French Constitution of 1791

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The short-lived French Constitution of 1791, adopted by the National Constituent Assembly during the period now known as the French Revolution, went into effect in September 1791 but, due to a series of constitutional crises, had effectively ceased to function as a national constitution by August 1792.

The constitution attempted to establish a liberal bourgeois constitutional monarchy, under which the unicameral Legislative Assembly would pass legislation but the king of France -- in this case, Louis XVI -- would retain a veto. With war beginning and with increasingly radical -- and ultimately republican -- forces coming to the fore in the Assembly, this proved entirely unworkable. The August 10th insurrection was the effective end of the monarchy.

The constitution dissolved in a chaos of forces, with the radical and even occasionally terroristic Paris Commune, the municipal government of Paris, holding the balance of power in the country until the beginning of the Convention on October 1, 1792.

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The Legislative Assembly and the fall of the French monarchy
For provisions of this constitution, see the discussions of constitutional issues in [[French Revolution from the