IV.

Drafting a Constitution

Provincial unrest and disorder, known as the Great Fear, stimulated the National Constituent Assembly to action. During the night session of August 4, 1789, the clergy, nobles, and bourgeoisie renounced their privileges; a few days later the assembly passed a law abolishing feudal and manorial prerogatives, but providing compensation in certain cases. Parallel legislation included prohibition of the sale of public offices, of exemption from taxation, and of the right of the Roman Catholic Church to levy tithes.

The assembly then set to grapple with its primary task, the drafting of a constitution. In the constitutional preamble, known in history as the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the delegates formulated the Revolutionary ideals later summarized as Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité (“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”). While the Constituent Assembly deliberated, the hungry population of Paris, seething with discontent and rumours of Royalist conspiracy, clamoured for food and agitated for action. Reports of a gala banquet at Versailles raised the political ferment in Paris to boiling point. On October 5-6 a large body of Parisians, mostly women, marched on Versailles and laid siege to the royal palace. Louis and his family were rescued by Lafayette, who, at the demand of the crowd, escorted them to Paris. After this episode some conservative members of the Constituent Assembly, which followed the king to Paris, handed in their resignations. In Paris, both the court and the assembly became increasingly subject to pressure from its citizens. Radical sentiment became predominant in the assembly, but the original objective, a constitutional monarchy, was retained.

The first draft of the constitution received the approval of the French monarch on July 14, 1790, at elaborate ceremonies in Paris attended by delegations from all parts of the country. By the terms of the document, the provinces of France were abolished, and the country was divided into departments, each provided with a local elective administrative apparatus. Hereditary titles were outlawed, trial by jury in criminal cases was ordained, and fundamental modification of French law was projected. By the institution of property qualifications for the vote, the constitution confined the electorate to the middle and upper classes. The constitution vested legislative authority in a Legislative Assembly, to consist of 745 members elected by an indirect system of voting. Although executive authority was vested in the king, strict limitations were imposed on his powers. His veto power was merely suspensive, and the assembly had effective control of his conduct of foreign affairs. Severe restrictions on the power of the Roman Catholic Church were legalized through a series of articles, called the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the most important of which confiscated all ecclesiastical estates. To relieve financial distress, the state was authorized to issue a new form of paper currency, called assignats, which were secured by the seized lands, constituting a tenth of France. The constitution also provided for the election of priests and bishops by the voters, for remuneration of the clergy by the state, for a clerical oath of allegiance to the state, and for the dissolution of most monastic orders.

During the 15-month interval between Louis's acceptance of the initial draft of the constitution and completion of the final draft, important changes in the relationship of forces within the French Revolutionary movement took shape. These changes were dictated, first of all, by the mood of suspicion and discontent among the disenfranchised section of the population. Wanting the vote and also relief from social and economic misery, the nonpropertied classes steadily gravitated towards radicalism. This process, largely accelerated throughout France by the highly organized Jacobins and, in Paris, by the Cordeliers, acquired further impetus as reports circulated that Marie Antoinette was in constant communication with her brother Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor. Like most other monarchs of Europe, Leopold had afforded sanctuary to the émigrés and made no secret of his hostility to the Revolutionary occurrences in France. Popular suspicion regarding the activities of the queen and the complicity of the king were confirmed when, on June 21, the royal family was apprehended in a coach at Varennes while attempting to escape from France.