| In a dramatic act of defiance during the meeting of the French Estates-General (traditional assembly), the representatives of the nonprivileged classes (the Third Estate), thinking King Louis XVI was forcing them to disband and abandon their call for reforms, took an oath not to separate until a written constitution had been established for France. Locked out of their meeting hall at Versailles, on this day the deputies of the Third Estate congregated on a nearby tennis court, where the ... |