At three o'clock in the afternoon of the 30th of September, the king, surrounded by his ministers, entered the Assembly. He was no longer the hostage of the nation, but its recognized sovereign; the guard which the law assigned him being now placed under his own command. Upon his entrance the applause was so enthusiastic and prolonged that for some time he was unable to commence speaking. He then said,
"Gentlemen, after the completion of the Constitution, you have resolved on to-day for the termination of your labors. I will exercise all the power confided to me in assuring to the Constitution the respect and obedience which is its due. For you, gentlemen, who, during a long and painful career, have evinced an indefatigable zeal in your labors, there remains a last duty to fulfill, when you are scattered over the face of the empire. It is to enlighten your fellow-citizens as to the spirit of the laws you have made; to purify and unite opinions by the example you will give to the love of order and submission to the laws. Be, on your return to your homes, the interpreters of my sentiments to your fellow-citizens. Tell them that the king will always be their first and most faithful friend; that he desires to be loved by them, and can only be happy with them and by them."
The king left the hall amid the loudest acclamations. They were the last with which he was greeted. Thouret, the president of the Assembly, as soon as the king had retired, said in a loud voice, "The Constituent Assembly pronounces its mission accomplished, and that its sittings now terminate." Thus closed the truly patriotic Assembly. It had accomplished the greatest and the most glorious revolution ever achieved in so short a time, and with so little violence. Repressing alike the despotism of aristocracy and the lawlessness of the mob, it established a constitution containing the essential elements of liberty protected by law. Under this constitution France might have advanced in prosperity. But the aristocrat and the Jacobin combined in its overthrow. They were fatally successful in their efforts.
It is interesting to observe how differently the same events were regarded by different minds. Bertrand de Moleville, a warm partisan of the aristocracy, says,
"Thus terminated this guilty Assembly, whose vanity, ambition, cupidity, ingratitude, ignorance, and audacity have overturned the most ancient and the noblest monarchy of Europe, and rendered France the theatre of every crime, of every calamity, and of the most horrible catastrophe. Can these treacherous representatives ever justify themselves in the eyes of the nation for having so unworthily abused their confidence and their powers?"
On the other hand, the democratic historians, the "Two Friends of Liberty," while regretting that the Constitution was not more thoroughly democratic, say,
"The Constitution of 1791, with all its faults, forever deserves the gratitude of the French people, because it has destroyed, never to return, every trace of feudalism, imposts the most fatal to agriculture, the privileges of particular persons, the usurpations of the priesthood over the civil power, and the proud pretensions of ancient corporations; because it has realized what philosophy for ages has in vain wished, and what monarchs the most absolute have never dared to undertake; and because it has established that uniformity which no one could have ever hoped for in an empire formed by gradual accretions from time to time, and with which, under a good government, there is no prosperity which France may not realize."
But whatever may be the estimate which political partisans may place upon the labors of the Assembly, no intelligent man will now deny that the great majority of that body were true patriots, sincerely desiring the welfare of their country. It will be admitted by all that they abolished judicial torture, placed all men upon the basis of equality in the eye of the law, annulled obnoxious privileges, introduced vast reform into commercial jurisprudence, established liberty of worship and of conscience, suppressed monastic vows, abolished the execrable system of lettres de cachet, rendered personal liberty sacred, introduced equality of taxation, and swept away those provincial jealousies and that interior line of custom-houses which had for ages seriously embarrassed the internal trade of the kingdom. All feudal rights were abrogated, industry encouraged, and the citizens of the kingdom were enrolled into a National Guard, for the preservation of domestic peace and to resist aggression.
This most noble reform combined Europe assailed with all its marshaled bayonets. The crime deluged the Continent in woe. After nearly a quarter of a century of conflagration and carnage, French liberty was trampled into the bloody mire of Waterloo, and the Old Régime was reinstated.