Tennis Court Oath

From Free net encyclopedia

Image:TennisCourtOath.jpg The Tennis Court Oath (French: serment du jeu de paume) was a pledge signed by 577 members of France's Third Estate (also called the National Assembly) in the Estates-General on June 20, 1789. It is often considered the start of the French Revolution.

After King Louis XVI locked the deputies of the Third Estate out of their meeting hall, the Palace of Versailles, they met instead in a nearby indoor tennis court. This court was where a list of grievances were drawn up. There, they adopted a pledge to continue to meet until a constitution had been written. 577 men signed the oath, with only one refusing. It was a revolutionary act, and an assertion that political authority derived from the people and their representatives rather than from the monarch.

See also

• John Ashbery's poem of the same name.

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