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A twelve member Constitutional
Committee was convened on 14 July 1789 (coincidentally the day of the Storming
of the Bastille). Its task was to do much of the drafting of the articles of
the constitution. It included originally two members from the First Estate,
(Champion de Cicé, Archbishop of Bordeaux and Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun); two
from the Second (the comte de Clermont-Tonnerre and the marquis de
Lally-Tollendal); and four from the Third (Jean Joseph Mounier, Abbé Sieyès,
Nicholas Bergasse, and Isaac René Guy le Chapelier).The main controversies
early on surrounded the issues of what level of power to be granted to the king
of France (i.e.: veto, suspensive or absolute) and what form would the
legislature take (i.e.: unicameral or bicameral). The Constitutional Committee
proposed a bicameral legislature, but the motion was defeated 10 September 1789
(849-89) in favor of one house; the next day, they proposed an absolute veto,
but were again defeated (673-325) in favor of a suspensive veto, which could be
over-ridden by three consecutive legislatures.
A second Constitutional Committee
quickly replaced it, and included Talleyrand, Abbé Sieyès, and Le Chapelier
from the original group, as well as new members Gui-Jean-Baptiste Target,
Jacques Guillaume Thouret, Jean-Nicolas Démeunier, François Denis Tronchet, and
Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne, all of the Third Estate. Their greatest
controversy faced by this new committee surrounded the issue of citizenship.
Would every subject of the French Crown be given equal rights, as the
Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen seemed to promise, or would there be
some restrictions?
Fueled by rumors of a reception for the King's bodyguards on 1 October 1789 at which the national cockade had been trampled upon, on 5 October 1789 crowds of women began to assemble at Parisian markets. The women first marched to the Hôtel de Ville, demanding that city officials address their concerns. The women were responding to the harsh economic situations they faced, especially bread shortages. They also demanded an end to royal efforts to block the National Assembly, and for the King and his administration to move to Paris as a sign of good faith in addressing the widespread poverty.
Getting unsatisfactory responses from city officials, as many as 7,000 women joined the march to Versailles, bringing with them cannons and a variety of smaller weapons. Twenty thousand National Guardsmen under the command of La Fayette responded to keep order, and members of the mob stormed the palace, killing several guards. La Fayette ultimately persuaded the king to accede to the demand of the crowd that the monarchy relocate to Paris.
On 6 October 1789, the King and the royal family moved from Versailles to Paris under the "protection" of the National Guards, thus legitimizing the National Assembly.
The National Assembly completed the
draft of the constitution in 1791. After very long negotiations, the
constitution was reluctantly accepted by King Louis XVI in September 1791. Its
main object was to limit the powers of the monarch. These powers instead of
being concentrated in the hands of one person, were now separated and assigned
to different institutions, the legislature, executive and judiciary. This made
France a constitutional monarchy.
The Constitution of 1791 vested the
power to make laws in the National Assembly, which was indirectly elected. That
is, citizens voted for a group of electors, who in turn chose the Assembly. Not
all citizens, however, had the right to vote. Only men above 25 years of age
who paid taxes equal to at least 3 days of a labourer’s wage were given the
status of active citizens, that is, they were entitled to vote. The remaining
men and all women were classed as passive citizens. To qualify as an elector
and then as a member of the Assembly, a man had to belong to the highest
bracket of taxpayers.
Women, children and youth below 25
were not allowed to vote in the Constitution of 1791.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man,
adopted on 27 August 1789 eventually became the preamble of the constitution
adopted on 30 September 1791.
The Constitution began with a
Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. Rights such as the right to life,
freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, equality before law, were established as
‘natural and inalienable’ rights, that is, they belonged to each human being by
birth and could not be taken away. It was the duty of the state to protect each
citizen’s natural rights.
The resentment toward
the Church weakened its power during the opening of the Estates General in May
1789. The Church composed the First Estate with 130,000 members of the clergy.
When the National Assembly was later created in June 1789 by the Third Estate,
the clergy voted to join them, which perpetuated the destruction of the Estates
General as a governing body.The National Assembly began to enact social and
economic reform. Legislation sanctioned on 4 August 1789 abolished the Church's
authority to impose the tithe. In an attempt to address the financial crisis,
the Assembly declared, on 2 November 1789, that the property of the Church was
"at the disposal of the nation." They used this property to back a
new currency, the assignats. Thus, the nation had now also taken on the
responsibility of the Church, which included paying the clergy and caring for
the poor, the sick and the orphaned. In December, the Assembly began to sell
the lands to the highest bidder to raise revenue, effectively decreasing the
value of the assignats by 25% in two years. In autumn 1789, legislation
abolished monastic vows and on 13 February 1790 all religious orders were
dissolved. Monks and nuns were encouraged to return to private life and a small
percentage did eventually marry.
The Civil Constitution of
the Clergy, passed on 12 July 1790, turned the remaining clergy into employees
of the state. This established an election system for parish priests and
bishops and set a pay rate for the clergy. Many Catholics objected to the
election system because it effectively denied the authority of the Pope in Rome
over the French Church. Eventually, in November 1790, the National Assembly
began to require an oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution from all the members
of the clergy. This led to a schism between those clergy who swore the required
oath and accepted the new arrangement and those who remained loyal to the Pope.
Overall, 24% of the clergy nationwide took the oath. Widespread refusal led to
legislation against the clergy, "forcing them into exile, deporting them
forcibly, or executing them as traitors." Pope Pius VI never accepted the
Civil Constitution of the Clergy, further isolating the Church in France.
The revolutionary journalist Jean-Paul Marat commented in his
newspaper L‘Ami du peuple (The friend of the people) on the Constitution
drafted by the National Assembly:
‘The task of representing the people has been given to the rich .
the lot of the poor and oppressed will never be improved by peaceful means
alone. Here we have absolute proof of how wealth influences the law. Yet laws
wi ll last only as long as the people agree to obey them. And when they have
managed to cast off the yoke of the aristocrats, they will do the same to the
other
