Chapter 1 examines the first, and arguably most important, act of rogue diplomacy in American history: the refusal of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay to heed the Continental Congress's instructions that they make no peace with Britain without first obtaining French consent. The government of Louis XVI had kept the American Revolution afloat through nearly a decade of war, and the French foreign minister - Charles Gravier, Comte de Vergennes - expected his American allies to follow Paris's lead during peace negotiations, but Adams, Jay, and particularly Franklin executed a briliant end-run around Versailles and concluded a separate treaty with London that gave the infant United States far more generous borders (along with other concessions) than Vergennes or Louis ever would have countenanced. By defying the Congress, and by profiting so immensely thereby, Franklin, Jay, and Adams established a standard of diplomatic insubordination that endures to the present day.

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.

27 June had marked a triumph for those who supported a union of the orders. The stalemate finally broken, it was time to write a constitution and help the king repair his finances. Then, on 30 June, at the first full meeting of the united orders, scores of deputies protested against the activities of the National Assembly. To a man these deputies, all from the privileged orders, claimed that instructions from their constituents prohibited them meeting in common with the other orders or accepting a vote by head. They based their protests on the mandates they had received from their electors. Almost all of the deputies of 1789 had sworn an oath upon receiving the cahier of his electoral district to faithfully present the grievances contained within. In most cases, they had sworn an oath to obey certain commands their electors made on pain of being, at least in theory, disowned as a representative. This was the “binding” or “imperative” mandate.

The next major question the deputies faced was that of how to balance the powers of the legislative and executive offices in the new constitution. There were no self-evident answers to the questions of how powerful the legislature ought to be in relation to the king, or what role the broader public would have in legislative affairs. When Clermont-Tonnerre presented a report summarizing the content of the cahiers on 27 July, speaking on behalf of the Constitutional Committee, he noted that all of the cahiers demanded the “regeneration of the French Empire [l’Empire français],” but that they disagreed as to whether this regeneration required a new constitution or a simple reform of a few abuses.1 This lack of uniformity meant that the deputies could not simply derive the constitution directly from the cahiers. They would have to decide what the new constitution would be like. In addition, they faced widespread popular violence, both in Paris and in the provinces.

The decree putting the goods of the Church at the disposal of the nation was a major act with far-reaching implications. As Barère announced in his newspaper, Le Point du jour, on 2 November the Assembly had definitively established itself as a tribunal before which all the institutions of society would be judged.1 It had become a truly constituent body, one that could rid France of useless or pernicious institutions and establish those necessary for the public good. The political struggles of summer 1789 had determined who would lead the effort to reform France. The first phase had been a struggle between the Third Estate and conservatives in the Noble and Clerical orders over who would lead the Estates General. The second phase was the struggle between the king and the National Assembly to see who would establish the new constitutional order. Louis XVI had failed to see through essential reforms under his leadership.

One of the most remarkable features of the early Revolution was the absence of direct communication between the Third Estate and Louis XVI. The king had given no instructions about how to regulate communication between himself and the orders. The matter devolved to the Keeper of the Seals, Charles Louis François de Paule de Barentin, who took it upon himself to act as the supervisor for everything related to the Estates General. He became the conduit through which communication between the orders and Louis passed. But Barentin was deeply hostile to the pretensions of the Third Estate, going back at least as far as the time of the Result of the King’s Council of State of 1788. Until mid July, Barentin managed communications to the benefit of the Noble order, generally refusing to find times for members of the Third Estate to meet with the king. During the stalemate, the deputies of the Third Estate had only been given one meeting with Louis and it was at the worst time possible, coming two days after the death of the king’s oldest son.