During the French Revolution, the National Assembly (French: Assemblée nationale) was a transitional body between the Estates-General and the National Constituent Assembly which existed from June 17 to July 9 of 1789.

Background

The Estates-General had been called in May of 1789 to deal with France's financial crisis, but failed to accomplish this due to squabbling between the Estates. On June 17, 1789, having completed their verification of powers, the communes ("commoners"), representatives of the Third Estate (in theory, all of the commoners; in practice, the bourgeoisie), declared themselves the National Assembly, an assembly not of the Estates but of "the People". They were slowly joined by the First Estate (the clergy) and the Second Estate (the nobility).

Proceedings

This newly constituted assembly immediately linked itself to the capitalists -- the sources of the credit needed to fund the national debt -- and to the common people. They consolidated the public debt and declared all existing taxes to have been previously illegally imposed, but voted in these same taxes provisionally, only as long as the Assembly continued to sit. This restored the confidence of capital and gave it a strong interest in keeping the Assembly in session. As for the common people, the Assembly established a committee of subsistence to deal with the food shortages.

Louis XVI resists

Initially, the Assembly announced (and for the most part probably believed) itself to be operating in the interests of King Louis XVI as well as those of the people. In theory, royal authority still prevailed and the process of adopting new laws continued to require the king's consent.

Events had now bypassed finance minister Jacques Necker's previous plan of conciliation—a complex scheme of giving in to the Communes on some points while holding firm on others. No longer interested in Necker's advice, Louis XVI, under the influence of the courtiers of his privy council, resolved to go in state to the Assembly, annul its decrees, command the separation of the orders, and dictate the reforms to be effected by the restored Estates-General.

Perhaps if Louis had simply marched into the Salle des États where the National Assembly met, his plan might have succeeded. Instead, he remained at Marly and ordered the hall closed, expecting to prevent the Assembly from meeting for several days while he prepared. The Assembly simply moved their deliberations to the king's tennis court, where they proceeded to swear the Tennis Court Oath (June 20, 1789), under which they agreed not to separate until they had given France a constitution.

Two days later, deprived of use of the tennis court as well, the National Assembly met in the church of Saint Louis, where the majority of the representatives of the clergy joined them: efforts to restore the old order had served only to accelerate events. When, on June 23, in accord with his plan, the king finally addressed the representatives of all three estates, he encountered a stony silence. He concluded by ordering all to disperse. The nobles and clergy obeyed; the deputies of the common people remained seated in a silence finally broken by Mirabeau, whose short speech culminated, "A military force surrounds the assembly! Where are the enemies of the nation? Is Catiline at our gates? I demand, investing yourselves with your dignity, with your legislative power, you inclose yourselves within the religion of your oath. It does not permit you to separate till you have formed a constitution." [1] The deputies stood firm.

Necker, conspicuous by his absence from the royal party on that day, found himself in disgrace with Louis, but back in the good graces of the National Assembly. Those of the clergy who had joined the Assembly at the church of Saint Louis remained in the Assembly; forty-seven members of the nobility, including the Louis Philippe Joseph, duc d'Orléans, soon joined them; by June 27, the royal party had overtly given in, although the likelihood of a military counter-coup remained in the air. The French military began to arrive in large numbers around Paris and Versailles.

Reconstitution

Messages of support poured into the Assembly from Paris and other French cities. On July 9, 1789, the Assembly, reconstituting itself as the National Constituent Assembly, addressed the king in polite but firm terms, requesting the removal of the troops (which now included foreign regiments, who showed far greater obedience to the king than did his French troops), but Louis declared that he alone could judge the need for troops, and assured them that the troops had deployed strictly as a precautionary measure. Louis "offered" to move the assembly to Noyon or Soissons: that is to say, to place it between two armies and deprive it of the support of the Parisian people.

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