French National Assembly

The French National Assembly was formed in June 1789 when the deputies of the Third Estate, locked out of their hall, swore on a tennis court not to disperse until France had a constitution. On 26 August it adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, seventeen articles drafted with Jefferson’s help and Lafayette’s pen: men are born free and equal in rights, sovereignty resides in the nation, law is the expression of the general will. Burke attacked it, Wollstonecraft and Paine defended it, and de Gouges answered it for women. It is the preamble to the current French constitution.