The French Revolution, which began in 1789, distracted from the game, though one of the revolution’s founding moments, the Tennis Court Oath, took place in the tennis court at Versailles ...

In 1883, it became the Museum of the French Revolution, including Luc-Olivier Merson’s monumental painting, The Tennis Court Oath, based on an unfinished 1791 work by Jacques-Louis David.

In 1791, the French painter Jacques Louis David made a large, meticulously detailed drawing for a painting he never produced, called “The Oath of the Tennis Court.” It depicts a key moment ...

That is, although the game is French to the core—not one but two of France’s early kings died at the tennis courts, and the Republic was born on one, with the Tennis Court Oath—the French ...