The Tennis Court Oath - Alpha History

Defiance continues

Had Louis XVI proposed these reforms in 1788 or earlier, they may well have averted the revolution and saved his throne. As the historian Richard Cobb puts it, the Tennis Court Oath had “cut the ground from under the king’s feet”.

By mid-1789, however, maintaining the Three Estates in their ancient form was unacceptable to the Third Estate, particularly if it continued to be outvoted by the other two Estates. Accepting the king’s reforms would also require the dissolution of the just-formed National Assembly.

When the séance royale ended and the king left the chamber, the deputies of the National Assembly defiantly remained. Stirred up by orators like Mirabeau, Bailly and Barnave, they affirmed the pledges made three days earlier in the Tennis Court Oath. The National Assembly would defy the king’s orders and remain in session. When confronted by one of the king’s envoys and asked to leave the hall, Mirabeau made his famous remark: “Go tell your masters who have sent you that we shall not leave, except by the force of bayonets”.

Death of the Estates

When the king was told of the National Assembly and their continued defiance, he responded with indifference, reportedly muttering “Fuck it, let them stay”.

Over the next three days dozens of clergymen and nobles, including the Duke of Orleans, a member of the royal court and a distant relative of the king, crossed the floor to join the National Assembly. On June 27th, the king backed down completely and ordered the remaining deputies of the First and Second Estates to join the National Assembly, thus giving it apparent constitutional legitimacy. The Tennis Court Oath, both a revolutionary act and an expression of popular sovereignty, had succeeded in forcing a royal backdown.

With one fell swoop, Louis XVI had abolished the Three Estates as separate political orders. Conservatives were furious about what the king had surrendered, however, when the news reached Paris it triggered great excitement and rejoicing. The bourgeois revolution, it seems, had won the day – but with large numbers of royal troops massing near Versailles and on the outskirts of Paris, there was still more confrontation to come.

1. The Tennis Court Oath was a pledge taken by Third Estate deputies to the Estates General. It was sworn in a Versailles tennis court on June 20th 1789.

2. After days of disputes over voting procedures, the king scheduled a séance royale for June 23rd. When the Third Estate gathered to meet on June 20th, they found the doors to their meeting hall locked and guarded.

3. Fearing a royalist conspiracy, the Third Estate responded by gathering in a nearby tennis court. There they pledged not to disband until the nation had drafted and implemented a constitution.

4. The Tennis Court Oath was written by Emmanuel Sieyès, administered by Jean-Sylvain Bailly and signed by 576 deputies with one abstainer. Later, the oath was famously depicted by the revolutionary artist Jacques-Louis David.

5. At the séance royale that followed, the king promised several major political and legal reforms but refused to disband the Three Estates. This led to further acts of defiance and, eventually, the absorption of the Estates into the National Assembly.

A record of the Tennis Court Oath (1789)

Citation information Title: ‘The Tennis Court Oath’‘ Authors: Jennifer Llewellyn, Steve Thompson Publisher: Alpha History URL: https://alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/tennis-court-oath/ Date published: October 31, 2019 Date updated: November 9, 2023 Date accessed: February 16, 2026 Copyright: The content on this page is © Alpha History. It may not be republished without our express permission. For more information on usage, please refer to our Terms of Use.