历史重大日期

On 1 May, Louis XVI convoked the Estates General, an assembly bringing together the three Orders, the Nobility, the Clergy and the Third Estate. Top of the agenda was the serious financial crisis facing the country since the summer of 1788. The deputies of the Third Estate hoped for reforms. Soon disappointed, they refused to submit to the royal power. Allied with some deputies from the Clergy, the Third Estate solemnly convened a National Assembly on 17 June. The king tried to block this Assembly by closing the Salle des Menus-Plaisirs in Versailles, where it was meeting. Finding its doors closed on 20 June, the deputies decided to hold their meetings in the nearby gymnasium where “jeu de paume” (tennis) was played and there they took the famous “oath never to separate and to meet wherever the circumstances required it until the Constitution of the Kingdom was established and built on solid foundations”. This epoch-making event was the origin of the separation of powers and national sovereignty.

In the 19th century, the room was transformed into a small Museum of the Revolution, containing notably the statue of Bailly, President of the National Assembly, as well as the large painting of The Jeu de Paume Oath, executed after the preliminary sketch by Jacques-Louis David. Subsequently, some of the principal players of this event of 20 June 1789 compromised themselves during the Revolution. When David finished his sketch of the painting in 1793, French political life had changed and some of the heroes of yesterday, like Mirabeau, had become enemies of the Revolution.

The Jeu de Paume Oath marked the first victory of democracy over the absolute monarchy. It heralded the Revolution which began a few weeks later when the Bastille was stormed on 14 July 1789.