Tennis Oath Court
Storyboard Text
- On the morning of June 20th 1789, deputies in the newly formed National Assembly gathered to enter the meeting hall at the Hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs at Versailles, only to find the doors locked and guarded by royal troops.
- Why is the door locked
- Gathering on the floor of this court, the 577 deputies took an oath, hastily written by Emmanuel Sieyès and administered by Jean-Sylvain Bailly. Together, they pledged to remain assembled until a new national constitution had been drafted and implemented.
- We will stay here until we get what we want
- The Tennis Court Oath followed several days of tension and confrontation at the Estates-General. Frustrated by the procedures of the Estates-General, particularly the use of voting by order, the Third Estate spent the first week of June contemplating what action to take.
- Stop this protest and go back to your estates
- We demand equal voting
- The oath was administered by Jean-Sylvain Bailly and signed by 576 members of the Third Estate. There was one abstention: Joseph Martin d’Auch, the deputy from Castelnaudary, refused to sign the oath on the grounds that it insulted the king.
- We will not sign the oath
- In 1790, the artist Jacques-Louis David began preparations for a grand painting to visualise and honour the swearing of the Tennis Court Oath. While the events of the revolution prevented David from completing the painting, his preliminary engraving survives and provides the best-known representation of the events of June 20th.
- I have this painting that will be finished soon and will sell
- On June 22nd, two days after the Tennis Court Oath, the deputies of the Third Estate met at a Versailles church, along with 150 clergymen and two nobles. The king appeared and instructed those present to rejoin their Estates to continue their deliberations separately – but the leaders of the Third Estate refused.
- We refuse to until we get what we want
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