2H - The attempts to establish a constitutional monarchy: church reforms
Learn how the Assembly attempted to replace the Ancien Régime with constitutional government, elected administration and legal equality. Compare those changes with church reform and economic policy to understand both the scale of transformation and the divisions it created.
The constitutional division of power
A constitutional monarchy retains a king but defines and limits royal power through a constitution. The National Constituent Assembly worked towards this settlement between 1789 and 1791. It did not initially seek a republic. Its aim was to combine stable executive government with the nation's authority to make law through representatives.
The Constitution completed in September 1791 created a single-chamber Legislative Assembly, elected for two-year terms. It made laws and controlled taxation. The king retained executive authority, appointed ministers and possessed a suspensive veto, allowing him to delay ordinary legislation rather than permanently defeat it. The veto could operate across two successive legislatures; it did not apply to every category of legislation, including taxation. The king could not dissolve the Assembly.
Ministers could not also be deputies, separating executive office from legislative membership. This limited royal influence inside the Assembly, but made cooperation less straightforward. There was no simple parliamentary mechanism through which a legislative majority automatically formed the government. A workable settlement required king and representatives to trust one another enough to operate the divided system.
The king's acceptance in September gave the arrangement a formal basis, but acceptance alone could not guarantee loyalty. The Constitution described authority as delegated by the nation and the king as subject to law. This was a profound change from sovereignty residing in the monarch. The official text of the 1791 Constitution shows that constitutional limits and continuing monarchy were intended to coexist.
Civil equality and restricted political participation
The new regime distinguished civil rights from political rights. Active citizens were qualifying men aged at least twenty-five who paid a direct tax equivalent to three days' labour, met residence requirements and were not domestic servants. They voted in primary assemblies which chose electors. Higher wealth qualifications for those electors made the system indirect and gave substantial property owners particular influence. Passive citizens had civil protection under law but could not take part through this electoral route.
Many deputies believed that financial independence protected a voter from manipulation and gave him a stake in stable government. This justified an arrangement they could present as rational and representative. Critics argued that it contradicted the Declaration's language of equality and excluded people whose work and popular action had helped secure the Revolution.
Women did not receive the vote. Olympe de Gouges's Declaration of the Rights of Woman in 1791 exposed this limit by applying rights language explicitly to women. Her intervention demonstrates a contemporary challenge to the settlement, not a rule the Assembly adopted. Religious exclusion was reduced: Protestants obtained civic equality, and in September 1791 Jews were admitted to full citizenship under the same general conditions.
The settlement therefore replaced distinctions of birth with legal equality while preserving distinctions of gender, age, tax contribution and economic independence. That is more accurate than calling it either complete democracy or no change. Civil equality could be real and significant without equal access to national political power.
New administration and justice
The Assembly replaced old provinces and their uneven privileges with eighty-three departments in 1790, subdivided into districts and cantons. Municipalities and local administrative bodies were elected. This created a more uniform territorial framework and reduced dependence on hereditary or purchased office. It also dispersed responsibility among elected bodies with varying experience and resources.
The old parlements disappeared. Judges became elected and salaried, judicial office was no longer a saleable privilege, and the new system aimed to make justice accessible and equal. Criminal proceedings introduced juries and public hearings; defendants were entitled to legal assistance. Arbitrary royal detention through lettres de cachet lost its place in the new order. These changes weakened the association between status, money and judicial authority.
Uniform principles did not immediately produce one complete civil code. The Assembly established a framework for reform, while regional legal differences and implementation problems required further work. Distinguishing a principle from completed administrative practice prevents exaggeration of what legislation accomplished at once.
The reforms had a shared logic: the nation should govern through uniform law and delegated, accountable office rather than inherited privileges. Their weakness was practical capacity. New officials had to collect revenue, maintain order and implement decisions amid continuing unrest. Decentralised elected administration could gain local legitimacy while making rapid enforcement of national policy more difficult.
The Church as a national institution
Church reform connected finance, administration and religious authority. In November 1789 the Assembly placed church property at the nation's disposal to support a financial settlement. The state accepted responsibility for paying clergy and supporting religious services. Monastic orders not engaged in activities such as education or charity were suppressed in 1790. The Church's independent corporate wealth and privileged position were being dismantled.
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