or what its
contrivers called a suspensive veto--a power, that is, of withholding his
assent to any measure till it had been passed by two successive
Assemblies. The discussions on this most momentous point had been very
vehement in the Assembly itself; and, besides the greatness of the
principle involved in the decision, they have a peculiar importance as
showing that Mirabeau had not the absolute power over the minds of the
members which he believed himself to possess; since he contended with all
the energy of his temper, and with irresistible force of argument, against
a vote which, as he declared, could only take the power from the king to
vest it in the Assembly, and yet was wholly unable to carry more than a
small minority with him in his opposition.

And this defeat may have had some share in prompting him to countenance
and aid, if indeed he was not the original contriver of, a plot which was
undoubtedly intended to produce a change in the whole frame-work of the
Government. The harvest had been bad, and at the beginning of September
Paris was suffering under a scarcity almost as severe as had ever been
felt in the depth of winter. The emergency was so great that the king sent
all his plate to the Mint to be melted down, to procure money to purchase
food for the starving citizens; and many patriotic individuals, Necker
himself being among the most munificent, gave their plate and jewels for
the same benevolent object. But relief procured from such sources was
unavoidably of too limited a character to last long. Though Necker
proposed and the Assembly voted taxes of prodigious amount, they could not
at once be made available, and some of the lower classes were said to have
died of actual famine. In their distress the citizens looked to the king,
and attributed their misery in a great degree to his ignorance of their
situation, which was caused by his living at Versailles. They nicknamed
him the "Baker," as if he could supply them with bread, and began to
clamor for him at least to take up an occasional residence among them in
in his capital. From raising a cry, the step was easy to organize a riot
to compel him to do so. And to this object the partisans of the Duke of
Orleans, assisted, if not prompted, by Mirabeau, now began to apply
themselves, hoping that the result would be the deposition of Louis and
the enthronement of the duke, who might be glad to take the great orator
for his prime minister.

So certain