The Tennis Court Oath (David) to take the oath, Martin-Dauch, is shown in the lower right hand corner and provides a counterpoint to the general enthusiasm. David also drew all the faces in detail so that every figure was recognisable. Above are large windows with smiling figures of the public. In the 18th century, an oath had a sacred value and guaranteed a person would be faithful to their word, as in David's own "The Oath of the Horatii". During the French Revolution, collective oaths like the tennis court oath were considered as a factor in national unity and national unanimity. The tennis court oath
Gibbon's Tennis Court France: converting tennis courts into theatres. Killigrew's remodelled Gibbon's Tennis Court opened first, on 8 November 1660, just two months after being given permission by the Crown. The design was similar to the earlier Elizabethan-era "private" theatres, such as the theatre in Blackfriars: a stage devoid of scenery facing a bench-filled pit on the auditorium floor and surrounded by one or two levels of U-shaped galleries. Not long after the opening, on 20 November, avid theatre-goer Samuel Pepys attended his first performance at Vere Street: …Mr. Shepley and I to the new Play-house near Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields (which was formerly Gibbon’s tennis-court),