ABSTRACT
THE most obvious contrast between the Legislative Assembly, which began its session on 1 October 1791, and the Constituent Assembly it replaced was that the clergy and nobility no longer enjoyed separate representation. Their numbers dropped to rather more than a score from each group, and those elected had presumably given proof of their attachment to the new order. The makers of the constitution had, by a self-denying ordinance, excluded themselves from the new Assembly, all of whose members were therefore inexperienced in parliamentary affairs. Of the 745 deputies, over two-thirds came from local government or were judges and magistrates in the new courts. The Doubs, for example, drew its entire parliamentary team from the directoire of the Department and all but one of the Seine-et-Marne deputies came from local government bodies.1 Socially, this perhaps indicated a slight swing away from the notabilities of 1789 in favour of younger men who had used the Revolution as a means to a political career and built up a local following. But once again the overwhelming majority were drawn from the educated middle
class, with the lawyers more conspicuous than farmers and merchants.
