Tennis Court Oath
On 20 June 1789, locked out of their usual meeting chamber at Versailles by royal order, the deputies of the Third Estate — now calling themselves the National Assembly — gathered in a nearby indoor tennis court (jeu de paume) and swore a collective oath not to disband until France had a written constitution. The oath was proposed by the astronomer Jean-Sylvain Bailly, acting as president of the Assembly; only one deputy, Martin Dauch, refused to sign. The gesture was a direct act of defiance against royal absolutism and a constitutive moment in the assertion of popular sovereignty: the deputies claimed that their legitimacy came from the people they represented, not from the king who had convened them. Louis XVI attempted to dissolve the Assembly three days later at the Séance royale of 23 June; the Comte de Mirabeau replied that the Assembly would not disperse 'except by the force of bayonets.' Louis backed down. When troops began concentrating around Paris in early July, Parisian crowds interpreted it as a royalist counter-coup — and the Bastille fell on the 14th.
- Year: 1789 CE
- Category: Political
