France Adopts Its First Written Constitution
A constitutional monarchy is born, and is outdated within months
Quick facts
- Location
- Paris
- Date
- 3 September 1791 (accepted by the king, 14 September)
- Administrative units
- 83 departments
- Franchise
- Restricted to tax-paying "active" citizens, about two-thirds of adult men
What happened
The National Constituent Assembly completed France's first written constitution in September 1791, which Louis XVI accepted on 14 September. It kept the monarchy but placed sovereignty in an elected Legislative Assembly, with voting restricted to "active" citizens who paid a minimum level of taxes, roughly two-thirds of adult men. The constitution redrew France into 83 departments, subdivided into districts and communes, each with its own elected councils, replacing the old patchwork of provinces and overlapping jurisdictions. It also declared marriage a civil contract rather than only a religious sacrament and promised a system of free public education, incorporating the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man as its preamble.
Why it matters
The 1791 Constitution was the Revolution's first attempt to convert its principles into working government, but the king's flight to Varennes only months earlier had already discredited the compromise it embodied. Radicalized by war and by Louis XVI's continued resistance to the Legislative Assembly, France abandoned the constitutional monarchy within a year of its adoption.
How we know
The constitution's provisions on departments, active citizenship, and its incorporation of the Declaration of Rights are documented across standard university surveys of the period; its short lifespan, less than a year before the fall of the monarchy, is not disputed among historians.
Sources
- Avalon Project, Yale Law School. Declaration of the Rights of Man - 1789 · Primary source (author-declared)avalon.law.yale.edu · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match).
- World History Encyclopedia. Flight to Varennes · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
See something wrong? . Corrections with a source get fixed fastest.
Part of a timelineThe French Revolution28 events · How a bankrupt monarchy's tax crisis became a decade of upheaval that ended with a general seizing powerView all →