🏛 Voting by order
This was how it had been done in 1614. The clergy and the nobles could always join together and beat the Third Estate by two votes to one. Their privileges would be safe. Most nobles and many bishops wanted to keep this system.
Short-Term Causes of the Revolution, 1787-89 » The Estates General and the Tennis Court Oath
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: Paper 1, Depth study 1, Key topic 2
- What happened when the Estates General met at Versailles in May 1789
- Why the three Estates quarrelled over voting by order or by head
- How the Third Estate set up the National Assembly and swore the Tennis Court Oath
- How these events took power away from Louis XVI
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Unlock This CourseGetting ready for the Estates General
Remember, the Estates General had not met since 1614, so nobody alive had seen one. Over the winter of 1788-89 France got ready. Each Estate elected its own deputies. In the Third Estate, men aged 25 or over who paid tax could take part. The deputies they chose were not peasants or workers. Most were educated bourgeois, and many were lawyers.
Voters also drew up lists of complaints for their deputies to take to the king. Many asked for fairer taxes and for the Estates General to meet regularly. Being asked for their views made people expect real change.
One question mattered more than any other: how would the Estates General vote? In December 1788 the king agreed to 'double the Third'. The Third Estate would have about 600 deputies, as many as the clergy and nobles put together. But the king did not say how votes would be counted, and that made the extra deputies worth nothing unless the rules changed.
Key terms:
- Deputy: a person elected to speak and vote for others at the Estates General.
- Cahiers de doléances: the lists of complaints and requests that voters wrote for the king in 1789.
- Voting by order: each Estate meets separately and has one vote, so there are three votes in total.
- Voting by head: all the deputies meet together and each deputy has one vote.
- National Assembly: the name the Third Estate deputies gave themselves on 17 June 1789, claiming to speak for the whole nation.
- Constitution: a set of written rules that says how a country is governed and limits the power of its ruler.
The quarrel over voting
✋ Voting by head
With about 600 deputies out of about 1,200, the Third Estate needed only a few parish priests or reforming nobles on its side to win every vote. The Third Estate demanded this system, because it spoke for the great majority of the French people.
The argument was made loudly in print. In January 1789 a clergyman, the Abbé Sieyès, published a pamphlet called What is the Third Estate? His answer was 'Everything'. He argued that the Third Estate did all the useful work of France, so it was the nation. The pamphlet was widely read and gave the Third Estate deputies confidence.
The Estates General meets, May 1789
The Estates General opened at Versailles on 5 May 1789. The day went badly for the Third Estate. Its deputies had been told to wear plain black, while the nobles wore gold, silk and feathers. The king's speech was short. Necker then spoke for about three hours, almost all of it about the king's finances. Neither of them promised voting by head or a plan of reform.
Next, each Estate was told to check the election results of its own deputies in a separate room. The Third Estate refused. Its deputies saw that meeting separately would mean accepting voting by order. They insisted that all the deputies must be checked together, in one hall. For over a month nothing was done.
The National Assembly, June 1789
- 10 June: on a proposal from Sieyès, the Third Estate invited the other two Estates to join it. It would start work with or without them.
- 13 June: three parish priests crossed over to the Third Estate. More followed in the next few days.
- 17 June: by a large majority, the Third Estate deputies voted to call themselves the National Assembly. They also declared that taxes needed the Assembly's consent.
- 19 June: the clergy voted, narrowly, to join the National Assembly.
This was a revolutionary step. The deputies were saying that the right to make decisions for France belonged to the nation's representatives and not to the king alone. Nobody had given them this power. They had taken it.
The Tennis Court Oath, 20 June 1789
Louis decided to hold a Royal Session, a meeting of all three Estates where he would give his answer. The hall had to be got ready, but nobody warned the deputies in good time. On the morning of 20 June they arrived, in the rain, to find the doors locked and guarded by soldiers. They feared the king was about to shut the Assembly down.
They moved to the nearest large building, an indoor tennis court. There, led by their president, Bailly, they swore an oath: they would not separate, and would meet wherever they had to, until France had a constitution. Only one deputy refused to swear. This was the Tennis Court Oath.
🔒 Cause
The locked hall, and the fear that the king meant to close the National Assembly by force.
🎾 Event
The deputies promised to stay together until they had written a constitution for France.
👑 Consequence
The king could no longer simply send the deputies home. A constitution would mean the end of absolute monarchy.
The king gives way
At the Royal Session on 23 June, Louis offered some reforms, including a say for the Estates General over taxes. But he declared the decisions of 17 June cancelled and ordered the three Estates to meet separately. When he left, the Third Estate deputies stayed in their seats. One of their leaders, the Comte de Mirabeau, told the king's official that only force would make them leave.
Louis did not use force. Over the next two days most of the clergy and 47 nobles joined the Assembly. On 27 June the king gave in and ordered the rest of the clergy and nobles to join too.
Why it mattered:
- The Third Estate had won. There was now one assembly, voting by head.
- Power had moved. A body that the king had not created was claiming to speak for France and was writing a constitution.
- The crisis was not over. Louis began to move soldiers towards Paris and Versailles. You will see what that led to in The Storming of the Bastille and the Grande Peur.
Common mistakes
- Saying the Tennis Court Oath set up the National Assembly. The Assembly was declared on 17 June. The oath came three days later.
- Saying the deputies swore to get rid of the king. They swore to give France a constitution. In June 1789 almost nobody wanted a France without a king.
- Saying the Third Estate deputies were poor. They spoke for ordinary people, but most were well-off bourgeois such as lawyers.
Exam-style question
Explain two effects of the setting up of the National Assembly (June 1789) on the power of Louis XVI. [8 marks]
Model answer
One effect was that Louis lost his position as the only source of authority in France. On 17 June 1789 the Third Estate deputies declared themselves the National Assembly and said that taxes needed their consent. This meant that they, as the representatives of the nation, were claiming powers that had belonged to the king alone. Three days later, in the Tennis Court Oath, they swore not to separate until France had a constitution. A constitution would put written limits on what the king could do, so the Assembly was a direct challenge to absolute monarchy.
A second effect was that the king was shown to be unable to enforce his own orders. At the Royal Session on 23 June he cancelled the Assembly's decisions and told the Estates to meet separately, but the deputies refused to leave the hall. Most of the clergy and 47 nobles then joined them. On 27 June Louis had to order the remaining clergy and nobles to join the Assembly as well. Because he had commanded one thing and then accepted the opposite within four days, the Assembly had proved that it could defy him and win.
What lifts it to the top level: each paragraph names one effect, backs it with exact dates and events, and then explains how the National Assembly caused that change to the king's power.
Exam tip
The question asks about effects on the king's power, so do not tell the story of how the Assembly was set up. Start each paragraph with 'One effect was...' and 'A second effect was...', and finish each one with a 'this meant that' sentence. One effect alone cannot score more than half marks, however well you explain it.