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"Men Are Born Free"

© Meg Greene Malvasi

It was a hot mid-summer day. In the sweltering chamber a speaker rose to address the National Constituent Assembly. A hush descended over the crowded room as anticipation mounted. The speaker cleared his throat. "The people are trying to shake off a yoke that has weighed on their shoulders for many centuries," he began. The delegates murmured in agreement. The speaker paused before continuing, "This insurrection. . . can be excused by the sheer misery to which the people have been subjected." The Duke D'Aiguillon, one of the richest noblemen in France, said he was now prepared to take bold steps to remedy the situation.

By the 1780s France was in the midst of an enormous economic crisis. The general decline of the economy, coupled with the cost of funding several wars against Great Britain, made it increasingly difficult for the French government to meet its financial obligations. The economic problems originated, however, in an unjust system of taxation. The tax burden fell chiefly on peasants, farmers, workers, and small businessmen who often had little money to pay. As a result, tax revenue was inadequate to replenish the depleted treasury.

Although serious, the French financial crisis could have been resolved had the king, Louis XVI (1754-1793) forced the privileged classes, the aristocracy and the clergy, to accept their share of responsibility. Clergymen and aristocrats, of course, refused to do so, but insisted that Louis call the Estates General into session to find a solution. The Estates General, the French national legislature, was a medieval institution that had not met in 175 years, since 1614. Louis did not want to call it into session, but the emergency really left him few options. In July 1788, he decreed that the Estates General would convene at Versailles the following May.

The clergy and the aristocracy expected to dominate the Estates General and use it to weaken the king. Their plan backfired. Instead, the aristocratic challenge to royal power opened the way for the destruction of the monarchy itself and with it, aristocratic and clerical privilege.

On June 17, 1789, the representatives of the Third Estate, which consisted of everyone in France not a member of either the aristocracy or the clergy, seized control of the Estates General and formed the National Assembly. Three days later, on June 20, finding themselves accidentally locked out of their usual meeting place, the members of the new National Assembly moved to a nearby indoor tennis court where, in the famous "Tennis Court Oath," they vowed not to recess until they had given France a constitution. After first resisting this maneuver, Louis XVI requested that the members of the First and Second Estates (the clergy and the aristocracy) join the members of the Third Estate in the National Assembly, which again renamed itself, become the National Constituent Assembly.

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