In early May, as the deputies from all three Estates came to Versailles for the scheduled opening of the Estates General they carried with them cahiers enjoining them to reform the constitution in broadly similar ways. One major matter that divided them was the question of how the deputies would meet and vote. Deputies from the Third Estate came determined to pursue common meetings of the three orders with matters decided by a vote by head. Noble and Clerical deputies were split on the issue, but a majority in both orders carried cahiers encouraging or requiring them to seek separate meetings and a vote by order. The electoral regulations sent out by the king in January had not settled which form would prevail. From the very first meeting of the Estates General, the orders entered into a prolonged stalemate as the Third Estate refused to conduct business without first verifying all deputy credentials in common in the main meeting hall and the Nobles insisted that credentials be verified separately by each order.

27 June had marked a triumph for those who supported a union of the orders. The stalemate finally broken, it was time to write a constitution and help the king repair his finances. Then, on 30 June, at the first full meeting of the united orders, scores of deputies protested against the activities of the National Assembly. To a man these deputies, all from the privileged orders, claimed that instructions from their constituents prohibited them meeting in common with the other orders or accepting a vote by head. They based their protests on the mandates they had received from their electors. Almost all of the deputies of 1789 had sworn an oath upon receiving the cahier of his electoral district to faithfully present the grievances contained within. In most cases, they had sworn an oath to obey certain commands their electors made on pain of being, at least in theory, disowned as a representative. This was the “binding” or “imperative” mandate.

Here we examine the final steps the deputies elected to the Estates General of 1789 took to transform that traditional body into a national constituent assembly. We will examine three steps in detail, again relying on a broad array of sources to show how the decisions reached were shaped by the interplay between different developing political groups within the Assembly. First, as the summer of 1789 came to an end, the deputies sought to establish their power to craft France’s new constitution as they saw best, guided by the wishes of their constituents, not by the will of the king. By the middle of September, the king had yet to accept the August decrees or the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. From 14 to 21 September, the deputies debated how to ensure that the king would accept the decrees without modification. As part of this discussion, the deputies broached the question of whether or not the king had the right to request changes to the constitution they were writing. They were careful not to cause unnecessary conflict between the king and the Assembly.

The next major question the deputies faced was that of how to balance the powers of the legislative and executive offices in the new constitution. There were no self-evident answers to the questions of how powerful the legislature ought to be in relation to the king, or what role the broader public would have in legislative affairs. When Clermont-Tonnerre presented a report summarizing the content of the cahiers on 27 July, speaking on behalf of the Constitutional Committee, he noted that all of the cahiers demanded the “regeneration of the French Empire [l’Empire français],” but that they disagreed as to whether this regeneration required a new constitution or a simple reform of a few abuses.1 This lack of uniformity meant that the deputies could not simply derive the constitution directly from the cahiers. They would have to decide what the new constitution would be like. In addition, they faced widespread popular violence, both in Paris and in the provinces.

The decree putting the goods of the Church at the disposal of the nation was a major act with far-reaching implications. As Barère announced in his newspaper, Le Point du jour, on 2 November the Assembly had definitively established itself as a tribunal before which all the institutions of society would be judged.1 It had become a truly constituent body, one that could rid France of useless or pernicious institutions and establish those necessary for the public good. The political struggles of summer 1789 had determined who would lead the effort to reform France. The first phase had been a struggle between the Third Estate and conservatives in the Noble and Clerical orders over who would lead the Estates General. The second phase was the struggle between the king and the National Assembly to see who would establish the new constitutional order. Louis XVI had failed to see through essential reforms under his leadership.