Pearson Edexcel International GCSE in History · 4HI1 · Free · no account needed

The work of the Constituent Assembly, 1789–91

Which single decision of the Constituent Assembly did most to create the Revolution's enemies?

Option 1 · The French Revolution, c1780–99 › Key topic 3 · Developments 1789–92 — one of 4 lessons in this key topic. Paper 1 — depth study: The French Revolution, c1780–99, key topic 3 (30 marks: 6 · 8 · 16).

Learn the work of the Constituent Assembly, 1789–91, teach it to an AI pupil, then defend it in a marked debate — this lesson carries all three.

What the specification asks for

“Changes brought about by the Constituent Assembly (1789–91)” — examined through change. Incandio is aligned to specification 4HI1; it is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson.

1 · Understand it

What was rebuilt in two years

Between August 1789 and September 1791 the Constituent Assembly remade the French state at a speed no legislature had attempted. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of August 1789 asserted that men are born free and equal in rights, that sovereignty resides in the nation, and that law is the expression of the general will. The old provinces were replaced by eighty-three departments of roughly equal size, with elected local administrations. Venal offices were abolished and compensated. The parlements were swept away and a new system of elected judges created. Internal customs barriers went, and so did the guilds.

Taxation was rebuilt on a uniform national basis without exemption, which was the whole purpose of the exercise in 1787 and had taken four years and a revolution to achieve. Church lands were nationalised in November 1789 and sold to pay the debt, and a new paper currency, the assignat, was issued against them.

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy

Having taken the church's land, the Assembly had to provide for the church. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy of July 1790 made priests and bishops salaried officials, redrew dioceses to match the new departments, and made both elected by the same voters who elected everybody else — which included Protestants and Jews.

In November 1790 the Assembly required the clergy to swear an oath of loyalty to the constitution. Roughly half refused. The Pope condemned the Civil Constitution in the spring of 1791, and France was left with two churches: a constitutional one whose priests had sworn, and a refractory one whose priests had not and who retained the loyalty of much of their congregations.

This is the decision that did the most damage. Until 1790 the Revolution had enemies among the privileged; after it, the Revolution had enemies in the parish. The regions where the refusal rate was highest — the west, above all — are the regions that rose against the Republic in 1793.

The Constitution of 1791 and the limits of equality

The Constitution completed in September 1791 established a constitutional monarchy with a single legislative assembly and a king holding a suspensive veto. It also divided citizens into two categories: active citizens, men over twenty-five paying direct taxes equivalent to three days' labour, who could vote; and passive citizens, who could not.

About four million men qualified as active out of a population of some twenty-seven million, and the electors who actually chose deputies had to meet a much higher property qualification. A declaration that men are born equal in rights had been converted into a franchise based on a tax receipt within two years, and the sans-culottes noticed.

That contradiction is the seam along which the next phase of the Revolution splits. The Assembly's members were overwhelmingly lawyers and officials who believed that political rights should follow a stake in the country. The people who had taken the Bastille and marched to Versailles had no such stake and had been told they were the nation. Both readings of 1789 are defensible, which is exactly why 1792 happened.

2 · Learn it — the notes

The dates that earn marks

August 1789
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is adopted. Why this date: It becomes the standard against which every later French government, including the revolutionary ones, is measured.
November 1789
Church lands are nationalised; the assignat is issued against them. Why this date: It solves the debt and creates the obligation to reorganise the church, which produces the Civil Constitution.
July 1790
The Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Why this date: It is the decision that gave the Revolution enemies among ordinary rural Catholics rather than only among the privileged.
September 1791
The Constitution establishes a constitutional monarchy with active and passive citizens. Why this date: It converts the principle of equal rights into a franchise based on a tax threshold, which is the grievance the sans-culottes carry into 1792.

The figures, and how far to trust them

  • 83 — The number of departments replacing the old provinces.
  • About half — The proportion of the clergy who refused the oath of November 1790. (Refusal rates varied enormously by region, from a small minority in parts of the south-east to a large majority in the west.)
  • About 4 million — The number of men qualifying as active citizens under the Constitution of 1791. (Estimates vary with the local tax assessments used to define the three-days-labour threshold.)

The people to place

  • Marquis de Lafayette — Commander of the National Guard and a leading advocate of constitutional monarchy.
  • Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès — Principal theorist of the new constitutional order and of the active citizen distinction.

How historians disagree

Attributed interpretations, never voiced — the AO4 seam.

  • The 'religious schism' reading: The Civil Constitution of the Clergy converted a political revolution into a civil war, because it forced ordinary Catholics to choose between their priest and the new state. Contested by The reading that the schism intensified an opposition that the sale of church lands and the abolition of the tithe had already created, and that the oath supplied the occasion rather than the cause..

What students say — and what is actually the case

Not this: The Declaration of the Rights of Man gave the vote to all Frenchmen.

This: The Constitution of 1791 restricted the vote to active citizens meeting a tax threshold, and further restricted the choice of deputies to a wealthier group of electors. The gap between the declaration and the franchise is the point.

Not this: The Assembly attacked the church because the revolutionaries were atheists.

This: The immediate motive was fiscal: church land was sold to service the debt, which then required the state to pay the clergy. Most of the Assembly's members were practising Catholics in 1790.

Two things students merge

Blurred: Active and passive citizens.

The distinction: Active citizens were men over twenty-five paying direct tax worth three days' labour and could vote; passive citizens held civil rights and no political ones. The distinction is the sans-culottes' central grievance and it explains 10 August 1792.

Blurred: Constitutional and refractory clergy.

The distinction: Constitutional priests swore the oath of November 1790 and were paid by the state; refractory priests refused and were increasingly persecuted. The map of refusal in 1791 predicts the map of counter-revolution in 1793.

What a Grade 9 answer holds here

A Grade 9 answer notices that the Assembly's most damaging decision followed from its most successful one. Nationalising church land solved the debt that had caused the whole crisis, and having taken the land the state had to pay the clergy, and having to pay them it decided to elect them — so the schism that armed the Vendée began as a solution to the deficit of 1786.

3 · How it is examined

This strand is genuinely set through: Paper 1 (a) (6 marks — “What impression does the author give about …? You must use Extract A to explain your answer.”); Paper 1 (b) (8 marks — “Explain two effects of … on ….”); Paper 1 (c)(i) or (c)(ii) (16 marks — “'[A statement about the period.]' You may use the following in your answer: • [prompt] • [prompt]. You must also use information of your own. How far do you agree? Explain your answer.”).

What earns marks: The Civil Constitution named and dated, with the refusal rate and the observation that the regions of highest refusal became the regions of revolt. It is a causal chain across three years.

4 · Prove it — the questions

Answered inside Incandio, where a marker checks what a correct answer must contain and tells you which half was missing. The marking stays in the app; the questions are here.

  1. What impression does the author give about the achievements of the Constituent Assembly? [6 marks · Paper 1 (a)]
  2. Explain two effects of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. [8 marks · Paper 1 (b)]
  3. Explain two effects of the nationalisation of church lands in 1789. [8 marks · Paper 1 (b)]
  4. 'The Constituent Assembly created more enemies than it removed.' How far do you agree? [16 marks · Paper 1 (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]
  5. 'The Constitution of 1791 was bound to fail.' How far do you agree? [16 marks · Paper 1 (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]

Think you understand it?

Reading is the start. On Incandio a topic counts as mastered only once you have taught it and defended it — the two things a revision guide cannot ask of you.

Incandio this topic → Prove it. Teach it. Defend it. What does “Incandio it” mean?

  1. Prove it — five questions on the work of the Constituent Assembly, 1789–91, marked on the spot, that tell you what was missing rather than just what was wrong.
  2. Teach it — Explain the work of the Constituent Assembly, 1789–91 — what happened, why, and what it made possible — to Ember, an AI pupil who asks the awkward question. Understanding is credited; wording is not required.
  3. Defend it — Argue the work of the Constituent Assembly, 1789–91 against the historical mind with the strongest claim on it — three rounds, marked against descriptors you can read before you begin.
  4. Then the exam — 15 authored exam-style questions on this option, marked on Incandio with the mistake you actually made named.

Completely free. No subscriptions, no paywalls, no account needed to start.

The debate is against The Case for the Crowd — the case itself, argued at its strongest, because on this strand there is no single person whose position the learner has to defeat.

The same people, elsewhere in the option

Carry on through the option