principle of equality so grandiloquently proclaimed by the Declaration of Rights.
- The plan of a unicameral legislature, and the system of electing judges, both proved unsatisfactory and had to be abandoned before long.
The Disastrous Effect of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy
- No error of the Constituent Assembly proved so disastrous in its effects as the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.
- It produced a schism within the Church and divided the people of France in their attitude towards the Revolution itself.
- A large number of the lower clergy, who had until then greatly favoured the Revolution, now turned against it for reasons of conscience — sowing the seeds of division that would soon produce civil war.
- It also estranged the king, who had accepted the Revolution, albeit reluctantly. His religious convictions ran deep, and the Pope’s denunciation of the Civil Constitution left him deeply uneasy.
Permanent Value of the Constituent Assembly’s Work
- Notwithstanding these defects, the Assembly’s work was not a complete failure.
- Its most enduring achievement was the sweeping away of the old social system of privilege and inequality, and the partial construction of a new social order grounded in equality.
- Secondly, the “department,” created to supersede the old provinces, proved a permanent and salutary innovation — provincial privileges and local traditions were swept away, contributing significantly to national unity.
Estimate of Mirabeau
- A noble by birth, Mirabeau was driven to a life of violent excesses of every kind by the persecutions of his own father.
- Rejected as a deputy by his own order, he was instead elected to the States-General by the Third Estate, throwing himself heart and soul into the revolutionary movement.
- His hatred of the Old Regime, combined with his considerable oratorical gifts, marked him out as a natural leader.
- He was a denouncer of autocracy, but a firm supporter of constitutional monarchy.
- In the Constituent Assembly, he was virtually the only figure who displayed genuine statesmanlike knowledge and grasp of the constitutional problem and the drift of events.
- He pointed out the danger of too rigid a division of powers between the executive and legislature, and strongly opposed the undue weakening of the king’s executive authority.
- He recognised that unless the hands of the executive were strengthened, the Revolution would degenerate into anarchy and lawlessness.
- His fundamental aim was to convince the king that the breach with the past was irreparable, and to reconcile him to the new order — he wanted the king to lead the Revolution along constitutional paths.
- But his policy of statesmanlike compromise proved impossible in the face of an inert king, a jealous Assembly, and a populace steeped in Rousseau’s doctrines.
- He warned the king against encouraging any foreign invasion, which would only unite the whole nation against him, and repeatedly advised the king to leave Paris to free himself from mob control and unite the whole of France against the lawlessness of the Parisian crowd.
- Unfortunately for France, the king listened to him only too late. Mirabeau himself was never fully appreciated — distrusted by the Court as a champion of the people, and despised by democrats as a bribed ally of the monarchy, he never succeeded in acquiring truly commanding influence.
- He died in 1791. “With him perished the greatest man of the revolutionary epoch, and the last hope of the French monarchy.”
The Attempted Flight of the King
- It has already been noted how the king had been forced to return to Paris by a mob of riotous women.
- He found his position in Paris increasingly untenable, being practically a prisoner in the hands of the mob.
- With the death of Mirabeau, he lost the monarchy’s firmest supporter, while the constitution itself had already deprived him of nearly all real power.
- He accordingly planned to escape with his family, but was discovered mid-flight and brought back from Varennes to Paris as a prisoner, being suspended from the exercise of the functions of his office (21 June 1791).
Effects of the King’s Flight: Rise of the Republican Party
- The attempted flight of the king produced very serious consequences — it revealed that, at heart, he was an émigré and an opponent of the constitution.
- The people’s fidelity to the cause of monarchy was accordingly shaken; they no longer believed in the sincerity of his professed support for the constitution.
- A republican party formed within the Assembly, its members — including Robespierre and Danton — holding that the king had forfeited his crown, and demanding the establishment of a republic.
- The nation had learnt that monarchy was not indispensable — the removal of the king had not wrecked the state, and republicanism, till then confined to the realm of speculation, was now brought within the range of practical politics.
- Nevertheless, the constitutional monarchists remained in the majority. In the struggle that followed between the two factions, they overcame the republicans and restored the king to his position.
- Louis accepted the Constitution and swore to uphold it. Its work now finished, the Constituent Assembly declared itself dissolved and retired from the scene (30 September 1791).
Attitude of Europe Toward the Revolution
- From the very outset, the Revolution in France had been watched with absorbed interest by the peoples of Europe.
- To liberal thinkers, the movement appeared to inaugurate a new era of constitutional government and international goodwill.
Englishmen Welcomed the Revolution at First, but Later Shrank From It
- In England, Fox welcomed the Revolution with generous enthusiasm, praising it warmly.
- Poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge wrote in glowing terms about the high hopes arising from the fall of tyranny in the Bourbon citadel.
- Pitt too was sympathetic, believing that the convulsions in France would end in the establishment of constitutional government, making France a less obnoxious neighbour.
- Burke, however, sounded a note of warning.
- He pointed out that the French Revolution was fundamentally different from the English Revolution of 1688, and that its pernicious doctrines and example threatened the very foundations of the existing social order and civilisation.
- As the excesses of the Revolution developed, the majority of Englishmen gradually came around to Burke’s way of thinking.
The Revolution Was Misunderstood in Europe
- Broadly speaking, the French Revolution was, in its early stages, completely misinterpreted and underrated by the powers of Europe.
- They laboured under the delusion that the movement in France was merely a local explosion that would not affect them in any way — indeed, they were rather pleased by the phenomenon.
- They imagined that France, paralysed by revolution, would be unable to play its traditionally powerful role in European politics — leaving them free to pursue their own schemes of aggression elsewhere, or even at France’s expense.
- But the rapid march of events in France, and the aggressive propaganda of the French revolutionaries, destroyed this comfortable delusion.
- The European powers came to realise that the French Revolution represented a genuine challenge to the Old Regime across Europe, and they began preparing for war to prevent the spread of its “infection.”
Attitude of Catherine II
- It was Catherine II of Russia alone who could genuinely make capital out of the situation.
- She did her best to embroil the other Powers in French affairs, calculating that, while they remained so occupied, she might seize the opportunity to gobble up Poland.
Conclusion
The period 1789–91 captures the French Revolution at its most constructive and, in retrospect, most tragically hopeful phase — the moment when reform still seemed possible within a constitutional monarchy, before radicalisation and violence overtook the movement. The Constituent Assembly’s achievements were genuinely transformative: the abolition of feudal privilege, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the rational reorganisation of France into departments, and the establishment of legal equality all permanently reshaped French society. Yet the Assembly’s constitution carried the seeds of its own failure — an executive too weak to govern effectively, a rigid separation of powers inviting deadlock, a franchise that betrayed the very principle of equality it proclaimed, and, above all, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which fatally divided both Church and nation. The tragedy of Mirabeau — the one statesman capable of reconciling king and Revolution, heeded only after his death — and the king’s own disastrous flight to Varennes, together sealed the fate of constitutional monarchy in France, setting the stage for the more radical and violent phases of the Revolution that were soon to follow.
