rliamentary
life is employed, and in which the hardiest veterans are scarcely able
to keep cool. Judge of the effect of all this on inexperienced, highly
strung nerves, on men of the world accustomed to the accommodations
and amiabilities of universal urbanity. They are at once beside
themselves.--And all the more so because they never anticipated a
battle; but, on the contrary, a festival, a grand and charming idyll, in
which everybody, hand in hand, would assemble in tears around the throne
and save the country amid mutual embraces. Necker himself arranges, like
a theater, the chamber in which the sessions of the Assembly are to
be held.[2107] "He was not disposed to regard the Assemblies of the
States-General as anything but a peaceful, imposing, solemn, august
spectacle, which the people would enjoy;" and when the idyll suddenly
changes into a drama, he is so frightened that it seems to him as if a
landslide had occurred that threatened, during the night, to break
down the framework of the building.--At the time of the meeting of the
States-General, everybody is delighted; all imagine that they are about
to enter the promised land. During the procession of the 4th of May,

"tears of joy," says the Marquis de Ferrieres, "filled my eyes... . In a
state of sweet rapture I beheld France supported by Religion" exhorting
us all to concord. "The sacred ceremonies, the music, the incense, the
priests in their sacrificial robes, that dais, that orb radiant with
precious stones. .. I called to my mind the words of the prophet... . My
God, my country, and my countrymen, all were one with myself!"

Such emotions repeatedly explode in the course of the session, and
resulted in the passage of laws which no one could have imagined.

"Sometimes,"[2108] writes the American ambassador, "a speaker gets up
in the midst of a deliberation, makes a fine discourse on a different
subject, and closes with a nice little resolution which is carried with
a hurrah. Thus, in considering the plan of a national bank proposed by
M. Necker, one of them took it into his head to move that every member
should give his silver buckles, which was agreed to at once, and the
honorable mover laid his upon the table, after which the business went
on again."

Thus, over-excited, they do not know in the morning what they will do
in the afternoon, and they are at the mercy of every surprise. When they
are seized with these fits of enthusiasm, infatuation sprea