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Jean-Louis David, an artist who
became known as "the propagandist of the revolution,"
painted this interpretation of the Oath in 1791.
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On June 20, 1789 the Third Estate gathered outside
their usual meeting place in the Hotel des Menus at Versailles to
discuss the issue of voting. Deadlocked for days on the issue of whether
voting would be conducted by individual or by each estate, the groups
had met to resolve the issue. To their surprise they found that the King
had locked them out of their regular meeting place.
As they stood in the pouring rain, they learned that
the king had cancelled their royal session because his son had died and
because he found out about the formation of the National Assembly, which
did not make him happy.
In an attempt to seek shelter from the elements, the
group gathered in an indoor tennis court nearby. It was here that Jean
Sylvain Bailly, president of the Assembly and later mayor of Paris
jumped upon a table and voiced the ideas of Jean Joseph Mounier, his
fellow leader and secretary of the assembly, and said:
Let us swear to God and our country that we will not disperse until we
have established a sound and just constitution, as instructed by those
who nominated us.
Of the 577 members present, all but one took the oath
to remain at Versailles until a constitution was drawn up that all could
agree upon. The taking of the Tennis Court Oath signifies the beginning
of the end for absolute monarchy in France and eventually led to the
formation of a constitutional monarchy to take its place.
The group alerted the King that they would not leave
the meeting hall until the Estates General were allowed to vote by head
or were forced out by bayonets. The King, realizing his defeat,
eventually agreed to their voting demands. Later, he ordered the two
other Estates of his "loyal clergy and nobility" to join the
National Assembly.
At this point it seemed that the common man had won
and the revolution was over. People at Versailles ran around yelling,
"Vive le Roi!" to show their joy. What they did not know,
however, was that the revolution had only just begun. Years of terror
and violence lay ahead in France's future.
This dramatic action taken by the Third Estate or
National Assembly was a huge step toward revolution. Later that year,
the National Assembly declared itself a Constituent Assembly and helped
to abolish feudal rights, suppressed the titles of the king and queen,
issued new currency called assignats, and granted civil rights to
many groups including Jews in France.
The savagery of the revolution had yet to be seen.
While the National Assembly worked to create a constitution for the
people of France, King Louis XVI was deploying troops to regulate Paris.
These troops, sent to keep the peace, would soon be engaged in the
bloody siege that took place during the storming of the Bastille, where
many soldiers and Parisians would be brutally killed and the French
Revolution would be revived and promoted.
