ABSTRACT
It was an odd Assembly, elected by less than twenty percent of those voters theoretically able to vote—themselves a minority. Virtually all its members were part of the revolution and were mostly lawyers and men who held posts under the new anti-royalist forces. It included a sprinkling of renegade nobles such as Philippe d'Orléans and the ex-Baron Cloots, who called himself Speaker for the People. Tom Paine was among a half-dozen English and American sympathizers who were made honorary Frenchmen and members of the Assembly. The revolutionary leaders believed England was on the brink of overthrow and that the rest of the world would soon topple its monarchs and nobility, defrock its religious leaders, and create a new world society.
