out their concurrence, and resolutely
adopted the title of National Assembly,--they provided against presumed
projects of dissolution, by stamping as illegal all levies of
contribution which were not granted by the Assembly.

Again, on the 20th of June, when the Members of the National Assembly,
affronted at the Hall having been closed and their meetings suspended
without an official notification, with only the simple form of placards
and public criers, as if a mere theatre was in question, they assembled
at a tennis-court, and "took an oath never to separate, but to assemble
wherever circumstances might render it requisite, until the Constitution
of the Kingdom should be established and confirmed on solid
foundations."

Once more, Bailly was still at the head of his colleagues on the 23d of
June, when, by an inexcusable inconsistency, and which perhaps was not
without some influence on the events of that day, the Deputies of the
Third Estate were detained a long time at the servants' door of the Hall
of Meeting, and in the rain; while the deputies of the other two orders,
to whom a more convenient and more suitable entrance had been assigned,
were already in their places.

The account that Bailly gave of the celebrated royal meeting on the 23d
of June, does not exactly agree with that of most historians.

The king finished his speech with the following imprudent words: "I
order you, Gentlemen, to separate immediately."

The whole of the nobility and a portion of the clergy retired; while the
Deputies of the Communes remained quietly in their places. The Grand
Master of the Ceremonies having remarked it, approaching Bailly said to
him, "You heard the king's order, Sir?" The illustrious President
answered, "I cannot adjourn the Assembly until it has deliberated on
it." "Is that indeed your answer, and am I to communicate it to the
king?" "Yes, Sir," replied Bailly, and immediately addressing the
Deputies who surrounded him, he said, "It appears to me that the
assembled nation cannot receive an order."

It was after this debate, at once both firm and moderate, that Mirabeau
addressed from his place the well-known apostrophe to M. de Breze. The
President disapproved both of the basis and the form of it; he felt that
there was no sufficient motive; for, said he, the Grand Master of the
Ceremonies made use of no menace; he had not in any way insinuated that
there was an intention to resort to force; he had not, above a