End of Ancien Regime - 1789

• Paris Parlement declared that voting should be by order
• Given 1st and 2nd Estates wanted to orchestrate a power grab, 3rd Estate deputies call for doubling their deputies and voting by head
• Former allowed, latter not mentioned = confusion at the meeting

• Representatives:

1st - parish priests and bishops - want to preserve Church dominance, but can make financial concessions

2nd - conservative, poorer aristocracy and liberal nobles - ready to give up privileges, attacked gov't for injustice

3rd - lawyers, merchants and wealthy landowners - want limited King powers and a Constitution.

• What happened:

Estates meet in separate groups - 3rd estate demand a common session - seen as a precedent for future collective decisions - rejected by the nobility and clergy

3rd Estate refused to do anything - weeks of inaction with no gov't leadership

10 June
- 3rd Estate pass motion on verifying credentials
- It would start verifying credentials, even if other Estates will not join them

15-17 June
- Some priests and nobles join 3rd Estate
- Deabte it on 15 June, voted 490:90 to join the 3rd Estate on 17th

17 June
- The Declaration of the National Assembly
- 3rd Estate and the joined priests&nobles claim to represent most if the nation - thus have the right to manage affair and decide tax

19 June
- Clergy voted to join 3rd Estate

• Seen as a challenge to King's authority - calls séance-royale on 23 June
• 3rd Estate's hall closed down for preparations
• Angry deputies stormed onto tennis courts - vowed not to leave until a Constitution is created
• Only one vote against - radicalisation

• King declares decisions of 3rd Estate void
• Accepted restrictions to power: no new taxes without representatives, freedom of press introduced, gabelle, corvée, lettres de cachet abolished.
• If happened earlier, might have passed - resistance - Assembly dispersed

151 Clergy and 47 Nobility - popular demonstrations in favour of Assembly

• Estates ordered to come together and vote by head
• 20,000 troops ordered - forceful dissolution?

• Hardship due to bread price inflation - March 1789 over 14 sous a loaf
• Set on fire due to wage reduction rumours - 50 people killed/wounded

• Louis XVI feels strong - dismisses Necker - people scared he will use arms to take back power - massive demonstrations
• People encouraged to self-arm by revolutionary speakers at Palais Royal - gunscmiths robbed and clashes at Tuilleries
• Elite Gardes-françaises join in - barricades put up

• Demonstrators got over 28,000 muskets and 20 cannons from Les Invalides - but needed gunpowder
• Want to get them in Bastille - Governor De Launay refuses - group enters the courtyard
• De Launay orders fire and kills 98 - *Gardes-françaises open cannon fire
• De Launay surrenders and is decapitates - 250,000 at arms (many sans-culottes)
• DE