August Decrees

The evening sitting of 4 August 1789

At an evening sitting in Versailles on 4 August 1789, the National Assembly interrupted its constitutional debate to consider disorder in the countryside and Guy-Jean-Baptiste Target's public-security motion.

Reports of the Great Fear described armed peasants, attacks on châteaux and the destruction of the terriers that recorded seigneurial rights. Deputies feared a widening rural revolt and the collapse of public order.

Noailles, then d'Aiguillon

The vicomte de Noailles argued that concessions to the peasantry and abolition of feudal rights, not repression alone, were what would calm the provinces. The duc d'Aiguillon followed with proposals for fiscal equality, abolition of personal servitudes and redemption of other feudal and seigneurial dues.

Deputies then proposed ending seigneurial justice, exclusive hunting rights, tithes, the sale of offices, guild restrictions and the special privileges of provinces and towns. The session's resolution recorded renunciations of privilege and the abolition of serf status and mainmorte.

This was legislative action and a run of renunciations — not a collective oath like the one taken on the tennis court in June.

What was still owed in the morning

The sitting ran past midnight, closing about 2 a.m. on 5 August. Near its close Lally-Tollendal persuaded the Assembly to proclaim Louis XVI "restorer of French liberty."

The detailed decrees followed over 4–11 August. Personal servitudes were abolished without compensation, but numerous property-related dues remained payable until redemption, and royal letters patent were not published until 3 November.