long been exhausted
by his extravagance. D'Espresmenil had strongly advocated the doctrine
that the meeting of the three orders in separate chambers was a
fundamental principle of the monarchy; and Mirabeau, in opposition to him,
moved an address to the king, which represented the Third Estate as
desirous to ally itself with the throne, so as to enable it to resist the
pretensions of the clergy and the nobles; and, as this speech of his
produced no overture from the minister, in the middle of June he made a
direct offer to Necker to support the Government, if Necker had any plan
at all which was in the least reasonable;[9] and he gave proof of his
sincerity by vigorously opposing some proposals of the extreme reformers.
But, with incredible folly, Necker rejected his support, treating his
arguments to his face as insignificant, and affirming that their views
were irreconcilable, since Mirabeau wished to govern by policy, while he
himself preferred morality.

He at once resolved to revenge himself on the minister who had thus
slighted him,[10] and he was not long in finding an opportunity. On the
23d of June, after the States had assumed their new form, and Louis at a
royal sitting had announced the reforms he had resolved to grant, and
which were so complete that the most extreme reformers admitted that they
could have wished for nothing more, except that they should themselves
have taken them, and that the king should not have given them, Mirabeau
took the lead in throwing down a defiance to his sovereign; refusing to
consent to the adjournment of the Assembly, as was natural on the
withdrawal of the king, and declaring that they, the members of the
Commons, would not quit the hall unless they were expelled by bayonets.

But, violently as Versailles and Paris were agitated throughout May and
June, Marie Antoinette took no part in the discussion which these
questions excited. She had a still graver trouble at home. Her eldest son,
the dauphin, whose birth had been greeted so enthusiastically by all
classes, had, as we have seen, long been sickly. Since the beginning of
the year his health had been growing worse, and on the 4th of June he
died; and, though his bereaved mother bore up bravely under his loss, she
felt it deeply, and for a time was almost incapacitated from turning her
attention to any other subject.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Troops are brought up from the Frontier.--The Assembly petitions the King
to with