Tennis Court Oath
The deputies of the third estate found their meeting hall locked on the morning of 20 June 1789 and went to an indoor tennis court instead. They had declared themselves the National Assembly three days earlier, claiming to represent the nation rather than an order, and had invited the other two estates to join them. The doors were shut for what the court said were preparations for a royal session, and the deputies took it as a dissolution. Some 577 of them crowded into the Jeu de Paume, a bare rectangular hall a few streets away, and swore on the motion of Mounier not to separate and to reassemble wherever circumstances required until the constitution of the kingdom was established and set on firm foundations. One deputy voted against and asked for his dissent to be recorded, and was allowed to. The oath is the moment at which sovereignty in France was asserted to lie somewhere other than in the king's person, and everyone in the room understood that. Louis held his royal session on 23 June, announced reforms and ordered the estates to sit separately, and left. The deputies stayed, and Mirabeau is reported to have told the master of ceremonies that they were there by the will of the people and would leave only by the force of bayonets. The king ordered the other two estates to join them four days later. David's enormous painting of the scene was never finished, because too many of the men in it had been executed by the time he got to them.
- Year: 1789 CE
- Category: Political
