ABSTRACT
As soon as the Revolution reached the people, the influence of the rational elements speedily vanished before that of the affective and collective elements. As for the mystic elements, the foundation of the revolutionary faith, they made the army fanatical and propagated the new belief throughout the world. From the first sessions a psychological conflict broke out between the deputies of different social conditions and different mentalities. The magnificent costumes of the privileged deputies contrasted in a humiliating fashion with the sombre fashions of the Third Estate. The deputies of the Third Estate, on the proposition of the Abbe Sieyes, considering that they represented 95 percent, of the nation, declared themselves constituted as a National Assembly. The power of a political assembly resides in the weakness of its adversaries. Astonished by the slight resistance encountered, and carried away by the ascendancy of a handful of orators, the Constituent Assembly, from its earliest sessions, spoke and acted as a sovereign body.
