During the Night of 4 August (amid the Great Fear), the National Constituent Assembly voted to dismantle key feudal privileges—targeting seigneurial dues, noble tax exemptions, and other remnants of the ancien régime. The decisions were later formalized through a series of decrees in the following days.
The Assembly’s decisions of 4 August were translated into a set of decrees adopted over the next week (commonly described as the August Decrees). They provided the legal framework for abolishing aspects of the feudal order, though some dues were initially treated as redeemable rather than immediately extinguished.
The National Constituent Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, establishing foundational principles such as legal equality, popular sovereignty, and protections against arbitrary power—serving as a rights-based framework for subsequent constitutional and legal reforms.
The Assembly decreed that ecclesiastical property would be placed at the disposal of the nation, a landmark fiscal and legal measure that transformed church lands into biens nationaux and helped underpin revolutionary finance (including later monetary measures).
The Assembly decreed a new territorial-administrative framework based on departments, replacing the patchwork of historic provinces and jurisdictions of the ancien régime—an essential legal reform for uniform governance and later electoral/administrative systems.
The Assembly ended state recognition of solemn religious vows, leading to the suppression of many monastic orders and congregations (with limited exceptions), and enabling members to leave with provisions such as pensions—reshaping church-state relations in law and practice.
To address fiscal crisis, assignats—initially interest-bearing notes backed by nationalized lands (biens nationaux)—were issued, marking a major legal-financial innovation of the Constituent Assembly era with far-reaching economic consequences.
The Constituent Assembly abolished hereditary nobility and noble titles, legally attacking status distinctions at the core of the ancien régime and reinforcing the Revolution’s program of civic equality in law.
The Assembly enacted the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, reorganizing the French Church on a national basis (including dioceses aligned with departments and election of clergy), a reform that contributed to a deep religious and political schism during the Revolution.
The law of 16–24 August 1790 reorganized the judicial system, replacing key features of the old regime’s courts and setting enduring principles for French public law (including constraints on judicial interference in administration, associated with the later “duality” of jurisdictional orders).
The Allarde Decree abolished guild privileges and introduced the principle of freedom of trade and industry (alongside new licensing/tax mechanisms), advancing economic liberalization as part of the Assembly’s legal reforms.
The Le Chapelier Law prohibited guild-like associations, worker coalitions, and strikes, asserting an individualist conception of economic freedom that limited collective labor organization under the revolutionary legal order.
The National Constituent Assembly completed and adopted France’s first written constitution, creating a constitutional monarchy with a unicameral legislature and an indirect, tax-based suffrage system that distinguished “active” citizens in electoral participation.
Louis XVI accepted the new constitutional settlement and swore an oath to uphold it before the National Assembly, making the 1791 constitutional monarchy operative in practice (even as political conflict continued to intensify).
A new penal code was adopted during late September–early October 1791, advancing Enlightenment-influenced principles such as legality and clearer statutory definitions of crimes and punishments—replacing many older criminal ordinances and helping standardize revolutionary criminal law.
Constituent Assembly's Legal Reforms and the August Decrees (1789–1791)
