The Royal Session of 23 June

On 23 June 1789 Louis XVI tried to regain control at a formal royal session. He offered real concessions, including consent to taxation and some liberty of the press, but he insisted that the three orders keep meeting separately and declared the Third Estate's decisions of 17 June void. He then ordered the deputies to disperse. The Third Estate's deputies stayed put.

When the master of ceremonies repeated the order, the Comte de Mirabeau reportedly replied that they would leave only by the force of bayonets. The king, unwilling to use force at that moment, backed down, and on 27 June he ordered the remaining clergy and nobles to join the assembly. Historians see this as a turning point: the king's offer might once have satisfied reformers, but by now the issue was who held sovereignty, not which reforms would be granted.