e perceptions or for eloquence,
Mirabeau himself agreeing with them in all their leading principles,
though he never formally enrolled himself in the ranks of any party.

The majority of the Constitutionalists were as loyal to the king's person
and dignity as the extreme Royalists; their most eloquent speaker, a young
lawyer named Barnave, at the first opening of the States had even sought
to open a direct communication with the court, begging Madame de
Lamballe[1] to assure the queen of the wish of himself and all his friends
to maintain the king in the full enjoyment and exercise of what he called
a Constitutional authority, borrowing the idea and expression from the
English Government. But though Marie Antoinette had no objection to the
king of his own accord renouncing portions of the power which had been
claimed and exerted by his predecessors, she would not hear of the States
taking upon themselves to impose such sacrifices on him, or to curtail his
authority by any exercise of their own; and she rejected with something
like disdain the support of those whose alliance was only to be purchased
on such conditions. Barnave, like Mirabeau, felt insulted; determined to
revenge himself, and for a while united himself to the fiercest of the
Republicans; while the Right, with incredible folly, often played into his
hand, joining the Left, of which many members avowedly aimed at the
abolition of royalty, and with none of whom they had one opinion or
sentiment in common to defeat the Constitutionalists, with whom they
practically had but very slight differences. And thus, as with a base
pusillanimity, many, both of the Right and of the Plain, fled from the
country after the tumults of October, the mastery of the Assembly
gradually fell into the hands of that party which contained by far fewer
men of ability or honesty than either of the others, but which surpassed
them both in distinctness of object, and in unscrupulous resolution to
carry out its views.

But the events of July, the mutiny of the troops, the successful
insurrection of the mob, the destruction of the Bastile, and the visit of
Louis to Paris, had been a series of damaging blows to the Government; and
as each successive exploit gave encouragement to the movement party,
events proceeded with extreme rapidity. Necker, who returned to Versailles
on the 27th of July, showed more clearly than ever his unfitness for the
chief post in the administration at such a cri