National Assembly (French Revolution)

National Assembly Assemblée nationale
Kingdom of France
Mirabeau's defiance in front of the marquis de Dreux-Brézé on 23 June 1789
Type
Type	Unicameral
History
Established	13 June 1789
Disbanded	9 July 1789
Preceded by	Estates-General of 1789
Succeeded by	National Constituent Assembly

During the French Revolution, the National Assembly (French: Assemblée nationale), which existed from June 13, 1789 to July 9, 1789, was a revolutionary assembly formed by the representatives of the Third Estate (the common people) of the Estates-General; thereafter (until replaced by the Legislative Assembly on Sept. 30, 1791) it was known as the National Constituent Assembly (French: Assemblée nationale constituante), though popularly the shorter form persisted.

The Estates-General had been called on Dec 4, 1789 to deal with France's financial crisis, but promptly fell to squabbling over its own structure. Its members had been elected to represent the estates of the realm: the 1st Estate (the clergy), the 2nd Estate (the nobility) and the 3rd Estate (which, in theory, represented all of the commoners and, in practice, represented the bourgeoisie). The Third Estate had been granted "double representation"—that is, twice as many delegates as each of the other estates—but at the opening session on May 5, 1789 they were informed that all voting would be "by power" not "by head", so their double representation was to be meaningless in terms of power. They refused this and proceeded to meet separately.

Shuttle diplomacy among the estates continued without success until May 27; on May 28, the representatives of the 3rd Estate began to meet on their own, calling themselves the Communes ("Commons") and proceeding with their "verification of powers" independently of the other bodies; from June 13 to June 17 they were gradually joined by some of the nobles and the majority of the clergy and other people such as the peasants. On June 13, this group began to call itself the National Assembly.