The King had reached his throne in the great shed of the Menus; the Queen was beside him; the Orders, the Nobles and the Clergy stood ranked on either side; then after some delay the Commons were permitted to enter by a mean side-door and to fill the dark end of the place with their dark numbers.... Where was Necker? The Symbol of the New Age was not there; the fatuous Genevese had stayed at home. He had presided at the Council which had drawn up the declaration the King was about to read. He may have suggested certain softenings of phrase in it; they may have been rejected by the Queen or another—but it was a document the responsibility of which he, in duty, bore; it was for him to resign or to be present: he hedged by his absence and let it be thought that he protested.
With a rumble and a shuffling the twelve hundred of them sat down. When they were all well sat down, Barentin in a loud voice proclaimed: “Gentlemen, the King gives you leave to be seated!” The King turned to the Queen upon his left and bade her also take her throne. She courtesied with an exaggerated grandeur and chose to stand while the whole long speech was delivered—a royal witness to the Crown of which she was now much more the strength and principle than any other there.
The speech was decisive. It willed this and that in strong imperatives—even the voice of the King, into whose mouth these words were put, was firm: he willed very liberal and modern things—but no divided authority—above all, no divided authority! The new and rival sovereign, the Usurper, must resign. The Commons were but the Commons. Of their recent claim no word, but, upon the contrary, an assertion that the States-General might not, even were they to vote in common, determine their own procedure.
As he read, here and there a man would applaud—even from among the Commons.
“Remember, gentlemen, that none of your plans, none of your schemes can become Law without my express approval. It is I that have, till now, given my subjects all their happiness....” And the speech closed with: “I command you, therefore, gentlemen, to disperse at once. To-morrow you shall come each into the Hall assigned to his order.”
When he had read these words the King sat down: the speech was ended. There was but a moment between his ending and his rising again to go. The Queen, very dignified, rose with him. Together, and followed by their train, they left the hall. It was just noon.
The Nobles rose in their turn and left the building: the Bishops preceded them, but of the lower clergy many—half perhaps—lingered. The body of the Commons refused to move.
They sat massed, in silence, at the far end of the great gaudy shed. Over against them, at the further end, the workmen had begun to take down the scenery of that royal play; the curtains were being lowered, the carpets rolled up, and there was hammering again. Across the empty benches of the Nobles and the Hierarchy, in the empty middle of the hall, every exclamation, however subdued, of the bewildered but determined Commons echoed: but the background of that interval was astonishment and silence.
This curious and dire silence, a silence of revolt, lasted perhaps half-an-hour, when there entered into it the Master of the Ceremonies, young Dreux Brézé.
He was little more than a boy, just married, of a refined and rather whitened sort, tall, covered with cloth of gold. He was not ashamed to stud his hands with diamonds, like an Oriental or a woman; he shone with light against the dark mass of the Commons, and he alone wore a sword. He bore no signed or sacred letter, and his mere office was not awful.[[10]] He advanced, and in that slightly irritable but well-bred drawl of his he muttered something as though ashamed. They cried, “Speak up!” He spoke louder. “They had heard the King’s orders....” He repeated the phrase. Various cries and exclamations arose. Then Mirabeau, standing forward, said—What did he say? It is uncertain, and will always be debated, but it was something like this: “We are here by the will of the people, and only death can dismiss us.” Dreux Brézé walked out with due ceremony, backwards.