Tennis Court Oath

The Tennis Court Oath was a pledge signed by the members of the third estate of France, or the least wealthy of the three social classes, and the oath was taken in a tennis court near Versailles. 576 out of the 577 members took this oath. It was a response to Louis XVI's desire to maintain absolute power for the government, and it was also a demand for more power for the third estate. They also wanted the King to write a constitution for France.

The oath was to never seperate from the national assembly and basically do whatever necessary to maintain it, and they would keep this pledge until a written constitution was written for France. The third estate wanted more power King Louis XVI eventually gave in and increased the size of the estate. They made up most of France, and the King ended up giving more nobles and clergy members to the third estate. While they thought they got more power, each estate was given one vote so the size of the representation of the third estate grew, but the voting power stayed the same, and the clergy and noblemen were outvoting them, so nothing still went the way of the third estate.

These are financial and social grievances. It relates to finances because the third estate represented the poorest group of France. The social part comes from the fact that the third estate had the least amount of social power and they were asking for more.