ng of pamphlets. And Abbe Sieyes has come to Paris to ask three
questions, and answer them: _What is the Third Estate? All. What has it
hitherto been in our form of government? Nothing. What does it want? To
become something_.

The grand questions are: Shall the States-General sit and vote in three
separate bodies, or in one body, wherein the _Tiers Etat_ shall have
double representation? The notables are again summoned to decide, but
vanish without decision. With those questions still unsettled, the
election begins. And presently the national deputies are in Paris. Also
there is a sputter; drudgery and rascality rising in Saint-Antoine,
finally repressed by Gardes Suisses and grapeshot.

On Monday, May 4, is the baptism day of democracy, the extreme unction
day of feudalism. Behold the procession of processions advancing towards
Notre--our commons, noblesse, clergy, the king himself. Which of these
six hundred individuals in plain white cravat might one guess would
become their king? He with the thick black locks, shaggy beetle-brows
and rough-hewn face? Gabriel Honore Riqueti de Mirabeau, the
world-compeller, the type Frenchman of this epoch, as Voltaire of the
last. And if Mirabeau is the greatest, who of these six hundred may be
the meanest? Shall we say that anxious, slight, ineffectual-looking man,
under thirty, in spectacles; complexion of an atrabiliar shade of pale
sea-green, whose name is Maximilien Robespierre?

Coming into their hall on the morrow, the commons deputies perceive that
they have it to themselves. The noblesse and the clergy are sitting
separately, which the noblesse maintain to be right; no agreement is
possible. After six weeks of inertia the commons deputies, on their own
strength, are getting under way; declare themselves not _Third Estate_,
but _National Assembly_. On June 20, shut out of their hall "for
repairs," the deputies find refuge in the tennis court! take solemn oath
that they will continue to meet till they have made the constitution.
And to these are joined 149 of the clergy. A royal session is held; the
king propounds thirty-five articles, which if the estates do not confirm
he will himself enforce. The commons remain immovable, joined now by the
rest of the clergy and forty-eight noblesse. So triumphs the Third
Estate.

War-god Broglie is at work, but grapeshot is good on one condition! The
Gardes Francaises, it seems, will not fire; nor they only. Other troops,
then? Rumou