History Now

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If you are a fan of Ayn Rand or many other political satirists/novelists, you may have run across more than one similes, metaphors, or allusions involving tennis courts that may not have made much sense when you first heard/read them. Why would someone’s smile make them look like they could take in a whole tennis court when tennis hasn’t been mentioned throughout this entire article/novel/essay/speech? Why would Dagny Taggart suddenly feel the need to play tennis with the Destroyer or her brother James? Seemed a little out of place, right?

When the 3rd Estate broke from the Estates General because they felt they were being underrepresented in the vote (the 1st Estate was made up of one class, the clergy, the 2nd Estate was made up of one class, the nobility, and the 3rd Estate was made up of two classes) that would decide the fate of France in the late 1800s, they formed the National Assembly. They were bourgeoisie and peasants and so, naturally, weren’t taken seriously. When Louis XVI, still delusions of an absolute monarchy in which the king would have all the power in the country, locked the National Assembly out of their meeting place, they moved their congregation to an indoor tennis court where they made an oath: They would not end the National Assembly assemblage until they had come up with a new constitution for France.

This became known as the Tennis Court Oath and signified the beginning of what later became known as the French Revolution. While the revolution not only didn’t work, but failed miserably, it was this moment that set the entire European world on its head, leading to revolution against the oppression of the mind in every country in one form or another.

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