Tnpncncc of tJic Breton Deputation 57 



long decided to urge the Third Estate to assume the leg- 

 isUitive power of France, if necessary, there could be no 

 need for niceties intended to save legal appearances. On 

 the IGth, Legrande moA^ed to constitute under the name 

 "National Assembly" without seeming to arouse much in- 

 terest.^ But he had given the Breton Club the sugges- 

 tion of a title which corresponded fully to the principles 

 of many of its members, and which was now seized upon 

 to make an end of all the obscurities in which the assem- 

 lily had been involved for the last two days. The club 

 abandoned entirely the motion it had until now sustained, 

 declared itself with enthusiasm for the name "National 

 Assembly,"- and in the evening session of the same day 

 ►Sieyes introduced the motion which was adopted the fol- 

 lowing morning, and completed the revolutionary act for 

 which the Breton deputies had in effect fought since the 

 Uth of May. 



It is evident, then, that the Breton deputies and the 

 Breton Club had furnished the initiative, the conrage, the 

 force which drove the Ixevolution over its first great crisis, 

 or, perhaps, we ma^- say that they formed the element 

 whicli forced tlie formal declaration of the Revolution. 



DIRECT OPrOSITION TO THE GOVERNMENT — THE "^OATH OF THE 

 TENNIS court" — THE ROYAL SESSION — THE IMPER- 

 ATIVE MANDATES THE .TULY REVOLUTION 



Bertrand de Moleville assures us that at first the in- 

 tentions of the Breton deputies was "To do everything 



^Point du Jour, I, No. 1, p. 1. ' ^ 



-Droz. Histoire du rcgne de Louis XVI., II, 211, says the motion was 

 received with enthusiasm at the club. Since it was introduced in 

 the evening session, it is to be supposed that the club met between 

 the two sessions of the assembly, for certainly Sieyes would not 

 change hie:; motion without first consulting those who had been his 

 :principal allies in the motions of the 10th and the 15th. 



2G3 



