The National Assembly began to decide how it would be under the new constitution. Many members, especially the nobles, wanted a senate or a second upper house. However, more people voted to keep having just one assembly. The King was given a "suspensive veto" over laws, which meant he would only have the power to delay laws being made, not stop them. In October 1789, after being attacked at the Palace of Versailles by a mob of 7,000 women, the King was convinced by Lafayette to move from Paris to the palace in Tuileries.
The Assembly began to divide into different political parties. One was made up of those against the revolution, led by the nobleman Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazales and the churchman Jean-Sifrien Maury. This party sat on the right side. A second party was the Royalist democrats (monarchists) which wanted to create a system like the constitutional monarchy of Britain, where the king would still be a part of the government. Jacques Necker was in this party. The third party was the National Party which was centre or centre-left. This included Honoré Mirabeau and Lafayette.
Under the new government, the Roman Catholic Church would have much less power than they had before. In 1790, all special taxes and powers of the Church were cancelled. All the Church’s property was taken over by the state. On 12 July 1790, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy made all clergy employees of the state and made them take an oath to the new constitution. Many clergy, as well as the Pope, Pius VI, did not like these changes. Revolutionaries killed hundreds for refusing the oath.
On 14 July 1790, a year since the storming of the Bastille, thousands of people gathered in the Champs de Mars to celebrate. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand led the crowd in a religious mass. The crowd, including the King and the royal family, took an oath of loyalty to “the nation, the law, and the king.” However, many nobles were unhappy with the revolution and were leaving the country. They were called émigrés (emigrants).
Although the members of the Estates-General had only been elected for a year, the members of the Assembly had all taken the Tennis Court Oath. They had promised to keep working until they had a constitution and no constitution had been made. It was decided that the members would keep working until they had a constitution.
The Assembly continued to work on a constitution and make changes. Nobles could no longer pass their titles to their children. Only the king was allowed to do this. For the first time, trials with juries were held. All trade barriers inside France were ended along with unions, guilds, and workers' groups. Strikes were banned.
Many people with radical ideas began to form political clubs. The most famous of these was the Jacobin Club, which had left-wing ideas. A right-wing club was the Club Monarchique. In 1791, a law was suggested to prevent noble "émigrés" from leaving the country. Mirabeau had been against this law, but he died on 2 April, and by the end of the year, the law was passed.
Louis XVI did not like the revolution, but did not want to get help from other countries or run away from France like the émigrés. General Bouille held the same views and wanted to help the king leave Paris. He said that he would give the King and his family help and support in his camp at Montmédy. The escape was planned for June 20, 1791.
Dressed as servants, the royal family left Paris. However, their escape was not well planned, and they were arrested at Varennes on the evening of June 21. The royal family was brought back to Paris. The Assembly imprisoned Louis and his wife Marie Antoinette, and suspended the king from his duty.
Although the king had tried to escape, most members of the Assembly still wanted to include the king in their government rather than to have a Republic with no king at all. They agreed to make the king a figurehead, with very little power. The king would have to take an oath to the state. If he did not, or if he created an army to attack France, he would no longer be king.
Some people, including Jacques Pierre Brissot, did not like this. They thought the king should be completely removed from the throne and the constitution. Brissot made a petition and a huge crowd came to the Champs de Mars to sign it. Republican leaders Georges Danton and Camille Desmoulins came and gave speeches.
The National Guard, led by Lafayette, was called in to control the crowd. The mob threw stones at the soldiers who first fired their guns over the heads of the crowd. When the crowd kept throwing stones, Lafayette ordered them to fire at the people. Up to 50 people were killed. After this, the government closed many of the political clubs and newspapers. Many radical left-wing leaders, including Danton and Desmoulins, ran away to England or hid in France.
Finally the constitution was completed. Louis XVI was put back on the throne and came to take his oath to it. He wrote, “I engage to maintain it at home, to defend it from all attacks from abroad, and to cause its execution by all the means it places at my disposal.” The National Assembly decided that it would stop governing France on 29 September 1791. After that date, the Legislative Assembly would take over.
The new Legislative Assembly met for the first time in October 1791. Under the Constitution of 1791, France was a Constitutional Monarchy. The King shared his rule with the Legislative Assembly, but had the power to stop (veto) laws he did not like. He also had the power to choose ministers.
The Legislative Assembly had about 745 members. 260 of them were “Feuillants”, or Constitutional Monarchists. 136 were Girondins and Jacobins, left-wing liberal republicans who did not want a king. The other 345 members were independent, but they voted most often with the left wing.
The Legislative Assembly did not agree very well. The King used his veto to stop laws that would sentence émigrés to death. Because so many of the members of the Assembly were left-wing, they did not like this.
The people were turning against King Louis XVI. On 10 August 1792, the members of a revolutionary group called the Paris Commune attacked the Tuileries, where the King and Queen were living. The King and Queen were taken prisoner. The Legislative Assembly held an emergency meeting. Even though only a third of the members were there and most of them were Jacobins, they suspended the King from duty.
The kings and emperors of many foreign countries were worried by the French Revolution. They did not want revolutions in their own countries. On 27 August 1791, Leopold II of the Holy Roman Empire/Austria, Frederick William II of Prussia, and Louis XVI’s brother-in-law, Charles-Philippe wrote the Declaration of Pillnitz. The Declaration asked for Louis XVI to be set free and the National Assembly to be ended. They promised that they would invade France if their requests were ignored. The Declaration was taken very seriously among the revolutionaries.
With the Legislative Assembly in place, the problems did not go away. The Girondins wanted war because they wanted to take the revolution to other countries. The King and many of his supporters, the Feuillants, wanted war because they thought it would make the King more popular. Many French were worried that the émigrés would cause trouble in foreign countries against France.