National Constituent Assembly - Structure in The Summer of 1789

Structure in The Summer of 1789

See also: List of members of the National Constituent Assembly of 1789

Following the storming of the Bastille on 14 July, the National Constituent Assembly became the effective government of France. In the words of historian François Mignet:

The assembly had acquired the entire power; the corporations depended on it; the national guards obeyed it... The royal power, though existing of right, was in a measure suspended, since it was not obeyed, and the assembly had to supply its action by its own.

The number of the Estates-General increased significantly during the election period, but many deputies took their time arriving, some of them reaching Paris as late as 1791. According to Timothy Tackett's Becoming a Revolutionary, there were a total of 1,177 deputies in the Assembly by mid-July 1789. Among them, 278 belonged to the nobles, 295 the clergy, and 604 were representatives of the Third Estate. For the entire duration of the Assembly a total of 1,315 deputies were certified, with 330 for the clergy, 322 nobles and 663 deputies of the Third Estate. According to his research, Mr. Tackett noted that the majority of the Second Estate had a military background, while the Third Estate was dominated by men of legal professions.

Some of the leading figures of the Assembly at this time included:

• The conservative foes of the revolution, later known as the "Right":
  • Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazalès — a forthright spokesman for aristocracy
  • the abbé Jean-Sifrein Maury — a somewhat inflexible representative of the Church

• The "Royalist democrats" (later known as "Constitutionals" or "Monarchicals") allied with Jacques Necker, inclined toward arranging France along lines similar to the British constitutional model with a House of Lords and a House of Commons:
  • Pierre Victor, baron Malouet
  • Trophime-Gérard, marquis de Lally-Tollendal
  • Stanislas Marie Adelaide, comte de Clermont-Tonnerre
  • Jean Joseph Mounier

• The "National Party," at this time still relatively united in support of revolution and democratization, representing mainly the interests of the middle classes, but strongly sympathetic to the broader range of the common people. In this early period, its most notable leaders included Mirabeau, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Jean-Sylvain Bailly (the first two coming from aristocratic backgrounds). Mignet also points to Adrien Duport, Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave, and Alexander Lameth as leaders among the "most extreme of this party" in this period, leaders in taking "a more advanced position than that which the revolution had attained." Lameth's brother Charles also belonged to this group.

To this list one must add the Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, foremost in proposing legislation in this period, and the man who, for a time, managed to bridge the differences between those who wanted a constitutional monarchy and those who wished to move in more democratic (or even republican) directions.