stility which prevailed in the assembly towards the courts.
"Only the force of bayonets," said Mirabeau, "can drive the deputies of
the people from their seats." The assembly, therefore, still remained,
and on the following day was reinforced by some members of the nobility,
with the Duke of Orleans at their head. The king was perplexed; but
hoping still to counteract their measures, he ordered the majority
of the nobles, and the minority of the clergy to unite with the third
estate, whereby the national assembly was finally completed. But there
was still no reconciliation. Thirty thousand armed men, foreigners, were
assembled in the vicinity of the capital, under the command of Marshal
de Broglio, and these hostile preparations excited the people to revolt,
engaged the representatives of the nation in a struggle between opposite
duties, and alarmed the friends of liberty. All Paris--all France,
became agitated and excited to action. Patriotic societies were formed
as guides of the wild-fermenting masses of the people, and means of
resistance were debated upon and adopted. In the midst of the commotion,
a report was spread that Necker and Montmarin, the two popular
ministers, had been dismissed and banished the kingdom, and that they
and their colleagues were succeeded in office by men who were decided
advocates of the ancient _regime_. Now commenced insurrection. On the
14th of July the people rose _en masse_, and being joined by the
French guards, they stormed and captured the Bastille. Alarmed at these
proceedings the king discharged his new ministers; recalled Necker; sent
away the foreign troops, and threw himself into the arms of the nation.
Joy and acclamation succeeded, and a festival of reconciliation was
celebrated at Paris, between king and people, which seemed to presage
the return of harmony. But there were two parties in the state who were
far from being satisfied with the reconciliation thus brought about--the
aristocrats and the democrats. The former saw their downfall therein,
and rather than submit to such a state of things, great numbers went
into voluntary exile. By their departure, the king was left without
defence and counsel in the midst of the roaring storm--was left to the
mercy of men who were in heart his most deadly enemies. He assumed the
tri-coloured cockade, and sanctioned the decrees of the assembly,
which aimed at the overthrow of the old, and the establishment of a new
government; but sti