The Legislative Assembly—elected by those four million men out of a population of twenty-five million who pay a certain minimum amount of taxes—first meets on October 1, 1791.

There are seven hundred and forty-five members, mostly from the middle class.

The members are generally young, and since none had sat in the previous Assembly, they largely lack national political experience.

They tend  to be people who have made their name through successful political careers in local politics.

The rightists within the assembly consist of about two hundred and sixty "Feuillants", whose chief leaders, Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette and Antoine Barnave, remain outside the House, because of their ineligibility for re-election.

They are staunch constitutional monarchists, firm in their defense of the King against the popular agitation.

The leftists are one hundred and thirty-six "Jacobins" (still including the party later known as the Girondins or Girondists) and Cordeliers.

Its most famous leaders are Jacques Pierre Brissot, the philosopher Condorcet, and Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud.

The Left draws its inspiration from the more radical tendency of the Enlightenment, regards the émigré nobles as traitors, and espouses anticlericalism.

They are suspicious of Louis XVI, some of them favoring a general European war, both to spread the new ideals of liberty and equality and to put the king's loyalty to the test.

The remainder of the House, three hundred and forty-five deputies, generally belong to no definite party.

They are called "the Marsh" (Le Marais) or "the Plain" (La Plaine).

They are committed to the ideals of the Revolution, hence generally inclined to side with the Left, but will also occasionally back proposals from the Right.

The king's ministers, named by him and excluded from the Assembly, are described by the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica as "mostly persons of little mark".