In early May, as the deputies from all three Estates came to Versailles for the scheduled opening of the Estates General they carried with them cahiers enjoining them to reform the constitution in broadly similar ways. One major matter that divided them was the question of how the deputies would meet and vote. Deputies from the Third Estate came determined to pursue common meetings of the three orders with matters decided by a vote by head. Noble and Clerical deputies were split on the issue, but a majority in both orders carried cahiers encouraging or requiring them to seek separate meetings and a vote by order. The electoral regulations sent out by the king in January had not settled which form would prevail. From the very first meeting of the Estates General, the orders entered into a prolonged stalemate as the Third Estate refused to conduct business without first verifying all deputy credentials in common in the main meeting hall and the Nobles insisted that credentials be verified separately by each order.

Here we examine the final steps the deputies elected to the Estates General of 1789 took to transform that traditional body into a national constituent assembly. We will examine three steps in detail, again relying on a broad array of sources to show how the decisions reached were shaped by the interplay between different developing political groups within the Assembly. First, as the summer of 1789 came to an end, the deputies sought to establish their power to craft France’s new constitution as they saw best, guided by the wishes of their constituents, not by the will of the king. By the middle of September, the king had yet to accept the August decrees or the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. From 14 to 21 September, the deputies debated how to ensure that the king would accept the decrees without modification. As part of this discussion, the deputies broached the question of whether or not the king had the right to request changes to the constitution they were writing. They were careful not to cause unnecessary conflict between the king and the Assembly.