The Constitutions and Other Select Documents Illustrative of the History of France, 1789–1907/1

by Frank Maloy Anderson

Constitutions and Documents

Illustrative of the

History of France

 

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1. Decree upon the National Assembly.

June 17, 1789. Duvergier, Lois, I, 23.

The States-General met May 5, 1789. It contained approximately twelve hundred members—three hundred nobles, three hundred clergy, six hundred deputies of the Third Estate. As Louis XVI had failed to provide regulations respecting its organization and method of voting, a controversy immediately developed over these questions. The nobles and clergy desired separate organization and vote by order; the Third Estate demanded a single organization and vote by head. This decree was finally adopted by the Third Estate alone, after an invitation to the other two orders had met with no general response. The document indicates the method by which the Third Estate proposed to proceed, the arguments by which the method was justified, and the general temper which characterized the proceedings.

References. Mathews, French Revolution, 119–120; Gardiner, French Revolution, 37–39; Stephens, French Revolution, I, 58–62; Von Sybel, French Revolution, I, 54–65; Camhridge Modern History, VIII, 153–154; Aulard, Révolution française, 32–34; Lavisse and Rambaud, Histoire générale, VIII, 56–59; Jaurès, Histoire socialiste, I, 244.

The Assembly, deliberating after the verification of its credentials, recognizes that this assembly is already composed of the representatives sent directly by at least ninety-six per cent of the nation.

Such a body of deputies cannot remain inactive owing to the absence of the deputies of some bailliages and some classes of citizens; for the absentees, who have been summoned, cannot prevent those present from exercising the full extent of their rights, especially when the exercise of these rights is an imperious and pressing duty.

Furthermore, since it belongs only to the verified representatives to participate in the formation of the national opinion, and since all the verified representatives ought to be in this asssembly, it is still more indispensable to conclude that the interpretation and presentation of the general will of the nation belong to it, and belong to it alone, and that there cannot exist between the throne and this assembly any veto, any negative power.—The assembly declares then that the common task of the national restoration can and ought to be commenced without delay by the deputies present and that they ought to pursue it without interruption as well as without hindrance.—The denomination of National Assembly is the only one which is suitable for the Assembly in the present condition of things; because the members who compose it are the only representatives lawfully and publicly known and verified; because they are sent directly by almost the totality of the nation; because, lastly, the representation being one and indivisible, none of the deputies, in whatever class or order they may be chosen, has the right to exercise his functions apart from the present assembly.—The Assembly will never lose the hope of uniting within its own body all the deputies absent today; it will not cease to summon them to fulfil the obligation laid upon them to participate in the holding of the States-General. At any moment when the absent deputies present themselves in the course of the session which is about to open, it declares in advance that it will hasten to receive them and to share with them, after the verification of their credentials, the remainder of the great labors which are bound to effect the regeneration of France.—The National Assembly orders that the motives of the present decision be immediately drawn up in order to be presented to the king and the nation.