On June 10th, with patience running out, Sieyès proposed that a final appeal should be sent to the nobles and clergy asking for a common verification. If there wasn’t one then the third estate, now increasingly calling itself the Commons, would carry on without them. The motion passed, the other orders remained silent and the third estate resolved to carry on regardless. The revolution had begun.
On June 13th three parish priests from the first estate joined the third, and sixteen more followed in the next few days, the first breakdown between the old divisions. On June 17th Sieyès proposed and had passed a motion for the third estate to now call itself a National Assembly. In the heat of the moment another motion was proposed and passed, declaring all taxes illegal, but allowing them to continue until a new system was invented to replace them. In one quick motion the National Assembly had gone from simply challenging the first and second estates to challenging the king and his sovereignty by making themselves responsible for the laws on tax. Having been sidelined with grief over the death of his son the King now began to stir and the regions around Paris were reinforced with troops. On June 19th, six days after the first defections, the entire first estate voted to join the National Assembly.
June 20th brought another milestone, as the National Assembly arrived to find the doors of their meeting place locked and soldiers guarding it, with notes of a Royal Session to occur on the 22nd. This action even outraged opponents of the National Assembly, members of which feared their dissolution was imminent. In the face of this, the National Assembly moved to a nearby tennis court where, surrounded by crowds, they took the famous 'Tennis Court Oath', swearing not to disperse until their business was done. On the 22nd the Royal Session was delayed, but three noblemen joined the clergy in abandoning their own estate.
The Royal Session, when it was held, wasn't the blatant attempt to crush the National Assembly which many had feared, but instead saw the king present an imaginative series of reforms which would have been considered far reaching a month before. However, the king still used veiled threats and referred to the three different estates, stressing they should obey him. The members of the National Assembly refused to leave the session hall unless it was at bayonet point and proceeded to retake the oath. In this decisive moment, a battle of wills between king and assembly, Louis XVI meekly agreed they could stay in the room. In addition Necker resigned. He was persuaded to resume his position shortly afterward, but the news spread and pandemonium broke out. More nobles left their estate and joined the assembly.
With the first and second estates now clearly wavering and the support of the army in doubt, the king ordered the first and second estates to join the National assembly. This triggered public displays of joy and the members of the National Assembly now felt they could settle down and write a new constitution for the nation; more had already happened than many dared to imagine. The crown and public opinion would soon change these expectations.
The Storming of the Bastille and the end of Royal Power.
The excited crowds, fuelled by weeks of debate and angered by rapidly rising grain prices did more than just celebrate: on June 30th a mob of 4000 rescued mutinous soldiers from their prison. Similar displays of popular opinion were matched by the crown bringing ever more troops into the area. National Assembly appeals to stop reinforcing were refused. Indeed, on July 11th Necker was sacked and more martial men brought in to run the government. Public uproar followed. On the streets of Paris there was a sense that another battle of wills between the crown and people had begun.
When a crowd demonstrating in the Tuileries gardens were attacked by cavalry ordered to clear the area the longstanding predictions of military action seemed to be coming true. The population of Paris began to arm itself in response and retaliated by attacking toll gates. The next morning the crowds went after arms but found stacks of stored grain too; looting began in earnest. On July 14th they attacked the military hospital of the Invalides and found cannon. This ever growing success led the crowd to the Bastille, the great-prison fortress and dominant symbol of the old regime. At first the Bastille refused to surrender and people were killed in fighting, but rebel soldiers arrived with the cannon from the Invalides and forced the Bastille to submit. The great fortress was stormed and looted, the man in charge lynched.
The storming of the Bastille demonstrated to the king that he couldn’t rely on his soldiers, some of whom had already defected. He had no way of enforcing royal power and conceded, ordering the units around Paris to withdraw. Royal power was at an end and sovereignty had passed to the National Assembly. Crucially for the future of the Revolution, the people of Paris now saw themselves as the saviours and defenders of the national Assembly. They were the guardians of the revolution.
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