Editing Tennis Court Oath (section)

==Oath==

[[File:Procès verbal de la prestation du serment du Jeu de Paume Page de signatures - Archives Nationales - AE-I-5.jpg|thumb|Minutes of the taking of the Jeu de Paume oath Signature page]]

The deputies' fears, even if wrong, were reasonable, and the importance of the oath goes above and beyond its context.<ref name="Osen">{{cite book|first= James L.|last= Osen|title=Royalist Political Thought during the French Revolution|year=1995|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|location=Westport, CT|isbn=978-0313294419}}{{page?|date=June 2023}}</ref> The oath was a revolutionary act and an assertion that political authority derived from the people and their representatives rather than from the monarchy. Their solidarity forced Louis XVI to order the clergy and the nobility to join the Third Estate in the National Assembly to give the illusion that he controlled the National Assembly.<ref name="Doyle" /> This oath was vital to the Third Estate as a protest that led to more power in the Estates General, every governing body thereafter.<ref>{{Citation|last = John D Ruddy|title = French Revolution in 9 Minutes|date = 2015-01-12|url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1_2NwmIobU|access-date = 2016-02-29}}</ref> Among the oath-takers were five delegates from the colony of [[Saint-Domingue]].

The text was prepared by [[Antoine Barnave]] and [[Isaac Le Chapelier]]. An English-language translation of the oath reads:
<blockquote>
Considering that it has been called to establish the constitution of the realm, to bring about the regeneration of public order, and to maintain the true principles of monarchy; nothing may prevent it from continuing its deliberations in any place it is forced to establish itself; and, finally, the National Assembly exists wherever its members are gathered.

Decrees that all members of this Assembly immediately take a solemn oath never to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require until the constitution of the realm is established and fixed upon solid foundations; and that said oath having been sworn, all members and each one individually confirms this unwavering resolution with his signature.

We swear never to separate ourselves from the National Assembly, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require until the constitution of the realm is drawn up and fixed upon solid foundations.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Tennis Court Oath, June 1789 |url=http://wp.stu.ca/worldhistory/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2015/07/Tennis-Court-Oath.pdf |access-date=14 September 2019}}</ref></blockquote>