The oath was a pledge signed by 576 members out of 577 of France's Third Estate and a few members of the First Estate on June 20, 1789 in a tennis court near the Palace of Versailles. The meeting hall of the Estates General had been locked accidentally, but the Third Estate thought that this was an invasion of their rights, and were very angry with the king. They stood in a nearby indoor tennis court. They swore an oath that they would not move until "the voice of the nation was heard" and their demands were met. They were joined by the nobles and clergy.
 The vote had always been taken by class, and usually, the clergy and the nobility voted to support whatever the king wanted, so the vote of the middle class did not matter. The middle class argued that voting should be "by poll" not by order, because they had more representatives than the first two estates combined. They also wanted the Estates General to meet as one body, so that voting would be by poll, rather than by class. A week later, the king agreed and the Estates General met as the "National Assembly". Related pages
Tennis Court Oath Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.
The Tennis Court Oath was a pledge that was signed in the early days of the French Revolution and was an important revolutionary act that displayed the belief that political authority came from the nation’s people and not from the monarchy. Why the Peculiar Name?The pledge thanks its name to the place where it was signed. On June 20, 1789, the Third Estate, representing the commoners in the Estates General, found themselves locked out of their regular meeting place and saw it as a ploy from the King to disband them. The 576 members moved their meeting to a tennis court in Saint-Louis, Versailles and signed an oath that they would not stop meeting up until they have written a new constitution for France. As the Third Estate didn’t have the right to act as a National Assembly, this pledge is seen as a revolutionary act. "What is The Tennis Court Oath" History on the Net© 2000-2022, Salem Media.March 30, 2022 <https://www.historyonthenet.com/what-is-the-tennis-court-oath> More Citation Information.
Explore this item in our Flash timeline
Share
Find out more about the French Revolution: Tennis Court Oath Here
Explore more timeline content:On 20 June 1789, the members of the French Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath (French: Serment du Jeu de Paume) in the tennis court which had been built in 1686 for the use of the Versailles palace.[1] The vote was "not to separate and to reassemble wherever necessary until the Constitution of the kingdom is established". [1] It was a pivotal event in the French Revolution. The Estates-General had been called to address the country's fiscal and agricultural crisis, but they had become bogged down in issues of representation immediately after convening in May 1789, particularly whether they would vote by order or by head (which would increase the power of the Third Estate, as they outnumbered the other two estates by a large margin).
Serment du Jeu de Paume Drawing by Jacques-Louis David of the Tennis Court Oath. David later became a deputy in the National Convention in 1793 On 17 June, the Third Estate began to call themselves the National Assembly, led by Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau.[2] On the morning of 20 June, the deputies were shocked to discover that the chamber door was locked and guarded by soldiers. They immediately feared the worst and were anxious that a royal attack was imminent from King Louis XVI, so upon the suggestion of one of their members Joseph-Ignace Guillotin,[3] the deputies congregated in a nearby indoor Royal Tennis Court of Versailles in the Saint-Louis district of the city of Versailles near the Palace of Versailles. There 576 of the 577 members from the Third Estate took a collective oath "not to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established".[4] The only person who did not join in the oath was Joseph Martin-Dauch from Castelnaudary, who would only execute decisions that were made by the monarch.[5] Before the Revolution, French society—aside from royalty—was divided into three estates. The First Estate comprised the clergy; the Second Estate was the nobility. The rest of France—some 97 per cent of the population—was the Third Estate, which ranged from very wealthy city merchants to impoverished rural farmers. The three estates had historically met in the Estates General, a legislative assembly, [6] but this had not happened since 1614. The Estates General of 1789 was a general assembly representing the French estates of the realm: the clergy (First Estate), the nobility (Second Estate), and the commoners (Third Estate). It was the last of the Estates General of the Kingdom of France. Summoned by King Louis XVI, the Estates General of 1789 ended when the Third Estate formed the National Assembly and, against the wishes of the King, invited the other two estates to join. This signaled the outbreak of the French Revolution. Engraving by Isidore-Stanislaus Helman (1743–1806) following a sketch by Charles Monnet (1732–1808). The engraving, L'Ouverture des États Généraux à Versailles le 5 Mai 1789, "Opening of the Estates-General in Versailles 5 May 1789", was one of Helman's series Principales Journées de la Révolution. The third Estate comprised the overwhelming majority of the French population but the structure of the Estates-General was such that the Third Estate comprised a bare majority of the delegates. A simple majority was sufficient—as long as delegate votes were cast together. The First and Second Estates preferred to divide the vote; a proposal might need to receive approval from each Estate or there might be two "houses" of the Estates-General (one for the first two Estates, and one for the Third) and a bill would need to be passed by both houses. Either way, the First and Second Estates could exercise a veto over proposals enjoying widespread support among the Third Estate, such as reforms that threatened the privileges of the nobility and clergy.[citation needed] The deputies' fears, even if wrong, were reasonable and the importance of the oath goes above and beyond its context.[7] The oath was a revolutionary act and an assertion that political authority derived from the people and their representatives rather than from the monarchy. Their solidarity forced Louis XVI to order the clergy and the nobility to join the Third Estate in the National Assembly to give the illusion that he controlled the National Assembly.[2] This oath was vital to the Third Estate as a protest that led to more power in the Estates General, every governing body thereafter.[8] An English-language translation of the oath reads:
Minutes of the taking of the Jeu de Paume oath Signature page The Oath signified for the first time that French citizens formally stood in opposition to Louis XVI. The National Assembly's refusal to back down forced the king to make concessions. It was foreshadowed by and drew considerably from the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence, especially the preamble.[citation needed] The Oath also inspired a wide variety of revolutionary activities in the months afterwards, ranging from rioting in the French countryside to renewed calls for a written constitution. It reinforced the Assembly's strength, and although the King attempted to thwart its effect, Louis was forced to relent and on 27 June 1789 he formally requested that voting occur based on head counts, not on each estates' power.[10] The Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789) preceded the abolition of feudalism (4 August 1789) and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (26 August 1789) as the National Assembly became increasingly radical.[citation needed] Following the 100 year celebration of the oath in 1889, what had been the Royal Tennis Court was again forgotten and deteriorated. Prior to World War II, there was a plan to convert it into a table tennis room for Senate administrators at the Palace. In 1989 the bicentenary of the French Revolution was an opportunity to restore the tennis court.[11]
|
What was the pledge taken at the tennis court oath?
zusammenhängende Posts
Urheberrechte © © 2024 frojeostern Inc.
