preventing foreign intervention. Louis took the oath to support the revised constitution on September 14. Two weeks later, with the election of the new legislature authorized by the constitution, the Constituent Assembly was dissolved. Meanwhile, on August 27, Leopold II and Frederick William II, king of Prussia, had issued a joint declaration regarding France, which contained a thinly veiled threat of armed intervention against the revolution. The Legislative Assembly, which began its sessions on October 1, 1791, was composed of 750 members, all of whom were inexperienced, inasmuch as members of the Constituent Assembly had voted themselves ineligible for election to the new body. The new legislature was divided into widely divergent factions, the most moderate of which was the Feuillants, who supported a constitutional monarchy as defined under the Constitution of 1791. In the center was the majority caucus, known as the Plain, which was without well-defined political opinions and consequently without initiative. The Plain, however, uniformly opposed the Republican factors that sat on the left, composed mainly of the Girondists, who advocated transformation of the constitutional monarchy into a federal republic similar to the U.S., and of the Montagnards, consisting of Jacobins and Cordeliers, who favored establishment of a highly centralized, indivisible republic. Before these differences caused a serious split between the Girondists and the Montagnards, the Republican caucus in the assembly secured passage of several important bills, including stringent measures against clergymen who refused to swear allegiance. Louis exercised his veto against these bills, however, creating a cabinet crisis that brought the Girondists to power. Despite the opposition of leading Montagnards, the Girondist ministry, headed by Jean Marie Roland de la Platire, adopted a belligerent attitude toward Frederick William II and Francis II, Holy Roman empero...
