La Fayette was chosen a deputy by the nobility of Auvergne. To say “let States-General be” was easy; to say in what manner they shall be is not so easy. “How to shape the States-General? There is a problem. Each body corporate, each privileged, each organized class, has secret hopes of its own in that matter, and also secret misgivings of its own; for, behold, this monstrous twenty-million class, hitherto the dumb sheep which these others had to agree about the manner of shearing, is now also arising with hopes! It has ceased or is ceasing to be dumb; it speaks through pamphlets, or at least brays and growls behind them, in unison, increasing wonderfully their volume of sound. What is the third estate? What has it hitherto been in our form of government? Nothing. What does it want? To become something.” These are questions and answers which must now be met. The Assembly was opened with great pomp. A solemn procession in which king, nobles, clergy, and the tiers état all repaired in grand state to Notre Dame, paraded through the streets, and formed a splendid spectacle which was greeted by the people with joyous demonstrations and loud acclamations.
At the first meeting of the Assembly, the three orders convened in separate departments. Here arose the first difficulty. The nobles and the clergy were unwilling to meet with the representatives of the common people, and the tiers état were determined to maintain their contested rights. La Fayette advocated the cause of the tiers état in the assembly of the nobles, but the aristocracy would not yield, and at the end of five weeks the States-General as a united body was still inactive. At length the tiers état resolved upon momentous action. They formed themselves into a legislative body, under the name of the National Assembly, and declared their intention to accomplish political reform. The king and nobles received this unexpected news with consternation. La Fayette warmly urged a union between the departments, but the king and aristocracy refused. Louis then determined to awe these rebellious subjects to submission. He ordered the doors of the hall where the tiers état usually met to be closed and guarded. When the members gathered and found their usual place of meeting denied them, they proceeded to another, and thereupon issued their defiant demand,—A Constitution for the French People; and they solemnly declared with oath, in view of the indignity which had been offered to them by the crown, “never to separate, and to assemble whenever circumstances should require, till the constitution of the kingdom should be established and founded on a solid basis.”
At length, on the 23d of June, the king and nobles assembled in the hall formerly occupied by the tiers état, and after some delay the doors were opened to that body, and the king reproached them for taking the title of National Assembly, and bade them renounce it, and also commanded that the Assembly should immediately separate. The king then left the hall, followed by the nobles and part of the clergy. But scarcely had the sound of the footsteps of royalty died away ere a man arose in the Assembly. It was Mirabeau. With eyes flashing like stars from the gloomy shadows of his pock-marked, disfigured countenance, he exclaimed:—
“What means this insulting dictation? this threatening display of arms? this flagrant violation of the national temple? Who is it that dictates to you the way in which you shall be happy? He who acts by your commission. Who is it that gives you imperious laws? He who acts by your commission,—the minister, who by your appointment is vested with the execution of the laws,—of laws which we only have a right to make.
“To us, twenty-five millions of people are looking to guard from further desecration the sacred ark of liberty, to release them from the burdensome yoke which has so long crushed them, and to give them back their own inalienable right to peace, liberty, and happiness. Gentlemen, an attempt is made to destroy the freedom of your deliberations. The iron chain of despotic proscription is laid upon you. A military force surrounds your Assembly. Where are the enemies of France? Is Catiline at our gates? Gentlemen! I demand that, clothing yourself in your dignity and your legislative authority, you remain firm in the sacredness of your oath, which does not permit us to separate till we have framed a constitution—till we have given a Magna Charta to France.”
Then as the grand master of ceremonies again reminded the Assembly of the commands of the king, Mirabeau exclaimed, “Go and tell your master that we are here by the order of the people, and that we shall depart only at the point of the bayonet.”
“GO AND TELL YOUR MASTER THAT WE ARE HERE BY THE ORDER OF THE PEOPLE.”
La Fayette, with the forty-seven who had stood by his side in declaring the expediency of uniting with the commons, now left the nobility, and took his seat in the National Assembly. The king and aristocracy, finding at length that their resistance was useless, submitted to the popular demand, and on the 27th of June the three orders met together and commenced their united deliberations.
La Fayette was closely observed by all parties. He spoke often in the Assembly, and always on the side of freedom. On the 11th of July he brought forward his famous Declaration of Rights; which after a long and stormy debate, during which it was warmly supported by the republicans, and denounced by the adherents of despotism, was adopted; and the name of La Fayette, “THE PEOPLE’S FRIEND!” was on every lip and enshrined in every heart throughout the kingdom.