explanation but mentions no names. -^ The resolution, drawn 

 by Barnave and Chapelier — if we may believe Lameth^^ — was 

 passed with but one dissenting voice. It ran as follows : "The 

 National Assembly considering that, called upon to define the 

 Constitution of the Kingdom, accomplish the regeneration of 

 public order, and to maintain the true principles of the Mon- 

 archy, nothing may prevent it from continuing its delibera- 

 tions in whatsoever place it may establish itself, and that, fi- 

 nally, wherever its members are gathered together, there is the 

 National Assembly. 



Resolved, That all the members of the Assembly shall take 

 at once a solemn oath never to separate and to assemble 

 whenever the circumstances may demand, until the Constitu- 

 tion of the Kingdom is established and set on a solid founda- 

 tion; and that the said oath being taken, all the members and 

 each of them in particular shall confirm by their signature this 

 unshakable resolution. "^^ 



The oath was taken, first by the president and then by all 

 the members of the Assembly but one. After the signing of 

 the oath, an operation which took several hours, the Assembly 

 adjourned until the 2l2nd. 



Such is the historical setting of the famous Oath of the 

 Tennis Court. What light does it throw upon the interpreta- 

 tion of the oath 'i With the king's real plans, the deputies were 

 not acquainted. They knew that they had been excluded from 



24 Partageant 1' indignation g^nei'ale, craignant de voir s'evanouir 

 cette graude occasion, si long-tems atteudue, de reformer las abus, d'am- 

 ^liorer le sort du peuple, entendant autourde moi donner I'alternative 

 ou de preter le serment, ou de se transporter k I'heure m§me, dans le 

 capitale * * * je crus ce serment moins dangereux, je le crus excuse 

 par ces circonstances; je me chargeai imprudemment de le f aire mettre en 

 deliberation. Ce fatal serment 6toit un attentat contra les droits du 

 monarque; c' ^toit lui declarer qui il n'avoit pas le pouvoir de dissoudre 

 I'assemblde; c' ^toit la rendre ind^pendante, quel que ftit usage qui elle 

 se permettroit de son pouvoir. — Mounier, Recherches sur les causes qui 

 ont empgche les Fran§ais de devenir libres, etc. A Geneve, 1792, i p. 396, 

 note. ^ 



25 Lameth, Alex.: Histoire de TAssembl^e Constituante. 2 vols. Pans, 

 1828. i, p. 24. 



26 Proc^s-verbal, i, No. 3, p. 6. 



