Page 301 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1602 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

The young are generally full of revolt, and are
often pretty revolting about it. • Francois
la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt
(1747–1827)

stocked, under his successor, Charles Alexandre de make the laws by which the nation would be governed.
Calonne, it became clear that the kingdom was approach- Although most delegates were initially reluctant to adopt
ing bankruptcy. Calonne presided over the Assembly of such a radical stance, the intransigence of the nobility and
Notables, a hand-picked body of nobles, clergymen, and the refusal of the king to break the deadlock made the
a few wealthy commoners who were expected to approve Third Estate increasingly sympathetic to his position.
his plan for a more participatory government in exchange
for the privileged classes’ greater shouldering of the tax The Constituent Assembly
burden.This plan, which involved elected assemblies for and the First Constitution
some provinces, was a tacit abdication of absolutism. On 17 June a group of deputies from the Third Estate fol-
Still, the Assembly of Notables did not consider itself lowed Sieyes’s advice and declared themselves the
qualified to approve the revolutionary measures, and National Assembly, the sole body authorized to make the
instead demanded that the king convene a more venera- nation’s laws.They invited members of the other estates
ble and representative body for this purpose: the Estates to join them, but only as citizens representing the nation,
General. After widespread unrest during the summer of not as delegates speaking on behalf of their castes. Strictly
1788, the king called a meeting of that esteemed group speaking, this was the truly revolutionary act of the
for May 1789 at the royal capital of Versailles. French Revolution, since there was no legal precedent for
The Estates General consisted of provincial delegates acting in such a manner. (The subsequent storming of the
from the three traditional estates, or classes: the First Bastille prison fortress by Parisian crowds on 14 July
Estate (the clergy), the Second Estate (the nobility), and 1789 showed the force of popular anger, which posed a
the Third Estate (the commoners).Yet it had not met since threat both for the Third Estate deputies and the defend-
1614, after which the increasingly powerful absolute ers of the old order, but it was not in itself a revolution-
monarchs had succeeded in suppressing this historical ary act.) On 20 June the revolutionary assembly found
check on royal authority. Consequently it was unclear the doors of its meeting hall locked and proceeded to the
how the three estates would meet, deliberate, and vote. most convenient space available, an indoor tennis court.
Most nobles favored the procedure of 1614, according to There the delegates took their famous oath not to dis-
which the estates met separately and voted by order.Yet band until they had written a constitution for France.
many members of the Third Estate perceived this as a After some hesitation, the king accepted this act of defi-
form of disenfranchisement, since the privileged nobles ance, but ordered the deputies of the other two estates to
and clergy would often vote together against the Third join the National Assembly, thus creating a more con-
Estate. To remedy this injustice some commoners called servative body than would have emerged from the initial
for voting by head (together as one body) and a “dou- revolutionary assembly alone.
bling of the Third,” in other words, doubling its repre- Indeed, the National Assembly, otherwise known as
sentation, measures which would have provided parity the Constituent Assembly, created a highly undemocratic
between the Third Estate and the other delegates. A constitution, which was completed in September 1791.
more radical proposal came from the Abbé Sieyes, a By establishing stringent property qualifications for vot-
priest who nevertheless sympathized with the Third ing rights and still higher qualifications for eligibility for
Estate and who urged its members to break from the public office, the deputies ensured that ordinary people
Estates General and declare themselves a national assem- would have little say in the laws that governed them.
bly. Sieyes argued that the Third Estate comprised over Only one-sixth of men over the age of twenty-five were
99 percent of France’s population and was engaged in its eligible to vote.Women, servants, itinerant workers, and
most useful work.The privileged classes, by contrast, were slaves (until their emancipation in February 1794) were
small and parasitical. Therefore the Third Estate should excluded from political participation. The contradiction