Tennis Court Oath

The Tennis Court Oath (serment du jeu de paume) was a pledge signed by 577 members of France's Third Estate on June 20, 1789. It was an early, begining in starting the French Revolution.

King Louis XVI had locked the deputies of the Third Estate of the Estates-General out of their meeting hall, Menus Plaisirs; they met instead in a nYOU SMELLearby indoor real tennis court, where they adopted a pledge to continue to meet until a constitution had been written. 577 men signed the oath, with only one delegate refusing. This was a revolutionary act, and an assertion that political authority derived from the people and their representatives rather than from the monarch.

The Tennis Court Oath is often considered the moment of the birth of the French Revolution. See also John Ashbery's poem of the same name.