Jacques, Evangelist of the Contrat Social. Not Drouet of Varennes; not worthy Lataille, master of the old world-famous Tennis-Court in Versailles, is forgotten; but each has his honourable mention, and due reward in money.[1] Whereupon, things being all so neatly winded up, and the Deputations, and Messages, and royal and other ceremonials having rustled by; and the King having now affectionately perorated about peace and tranquillisation, and members having answered 'Oui! Oui!' with effusion, even with tears,—President Thouret, he of the Law Reforms, rises, and, with a strong voice, utters these memorable last-words: 'The National Constituent Assembly declares that it has finished its mission; and that its sittings are all ended.' Incorruptible Robespierre, virtuous Pétion are borne home on the shoulders of the people; with vivats heaven-high. The rest glide quietly to their respective places of abode. It is the last afternoon of September 1791; on the morrow morning the new Legislative will begin.
So, amid glitter of illuminated streets and Champs Élysées, and crackle of fireworks and glad deray, has the first National Assembly vanished; dissolving, as they well say, into blank Time; and is no more. National Assembly is gone, its work remaining; as all Bodies of men go, and as man himself goes: it had its beginning, and must likewise have its end. A Phantasm-Reality born of Time, as the rest of us are; flitting ever backwards now on the tide of Time; to be long remembered of men. Very strange Assemblages, Sanhedrims, Amphictyonics, Trades-Unions, Ecumenic Councils, Parliaments and Congresses, have met together on this Planet, and dispersed again; but a stranger Assemblage than this august Constituent, or with a stranger mission, perhaps never met there. Seen from the distance, this also will be a miracle. Twelve Hundred human individuals, with the Gospel of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in their pocket, congregating in the name of Twenty-
- ↑ Moniteur (in Hist. Parl. xi. 473).
