The king alarmed, too, wrote to them, counselling them to give way, and follow to the common hall. "The junction will be transient," said the most obstinate; "troops are approaching, let us give way and obey the king." Simultaneous with this decision, which took place amid much uproar, was that of the remaining clergy. They all went together. "We are come," said the duke of Luxembourg, "to give a mark of respect to the king, and of patriotism to the nation." "The family is now complete," observed Bailly; "we can now attend, without intermission and without distraction, to the regeneration of the kingdom and of the public weal."
Thus the union of the deputies of all ranks was consummated after this great battle; the triumph of the commons was perfected; but the most obstinate of the nobles still could not amalgamate with the tiers without a struggle with their pride. They continued to come in after the opening of the sitting, and to stand behind the president, as representing their own body. Bailly wished them to be seated; they declined; but Bailly respectfully persisted, and they took their seats. But no sooner was this done, than they demanded that a new president should be elected; it was gall to their proud hearts to sit under a plebeian president. The motion was contemptuously rejected by the tiers, who were the majority, and Bailly retained his proud pre-eminence. The nobles and the hierarchy, or that portion of them which stood out for their privileges, must have felt their utter impotence, when once merged into the assembly. A large section of them, the curés and the liberal nobles, were one with the tiers, and the tiers alone were equal to the whole body of clergy and the noblesse. Thus, therefore, supported by numbers from the privileged ranks, they could outvote the recalcitrant nobles and prelates by a large majority on all questions. From that moment the privileged classes, in truth, were at an end. Yet not patiently did the nobles submit to their fate. They insisted that, though sitting together, they should vote not by head but by order. This motion was rejected by a wild acclamation, which was echoed by a more appalling thunder from the galleries. Undaunted by that evidence of subjection, the cardinal archbishop, De Rochefoucauld, protested in the name of the order; but the liberal archbishop of Vienne reminded him that he was in a minority, even in his order, and had, therefore, no right to speak in the name of that order. Mirabeau said, sternly, that it was strange that any one should protest in the assembly against the assembly; that he must either recognise its sovereignty or retire.
It was under such circumstances of conflicting spirit that the assembly began to construct a constitution: an enormous task, and to be executed amidst the most distracting and explosive materials within and without. France, unlike England, could not be said ever to have had a constitution. It had had its king, and its parliament, its states-general, but all of an arbitrary caste; without any fixed times for assembling, and without any laws to secure the responsibility of the agents of power, any guarantees for the liberty of the subject, of the press, or any liberty of the general body. It was necessary to clear the ground of the poisonous rubbish of despotism before beginning to erect an orderly fabric of constitutional government. There were multitudinous theories afloat in men's minds, but no precedents, at least, of French growth. The deputies, indeed, had, from every quarter, brought with them written instructions for the demands which they were to make on behalf of the nation. They had unanimously prescribed monarchical government; hereditary succession from male to male; the exclusive attribution of the executive power to the king; the responsibility of all agents; the concurrence of the nation and king in making of laws; the voting of the taxes, and individual liberty. But they were divided on the subject of one or two chambers of legislature; on the length of their sessions, and the periods of their meeting; on the political existence of the clergy, and of the parliaments on the extent of the liberty of the press. In reducing these great questions into constitutional form, the national diversity of mind was sure to produce vivid conflicts, and wide divergences of opinion. But beyond this, the state of the population out of doors added infinitely to the dangers and the difficulties of the process.
The people were starving in the provinces, and ready, in their excitement, for mischief everywhere. The assembly was anxious to do something to relieve the distress; but in so doing they must encroach on the duties of the executive. They were yet without a constitution, and therefore could only act on their own authority. They had been incited by the clergy to join them in seeking a way to furnish the means of existence to the people, the clergy now sitting with them; they proposed to carry out this desirable object in some manner. They appointed a committee, which put itself into communication with the ministers, asking information as to the best machinery for the purpose; and the ministry informed them of what they themselves had attempted to do. The assembly then proposed to order provisions to be conveyed to the quarters most destitute, and to vote a loan for the necessary funds, to be assisted by charitable contributions. Lally-Tollendal moved that they should issue a decree for this purpose, but Mounier replied that such decree would require the sanction of the king; and, in the present absence of a constitution, there would be difficulties in procuring this sanction. The assembly was paralysed by the necessity to legislate without any basis on which to legislate. Meantime, Paris, only twelve miles distant, was in constant attention to all that passed in the assembly and at court. Messengers were continually passing to and fro, and every movement of the assembly produced a correspondent sensation.
The electors assembled in sixty districts, having discharged their functions, ought to have retired into the mass of citizens, but they were too fond of the new exercise of power, and they continued to retain their elective character, and to meet on the plea that it was necessary, under such extraordinary circumstances, to instruct and support their deputies. The ministers naturally represented that their political life was at an end for the present, and refused them admittance to their place of meeting. Like the national assembly, they sought another, and found one in the miserable but large room of an eating-house in the Rue Dauphine. This was their Jeu de Paume; but they determined to remove thence, and take possession of the Hotel de Ville, which they did, and there acted as the organ of Paris,
