Tennis Court Oath. by BritannicLoyalist, literature
Literature
Tennis Court Oath.
On 20 June 1789, the members of the French Third Estate took the Tennis Court Oath in the tennis court which had been built in 1686 for the use of the Versailles palace. During the Estates-General Assembly in 1789, the French people, represented by three estates (clergy, nobility, and commoners), convened to address the country's financial crisis and political issues. However, tensions arose between the representatives of the Third Estate (commoners) and the other two estates, as the Third Estate sought equal representation and voting power, which the clergy and nobility were reluctant to grant. Frustrated by the lack of progress and the inequality within the Estates-General, the representatives of the Third Estate decided to break away and form their own assembly. They called themselves the National Assembly, declaring that they represented the will of the French people. Their goal was to create a new constitution for France and initiate reforms. However, when the National Assembly