The Tennis Court Oath (David) – pre-Romantic, near-unanimous, almost totally middle-class and with no popular violence – above all was considered the forerunner of the 1789 revolution and also showed that national sovereignty was made up of each individual's personal will. David's painting also portrays the monk Dom Gerle alongside the Protestant pastor Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne, symbolising a new era of religious tolerance. The wind blowing through the windows and billowing the curtains also symbolises the wind of Revolution blowing through France. The first engravings showing "The Tennis Court Oath" only appeared in 1790, the year David convinced the Jacobin Club to launch a national
Battle of the Tennis Court It is not entirely clear when the battle for the Tennis Court was won, however it seems that tanks operating from the road supported an infantry attack that captured the Tennis Court area on 10 May 1944. By the morning of May 13, most of the positions on the Kohima ridge had been re-taken by the British and Indian forces. On that day the DC's bungalow was finally recaptured by the 2nd Battalion, Dorset Regiment supported by Grant tanks firing from the Tennis Court. The lead tank was driven by Sergeant Waterhouse of 149th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps (149 RAC),