Tennis Court Oath Tennis Court Oath On 20 June 1789, the members of the French Third Estate, who had begun to call themselves the National Assembly, took the Tennis Court Oath (), vowing "not to separate, and to reassemble wherever circumstances require, until the constitution of the kingdom is established". It was a pivotal event in the French Revolution. The Estates-General had been called to address the country's fiscal and agricultural crisis, but immediately after convening in May 1789, they had become bogged down in issues of representation—particularly, whether they would vote by head (which would increase the power of the Third Estate,
Tennis Court Oath oath "". The only person who did not join was Joseph Martin-Dauch from Castelnaudary, who would only execute decisions made by the king. Before the Revolution, French society—aside from royalty—was divided into three estates. The First Estate comprised the clergy; the Second Estate was the nobility. The entire rest of France—some 98% of the population—was the Third Estate, which ranged from very wealthy city merchants to impoverished rural farmers. The three estates met from time to time in the Estates General, a legislative assembly. Although the Third Estate was the overwhelming majority of the French population, the makeup of the