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.
