It was exactly this logic that Sieyès employed in invoking the constituent power of the “nation” in 1789. The nation, he wrote, “is *719 the source and supreme master of positive law.” It exists “independently of any rule and any constitutional form.”15 This idea was promptly put to work in the National Assembly. When it was argued that any new constitution would require the approval of the king, Guy-Jean-Baptiste Target denounced the idea that “the constituent power had to ask the permission of the constituted power.”16