ressure on the Assembly.--Defection of the soldiery.

This is the dictatorship of a mob, and its proceedings, conforming to
its nature, consist in acts of violence, wherever it finds resistance,
it strikes.--The people of Versailles, in the streets and at the
doors of the Assembly, daily "come and insult those whom they call
aristocrats."[1224] On Monday, June 22nd, "d'Espremenil barely escapes
being knocked down; the Abbe Maury. . . owes his escape to the strength
of a cure, who takes him up in his arms and tosses him into the carriage
of the Archbishop of Arles." On the 23rd, "the Archbishop of Paris and
the Keeper of the Seals are hooted, railed at, scoffed at, and derided,
until they almost sink with shame and rage." So formidable is the
tempest of rage with which they are greeted, that Passeret, the King's
secretary, who accompanies the minister, dies of the excitement that
very day. On the 24th, the Bishop of Beauvais is almost knocked down by
a stone striking him on the head. On the 25th, the Archbishop of Paris
is saved only by the speed of his horses, the multitude pursuing him and
pelting him with stones. His mansion is besieged, the windows are all
shattered, and, notwithstanding the intervention of the French Guards,
the peril is so great that he is obliged to promise that he will join
the deputies of the Third-Estate. This is the way in which the rude hand
of the people effects a reunion of the Orders. It bears as heavily on
its own representatives as on its adversaries. "Although our hall was
closed to the public," says Bailly, "there were always more than six
hundred spectators."[1225] These were not respectful and silent, but
active and noisy, mingling with the deputies, raising their hands to
vote in all cases, taking part in the deliberations, by their applause
and hisses: a collateral Assembly which often imposes its own will on
the other. They take note of and put down the names of their opponents,
transmit them to the chair-bearers in attendance at the entrance of
the hall, and from them to the mob waiting for the departure of the
deputies, these names are from now considered as the names of public
enemies.[1226] Lists are made out and printed, and, at the Palais-Royal
in the evening, they become the lists of the proscribed.--It is under
this brutal pressure that many decrees are passed, and, amongst them,
that by which the commons declare themselves the National Assembly
and assume supreme power. Th