of the Court were
already looked upon as altogether hostile and alien to the patriotic
side; secondly, that the Assembly, from the beginning, felt in
themselves the strong and undoubted conviction of their being called to
the task of removing the abuses of power and regenerating the hopes of a
mighty people. The die was cast, the lists were marked out in the
opinions and sentiments of the two parties toward each other. The grand
master of the ceremonies of this occasion, seeing that the Assembly did
not break up, reminded them of the command of the King. "Go tell your
master," cried Mirabeau, "that we are here by order of the people; and
that we shall not retire but at the point of the bayonet." This was at
once an invitation to violence and a defiance of authority. Sieyes
added, with his customary coolness: "You are to-day in the same
situation that you were yesterday; let us deliberate!" The Assembly
immediately confirmed its former resolutions, and, at the instance of
Mirabeau, decreed the inviolability of its members.

Such was at one time the brilliant, daring, and forward zeal of a man
who not long after sold himself to the Court: so little has flashy
eloquence or bold pretension to do with steadiness of principle! Indeed,
the Revolution, of which he was one of the most prominent leaders,
presented too many characters of this kind--dazzling, ardent, wavering,
corrupt--a succession of momentary fires, made of light and worthless
materials, soon kindled and soon exhausted, and requiring some new fuel
to repair them: nothing deep, internal, relying on its own
resources--"outliving fortunes outward with a mind that doth renew
swifter than blood decays"--but a flame rash and violent, fanned by
circumstances, kept alive by vanity, smothered by sordid interest, and
wandering from object to object in search of the most contemptible and
contradictory excitement! We may also remark, in the debates and
proceedings of this early period, the fevered and anxious state of the
public mind; while galling and intolerable abuses, called in question
for the first time and defended with blind confidence, were exposed in
the most naked and flagrant point of view; and the drapery of forms and
circumstances was torn from rank and power with sarcastic petulance or a
ruthless logic.

The resistance of the Assembly alarmed the Court, who did not, however,
as yet dare to proceed against it. Necker, who had disapproved of the
royal interfer