The Legislative Assembly (, ) was the legislature of the Kingdom of France from 1 October 1791 to 20 September 1792 during the years of the French Revolution. It provided the focus of political debate and revolutionary law-making between the periods of the National Constituent Assembly and National Convention. The Legislative Assembly saw an unprecedented turnover of four ministers of Justice, four ministers of the Navy, six ministers of the Interior, seven ministers of Foreign Affairs, and eight ministers of War.

History

Background

The National Constituent Assembly dissolved itself on 30 September 1791. Upon Maximilien Robespierre's motion, it decreed that none of its members would be eligible for the next legislature. Its successor body, the Legislative Assembly, operating over the liberal French Constitution of 1791, lasted until 20 September 1792 when the National Convention was established after the insurrection of 10 August just the month before.

The Legislative Assembly entrenched the perceived left–right political spectrum that is still commonly used today. There were 745 members.

Elections

The elections of 1791, held by census suffrage, brought in a legislature that desired to carry the Revolution further.

The rightists within the assembly consisted of 264 Feuillants, whose chief leaders, Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette and Antoine Barnave, remained outside the House because of their ineligibility for re-election. They were staunch constitutional monarchists, firm in their defence of the king against the popular agitation.

The leftists were of 136 Jacobins (still including the party later known as the Girondins or Girondists) and Cordeliers. Its most famous leaders were Jacques Pierre Brissot, the philosopher Condorcet and Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud. The Left drew its inspiration from the more radical tendency of the Enlightenment, regarded the émigré nobles as traitors and espoused anticlericalism. They were suspicious of Louis XVI, some of them favoring a general European war, both to spread the new ideals of liberty and equality and to put the king's loyalty to the test.

The remainder of the House, 345 deputies, generally belonged to no definite party. They were called The Marsh (Le Marais) or The Plain (La Plaine). They were committed to the ideals of the Revolution, hence generally inclined to side with the Left, but would also occasionally back proposals from the Right.

The king's ministers, named by him and excluded from the Assembly, are described by the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica as "mostly persons of little mark".

Formation

The 27 August 1791 Declaration of Pillnitz already threatened France with an attack by its neighbors. King Louis XVI favored war hoping to exploit a military defeat to restore his absolute power—the Assembly was leaning toward war and to spread the ideals of the Revolution. This led in April 1792 to the first of the French Revolutionary Wars.

The king vetoed many of the Assembly's bills throughout its existence such as these:

  • Legislation declaring the émigrés guilty of conspiracy and prosecuted as such was passed on 8 November 1791, but vetoed by Louis.
  • Enforcement of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy: on 29 November 1791, the Assembly decreed that every nonjuring clergyman who did not take the civic oath within eight days would lose his pension and—if any troubles broke out—he would be deported. Louis vetoed the decree as a matter of conscience.

Louis XVI formed a series of cabinets, veering at times as far left as the Girondins. However, by the summer of 1792, amid war and insurrection, it had become clear that the monarchy and the now-dominant Jacobins could not reach any accommodation. On 11 July 1792, the Assembly formally declared the nation in danger because of the dire military situation.

On 9 August 1792, a new revolutionary Commune took possession of Hôtel de Ville and early on the morning of 10 August the insurgents assailed the Tuileries, where the royal family resided. Louis and his family sought asylum with the Legislative Assembly.

The Assembly stripped Louis, suspected of intelligence with the enemy, of all his royal functions and prerogatives. The king and his family were subsequently imprisoned in the Temple. On 10 August 1792, a resolution was adopted to summon a new National Convention, to be elected by universal suffrage.

Many who had sat in the National Constituent Assembly and many more who had sat in the Legislative Assembly were re-elected. The Convention met on 20 September 1792 and became the new government of France.

Reforms

There were numerous reforms passed by the Legislative Assembly that addressed various topics including divorce, émigrés, and the clergy.

The Legislative Assembly implemented new reforms to help create a society of independent individuals with equal rights. These reforms included new legislation about divorce, government control over registration, and inheritance rights for children. The registration of births, marriages, and deaths became a function under the government instead of the Catholic Church. Before 1791, divorces could only be granted for adultery and other violations of the marriage contract,

The second class was composed of officials in public office, soldiers and other members of society with less organizational clout than members of the nobility yet more influence than the common people. The third and final class of recognized émigrés encompassed the average French citizens who left France yet commanded little to no direct influence over emigration proceedings.

Political groups

The Legislative Assembly was driven by two opposing groups. The members of the first group were conservative members of the bourgeoisie (wealthy middle class in the Third Estate) that favored a constitutional monarchy, represented by the Feuillants, who felt that the revolution had already achieved its goal. The other group was the democratic faction, for whom the king could no longer be trusted, represented by the new members of the Jacobin Club that claimed that more revolutionary measures were necessary.

Presidents

; Political parties

<br />

<br />

{|class="wikitable" style="width:80%; text-align:center;"

|-

!colspan="2" width=20|N°

!width=70|Portrait

!width=25%|Name<br />(Birth–death)

!colspan="2" width=40%|Term of office

!width=25%|Political party

!width=15%|Department

!width=7%|Legislature<br />(election)

|-

!style="background:;"|

!1

|80px

|Claude-Emmanuel de Pastoret<br />(1755–1840)

|3 October 1791

|30 October 1791

|Feuillants Club

|Seine

|rowspan=23|I<br /><small>(1791)</small>

|-

!style="background:;"|

!2

|80px

|Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud<br />(1753–1793)

|30 October 1791

|15 November 1791

|Jacobin Club

|Gironde

|-

!style="background:;"|

!3

|80px

|Vincent-Marie Viénot<br />(1756–1845)

|15 November 1791

|28 November 1791

|Feuillants Club

|Seine-et-Marne

|-

!style="background:;"|

!4

|80px

|Bernard Germain de Lacépède<br />(1756–1825)

|28 November 1791

|10 December 1791

|Feuillants Club

|Seine

|-

!style="background:;"|

!5

|80px

|Pierre-Édouard Lémontey<br />(1762–1826)

|10 December 1791

|26 December 1791

|Feuillants Club

|Rhône

|-

!style="background:;"|

!6

|80px

|François de Neufchâteau<br />(1750–1828)

|26 December 1791

|22 January 1792

|Jacobin Club

|Vosges

|-

!style="background:;"|

!7

|80px

|Marguerite-Élie Guadet<br />(1758–1794)

|22 January 1792

|7 February 1792

|Jacobin Club

|Gironde

|-

!style="background:;"|

!8

|80px

|Nicolas de Condorcet<br />(1743–1794)

|7 February 1792

|19 February 1792

|Jacobin Club

|Seine

|-

!style="background:;"|

!9

|80px

|Guillaume-Mathieu Dumas<br />(1753–1837)

|19 February 1792

|4 March 1792

|Feuillants Club

|Seine-et-Oise

|-

!style="background:;"|

!10

|80px

|Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau<br />(1737–1816)

|4 March 1792

|19 March 1792

|Jacobin Club

|Côte-d'Or

|-

!style="background:;"|

!11

|80px

|Armand Gensonné<br />(1758–1793)

|19 March 1792

|15 April 1792

|Jacobin Club

|Gironde

|-

!style="background:;"|

!12

|80px

|Félix-Julien-Jean Bigot de Préameneu<br />(1747–1825)

|15 April 1792

|29 April 1792

|Feuillants Club

|Ille-et-Vilaine

|-

!style="background:;"|

!13

|80px

|Jean-Gérard Lacuée<br />(1752–1841)

|29 April 1792

|13 May 1792

|Feuillants Club

|Lot-et-Garonne

|-

!style="background:;"|

!14

|80px

|Honoré Muraire<br />(1750–1837)

|13 May 1792

|27 May 1792

|Feuillants Club

|Var

|-

!style="background:;"|

!15

|80px

|François-Alexandre Tardiveau<br />(1761–1833)

|27 May 1792

|10 June 1792

|Feuillants Club

|Ille-et-Vilaine

|-

!style="background:;"|

!16

|80px

|François-Alexandre Tardiveau<br />(1756–1836)

|10 June 1792

|24 June 1792

|Independent

|Loire-Atlantique

|-

!style="background:;"|

!17

|80px

|Louis Stanislas de Girardin<br />(1762–1827)

|24 June 1792

|8 July 1792

|Jacobin Club

|Oise

|-

!style="background:;"|

!18

|80px

|Jean-Baptiste Annibal Aubert du Bayet<br />(1759–1797)

|8 July 1792

|22 July 1792

|Feuillants Club

|Isère

|-

!style="background:;"|

!19

|80px

|André-Daniel Laffon de Ladebat<br />(1746–1829)

|22 July 1792

|7 August 1792

|Feuillants Club

|Gironde

|-

!style="background:;"|

!20

|80px

|Jean-François Honoré Merlet<br />(1761–1830)

|7 August 1792

|20 August 1792

|Jacobin Club

|Maine-et-Loire

|-

!style="background:;"|

!21

|80px

|Jean-François Delacroix<br />(1753–1794)

|20 August 1792

|2 September 1792

|Jacobin Club

|Eure-et-Loir

|-

!style="background:;"|

!22

|80px

|Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles<br />(1759–1794)

|2 September 1792

|16 September 1792

|Jacobin Club

|Seine

|-

!style="background:;"|

!23

|80px

|Pierre-Joseph Cambon<br />(1756–1820)

|16 September 1792

|16 September 1792

|Jacobin Club

|Hérault

|}

Journal of Debates

  • (October 1791)
  • (November 1791)
  • (December 1791)
  • (January 1792)
  • (February 1792)
  • (March 1792)
  • (April 1792)
  • (May 1792)
  • (June 1792)
  • (July 1792)
  • (August 1792)
  • (September 1792)

References

Further reading

  • Boring, Nicolas. France: Inheritance Laws in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Library of Congress. Retrieved from Library of Congress.
  • MacLehose, Sophia. From the Monarchy to the Republic in France: 1788–1792. Glasgow: University of Glasgow, 1904. Retrieved from heinonline.org.
  • Mitchell, C. J. "Emigrés and the Refractory Clergy." Chap. 4, In The French Legislative Assembly of 1791, 43–60. Leiden, The Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1988. Retrieved from Google Books.
  • Phillips, Roderick. "Women and Family Breakdown in Eighteenth-Century France: Rouen 1780–1800." Social History 1, no. 2 (1976): 197–218. Retrieved from JSTOR.
  • Popkin, Jeremy. A Short History of the French Revolution. 6th ed. Hoboken, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2015.
  • Potofsky, Allan. "The 'Non-Aligned Status' of French Emigres and Refugees in Philadelphia, 1793–1798." Transatlantica American Studies Journal 2, no. 1 (2006). Retrieved from Transatlantica.
  • Proctor, Candice E. Women, Equality, and the French Revolution. Greenwood Press, 1990. Retrieved from Archive
  • Schroeder, Paul. The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848. 1996. Retrieved from Archive