National Constituent Assembly
제헌국민의회
Constituent assembly of the Kingdom of France, formed from the National Assembly on 9 July 1789, which governed the country under a constitutional monarchy while drafting a constitution until it dissolved on 30 September 1791. It is distinct from the National Convention convened on 20 September 1792 and from Russia's All-Russian Constituent Assembly.
In depth
Formation
The Estates General met on 5 May 1789, the first such meeting since 1614. The Third Estate deputies gathered separately as the Communes from 11 May, and on 17 June 1789 approved Sieyès's motion declaring themselves the National Assembly by 490 votes to 90. After the Tennis Court Oath of 20 June and Louis XVI's recognition on 27 June, the body renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly on 9 July 1789.
Composition and internal split
By mid-July 1789 it had about 1,177 deputies (278 nobility, 295 clergy, 604 Third Estate); 1,315 deputies were certified over the whole period. Political groupings formed: a conservative "Right" (Cazalès, abbé Maury), Monarchiens favouring a British-style model (Mounier, Malouet, Lally-Tollendal, Clermont-Tonnerre), and the "Left" or National Party (Mirabeau, Lafayette, Bailly, Duport, Barnave, the Lameth brothers), with Sieyès bridging constitutional-monarchist and more democratic currents.
Key measures and events
Its tenure saw the storming of the Bastille (14 July 1789), the abolition of feudal privileges on the night of 4 August and the August decrees, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (26 August 1789), the October 1789 transfer of the Assembly and the royal family to Paris, the nationalisation of Church property (2 November 1789), administrative reorganisation into 83 departments, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (12 July 1790), the king's flight to Varennes (June 1791), the Champ de Mars massacre (July 1791) and the Constitution of 1791. The Assembly's debates were published in Le Moniteur universel. Three loose tendencies emerged: monarchists, constitutionalists (the most numerous) and a still small radical patriotic group.
Restoration of the king and dissolution
In summer 1791, after the flight to Varennes, the Assembly decided the king must be restored if he accepted the constitution; that decision sparked protests and the Champ de Mars Massacre, in which the National Guard killed between 12 and 50 people. The Assembly dissolved itself on 30 September 1791 and the Constitution of 1791 took effect the next day, empowering the Legislative Assembly. After the insurrection of 10 August 1792 it was the National Convention, elected by universal male suffrage and convened on 20 September 1792, that abolished the monarchy, not this Assembly.