True, they accorded to the king the right to
postpone for a time the execution of an act of the legislature--the so-
called "suspensive veto"--but they deprived him of all control over
local government, over the army and navy, and over the clergy. Even his
ministers were not to sit in the Assembly. Tremendous had been the
decline of royal power in France during those two years, 1789-1791.
[Sidenote: Summary of the Work of the National Assembly]
This may conclude our brief summary of the work of the National
Constituent Assembly. If we review it as a whole, we are impressed by
the immense destruction which it effected. No other body of legislators
has ever demolished so much in the same brief period. The old form of
government, the old territorial divisions, the old financial system,
the old judicial and legal regulations, the old ecclesiastical
arrangements, and, most significant of all, the old condition of
holding land--serfdom and feudalism--all were shattered. Yet all this
destruction was not a mad whim of the moment.
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