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Leaving out of consideration for the time the frightened royal family, the startled noblemen and clergy, the determined peasantry, and the excited townsfolk, and not adhering too closely to chronological order, let us center our attention upon the National Assembly and review its major acts during those momentous years, 1789-1791.
The story falls naturally into two parts: First, 1789-1791, the comparatively peaceful transformation of the absolute, divine-right monarchy into a limited monarchy, accompanied by a definition of the rights of the individual and a profound change in the social order; second, 1792-1799, the transformation of the limited monarchy into a republic, attended by the first genuine trial of democracy, and attended likewise by foreign war and internal tumult.
True, they accorded to the king the right to postpone for a time the execution of an act of the legislature the so- called "suspensive veto" but they deprived him of all control over local government, over the army and navy, and over the clergy. Even his ministers were not to sit in the Assembly. Tremendous had been the decline of royal power in France during those two years, 1789-1791.
For interesting personal impressions of the Revolution by an American eye-witness, see Gouverneur Morris, Diary and Letters, 2 vols. . F. M. and H. D. Fling, Source Problems on the French Revolution , is a useful compilation for intensive critical study of various phases of the Revolution. I, 1789-1791 , Vol.
Conduct of the bourgeoisie in 1789-1791. Below the nobles and the clergy, a third class of notables, the bourgeoisie, almost entirely confined to the towns, verged on the former classes through its upper circles, while its diverse groups, ranging from the parliamentarian to the rich merchant or manufacturer, comprised the remainder of those who were tolerably well educated, say 100 000 families, recruited on the same conditions as the bourgeoisie of the present day: they were "bourgeois living nobly," meaning by this, living on their incomes, large manufacturers and traders, engaged in liberal pursuits-lawyers, notaries, procureurs, physicians, architects, engineers, artists, professors, and especially the government officials; the latter, however, very numerous, differed from ours in two essential points.
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