Faced with the collapse of his power, the King recalled Necker, confirmed Bailly in a new position called the major of Paris and acknowledged Lafayette as the commander of a new citizen’s militia called the National Guard. However, try as they might, the Guard were unable to stop savage displays of mob violence such as the lynching of those accused of blocking the revolution. Nobles began to leave France for friendlier surroundings. Meanwhile the National Assembly, now often styling itself as the 'Constituent Assembly' began to redraw France, forming thirty-one separate committees to tackle all areas of public life.
The Great Fear
In the provinces the collapse of royal power triggered the formation of local militias – which usually went in search of hoarded grain - and revolutionary committees. However, the weeks of debate about what was happening in Versailles had already had far reaching effects on the rural population, with many refusing to pay tithes and taxes. As violence against hoarders and feudal overlords grew a series of mass panics swept rural France, with people afraid of noble led or funded brigands out to exact revenge. This was the 'Great Fear', and in response to it some of the rural population decided to get their counter-attack in first, pre-emptively assaulting the symbols of the feudal system, in particular feudal records which were burnt.
The Session of August 4th 1789 and the end of Privilege.
Partly in response to the great fear and an attempt to calm the countryside, partly in response to the request of the cahiers and partly as sections of the Assembly, seeing their rights stripped away, determined to take others with them, an extraordinary session of the Assembly was held on August 4th 1789. It began with one motion to remove certain feudal rights, but by the end the whole of feudalism and all privileges had been removed, including tithes and venal offices. Now every office would be open to the most talented, not the wealthiest. So many motions were passed cancelling centuries old rights that it took six months to formulate all the decisions into a working decree.
The session of August 4th succeeded in one of its aims, calming the nerves of the countryside, although attacks continued on lords stubbornly holding onto their old regime rights in the face of the revolution. But the session had gone far beyond anything mentioned in the cahiers, changing the structure of France to a greater extent than anything before and removing the entire structure of government and law.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man
Work soon began on writing a new constitution for France, and most wanted to begin it with a declaration of rights similar to that used in the United States of America. On August 26th 1789 the Declaration of the Right of Man and the Citizen was passed. It soon became the founding document of the revolution, stating that the law was an expression of general will, not the whim of kings, that sovereignty rested with the nation, not with monarchs and that all citizens were equal. It remains one of histories most famous documents.
The October Days
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the August decrees set off an argument about whether the king, still nominally in charge of France, had the right to approve or veto legislation. The Assembly went against public opinion and passed a motion giving him those choices, which didn't go down well with a capital already using violence in the face of more grain shortages. Indeed, the king at first refused to pass the declaration and decrees, but on October 5th and 6th a mob of 7000 people, mostly women, marched from Paris to Versailles, forced the king to acknowledge the reforms and them forced him to travel to Paris from Versailles. The National Assembly moved with him, taking up residence in Paris. Once again the people of Paris acted - and saw themselves - as the saviours of the revolution with violence as their tool. More and more nobles fled the country.
Divisions Appear: Religious Schism
During the drafting of the constitution two events occurred which began to divide the previous revolutionary consensus. The first was the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed on July 17th 1790. By introducing a system of election for all church officials, even bishops, and reworking the boundaries of parishes the National Assembly openly challenged and ignored papal power. The Pope responded by calling the Constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man unchristian, while many priests began to ignore the new rules. The Assembly received many complaints and petitions.
After much debate the National Assembly decided, on December 26th 1790, to order all in the church to take an oath of loyalty to the new constitution. This is often seen by historians as a major turning point, forcing people to decide for the first time whether they were for or against the revolution. Around half of the entire French clergy refused to take the oath, particularly in the south, and these became labelled 'refractories'. Debate occurred everywhere, causing the first signs of counter-revolution as people rebelled in favour of the old religious network. In contrast there were regions where refractories were openly prosecuted.
Groups Form
The French Revolution didn't have political parties in the way we do now, for instance the common American groups of Democrat and Republican, but during the 1790s groups with shared ideas began to form and argue with each other. This commonly occurred as people met in clubs to discuss, debate and petition the Assembly. One such, arguably the most famous, were the Jacobins, people named after the old Jacobin convent were they first met. In addition to clubs newspapers flourished, with reader numbers trebling.
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