Sketch by [[Jacques-Louis David of the Tennis Court Oath.]]
The
Tennis Court Oath (''serment du
jeu de paume) was a pledge signed by 577 members of France's
Third Estate on
June 20, 1789. It was an early beginning in starting the
French Revolution.
King
Louis XVI had locked the deputies of the Third Estate of the
Estates-General out of their meeting hall,
Menus Plaisirs; they met instead in a nearby indoor
real tennis court, because it had started raining, where they adopted a pledge to continue to meet until a constitution had been written. 577 men signed the
oath, with only one delegate refusing. This was a revolutionary act, and an assertion that political
authority derived from the people and their representatives rather than from the
monarch.
The Tennis Court Oath is often considered the moment of the birth of the
French Revolution.
See also
John Ashbery's poem of the same name.
Category:Oaths
Category:French Revolution
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