Derasse suggests it was a "collective suicide" by the lawyers in the Assembly,[5] but cannot be used for justifying aggression or taking revenge.
[6] Former "advocates" lost their title, their distinctive form of dress, their status, and their professional orders and adapted their practices to the new political and legal situation.
Article III specifically recognised the right of active citizens to meet together to draw up petitions and addresses and present them to municipal authorities.
Together they helped to minimize crime while successfully fulfilling the guarantees made in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen written in 1789.
In Victor Hugo's 1862 novel Les Misérables, Jean Valjean receives a sentence of five years hard work in the galleys for the small crime of stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's children.