The National Constituent Assembly has become the effective government of France following the storming of the Bastille on 14 July.

The number of the Estates-General had increased significantly during the election period, but many deputies take their time arriving; some of them will reach Paris as late as 1791.

According to Timothy Tackett, there were a total of eleven hundred and seventy-seven deputies in the Assembly by mid-July 1789.

Among them, two hundred and seventy-eight belong to the nobility, two hundred and ninety-five to the clergy, and six hundred and four are representatives of the Third Estate.

For the entire duration of the Assembly, a total of thirteen hundred and fifteen deputies will be certified: three hundred and thirty clerics, three hundred and twenty-two nobles, and six hundred and sixty-three deputies of the Third Estate.

Tackett will note that the majority of the Second Estate has a military background, and the Third Estate is dominated by men of legal professions.

Some of the leading figures of the Assembly at this time are:

    The conservative foes of the revolution, later known as "The Right":
        Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazalès – a forthright spokesman for aristocracy
        the abbé Jean-Sifrein Maury – a somewhat inflexible representative of the Church
    The Monarchiens ("Monarchists", also called "Democratic Royalists") allied with Jacques Necker, inclined toward arranging France along lines similar to the British constitution model with a House of Lords and a House of Commons:
        Pierre Victor, baron Malouet
        Trophime-Gérard, marquis de Lally-Tollendal
        Stanislas Marie Adelaide, comte de Clermont-Tonnerre
        Jean Joseph Mounier
    "The Left" (also called "National Party") is still relatively united in support of revolution and democracy, representing mainly the interests of the middle classes but strongly sympathetic to the broader range of the common people.

In the early period, its most notable leaders include Honoré Mirabeau, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Jean-Sylvain Bailly (the first two of aristocratic background).

Mignet also points to Adrien Duport, Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave, and Alexander Lameth as leaders among the "most extreme of this party" in this period, leaders in taking "a more advanced position than that which the revolution had [at this time] attained." (Mignet, François (1856). History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814. France. p. 61.)

Lameth's brother Charles also belongs to this group.

In regard to the proposition of legislation in this period, the Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, especially for a time, manages to bridge the differences between those who want a constitutional monarchy and those who wish to move towards more democratic, even republican directions.

The National Assembly meanwhile continues to work on developing a constitution.

A second body, the Committee of Revisions, is formed in September 1790, and includes Antoine Barnave, Adrien Duport, and Charles de Lameth.

Because the National Assembly is both a legislature and a constitutional convention, it is not always clear when its decrees are constitutional articles or mere statutes.

It is the job of this committee to sort it out.

A new judicial organization makes all magistracies temporary and independent of the throne.

The legislators abolish hereditary offices, except for the monarchy itself.

Jury trials start for criminal cases.

The King will have the unique power to propose war, with the legislature then deciding whether to declare war.

The Assembly abolishes all internal trade barriers and suppresses guilds, masterships, and workers' organizations: any individual gains the right to practice a trade through the purchase of a license; strikes become illegal.

The Committee of Revisions becomes very important in the days after the Champs de Mars Massacre, when a wave of revulsion against popular movements sweeps France and results in a renewed effort to preserve powers for the Crown.

The result is the rise of the Feuillants, a new political faction led by Barnave, who uses his position on the committee to preserve a number of powers for the Crown, such as the nomination of ambassadors, military leaders, and ministers.

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".