At length it took place. A numerous guard surrounded the hall of the states-general, the door of which was opened to the deputies, but closed to the public. The king came surrounded with the pomp of power; he was received, contrary to the usual custom, in profound silence. His speech completed the measure of discontent by the tone of authority with which he dictated measures rejected by public opinion and by the assembly. The king complained of a want of union, excited by the court itself; he censured the conduct of the assembly, regarding it only as the order of the third estate; he annulled its decrees, enjoined the continuance of the orders, imposed reforms, and determined their limits; enjoined the states-general to adopt them, and threatened to dissolve them and to provide alone for the welfare of the kingdom, if he met with more opposition on their part. After this scene of authority, so ill-suited to the occasion, and at variance with his heart, Louis XVI. withdrew, having commanded the deputies to disperse. The clergy and nobility obeyed. The deputies of the people, motionless, silent, and indignant, remained seated. They continued in that attitude some time, when Mirabeau suddenly breaking silence, said: "Gentlemen, I admit that what you have just heard might be for the welfare of the country, were it not that the presents of despotism are always dangerous. What is this insulting dictatorship? The pomp of arms, the violation of the national temple, are resorted to—to command you to be happy! Who gives this command? Your mandatary. Who makes these imperious laws for you? Your mandatary; he who should rather receive them from you, gentlemen—from us, who are invested with a political and inviolable priesthood; from us, in a word, to whom alone twenty-five millions of men are looking for certain happiness, because it is to be consented to, and given and received by all. But the liberty of your discussions is enchained; a military force surrounds the assembly! Where are the enemies of the nation? Is Catiline at our gates? I demand, investing yourselves with your dignity, with your legislative power, you inclose yourselves within the religion of your oath. It does not permit you to separate till you have formed a constitution."
The grand master of the ceremonies, finding the assembly did not break up, came and reminded them of the king's order.
"Go and tell your master," cried Mirabeau, "that we are here at the command of the people, and nothing but the bayonet shall drive us hence."
"You are to-day," added Sieyès, calmly, "what you were yesterday. Let us deliberate."
The assembly, full of resolution and dignity, began the debate accordingly. On the motion of Camus, it was determined to persist in the decrees already made; and upon that of Mirabeau the inviolability of the members of the assembly was decreed.
On that day the royal authority was lost. The initiative in law and moral power passed from the monarch to the assembly. Those who, by their counsels, had provoked this resistance, did not dare to punish it. Necker, whose dismissal had been decided on that morning, was, in the evening, entreated by the queen and Louis XVI. to remain in office. This minister had disapproved of the royal sitting, and, by refusing to be present at it, he again won the confidence of the assembly, which he had lost through his hesitation. The season of disgrace was for him the season of popularity. By this refusal he became the ally of the assembly, which determined to support him. Every crisis requires a leader, whose name becomes the standard of his party; while the assembly contended with the court, that leader was Necker.
At the first sitting, that part of the clergy which had united with the assembly in the church of Saint Louis, again sat with it; a few days after, forty-seven members of the nobility, among whom was the duke of Orleans, joined them; and the court was itself compelled to invite the nobility, and a minority of the clergy, to discontinue a dissent that would henceforth be useless. On the 27th of June the deliberation became general. The orders ceased to exist legally, and soon disappeared. The distinct seats they had hitherto occupied in the common hall soon became confounded; the futile pre-eminences of rank vanished before national authority.
The court, after having vainly endeavoured to prevent the formation of the assembly, could now only unite with it, to direct its operations. With prudence and candour it might still have repaired its errors and caused its attacks to be forgotten. At certain moments, the initiative may be taken in making sacrifices; at others, all that can be done is to make a merit of accepting them. At the opening of the states-general, the king might himself have made the constitution, now he was obliged to receive it from the assembly; had he submitted to that position, he would infallibly have improved it. But the advisers of Louis XVI., when they recovered from the first surprise of defeat, resolved to have recourse to the use of the bayonet, after they had failed in that of authority. They led the king to suppose that the contempt of his orders, the safety of his throne, the maintenance of the laws of the kingdom, and even the well-being of his people depended on his reducing the assembly to submission; that the latter, sitting at Versailles, close to Paris, two cities decidedly in its favour, ought to be subdued by force, and removed to some other place or dissolved; that it was urgent that this resolution should be adopted in order to stop the progress of the assembly, and that in order to execute it, it was necessary speedily to call together troops who might intimidate the assembly and maintain order at Paris and Versailles.
While these plots were hatching, the deputies of the nation began their legislative labours, and prepared the anxiously expected constitution, which they considered they ought no longer to delay. Addresses poured in from Paris and the principal towns of the kingdom, congratulating them on their wisdom, and encouraging them to continue their task of regenerating France. The troops, meantime, arrived in great numbers; Versailles assumed the aspect of a camp; the Salle des États was surrounded by guards, and the citizens refused admission. Paris was also encompassed by various bodies of the army, ready to besiege or blockade it, as the occasion might require. These vast military preparations, trains of artillery arriving from the frontiers, and the presence of foreign regiments, whose obedience was unlimited, announced sinister projects. The populace were restless and agitated; and the assembly desired to enlighten the throne with respect to its projects, and solicit the removal of the troops. At Mirabeau's suggestion, it presented on the 9th of July a firm but respectful address to the king, which proved useless. Louis XVI. declared that he alone had to judge the necessity of assembling or dismissing troops, and assured them, that those assembled formed only a precautionary army to prevent disturbances and protect the assembly. He moreover offered the assembly to remove it to Noyon or Soissons, that is to say, to place it between two armies and deprive it of the support of the people.
Paris was in the greatest excitement; this vast city was unanimous in its devotion to the assembly. The perils that threatened the representatives of the nation, and itself, and the scarcity of food disposed it to insurrection. Capitalists, from interest and the fear of bankruptcy; men of enlightenment and all the middle classes, from patriotism; the people, impelled by want, ascribing their sufferings to the privileged classes and the court, desirous of agitation and change, all had warmly espoused the cause of the revolution. It is difficult to conceive the movement which disturbed the capital of France. It was arising from the repose and silence of servitude; it was, as it were, astonished at the novelty of its situation, and intoxicated with liberty and enthusiasm. The press excited the public mind, the newspapers published the debates of the assembly, and enabled the public to be present, as it were, at its deliberations, and the questions mooted in its bosom were discussed in the open air, in the public squares. It was at the Palais Royal, more especially, that the assembly of the capital was held. The garden was always filled by a crowd that seemed permanent, though continually renewed. A table answered the purpose of the tribune, the first citizen at hand became the orator; there men expatiated on the dangers that threatened the country, and excited each other to resistance. Already, on a motion made at the Palais Royal, the prisons of the Abbaye had been broken open, and some grenadiers of the French guards, who had been imprisoned for refusing to fire on the people, released in triumph. This outbreak was attended by no consequences; a deputation had already solicited, in behalf of the delivered prisoners, the interest of the assembly, who had recommended them to the clemency of the king. They had returned to prison, and had received pardon. But this regiment, one of the most complete and bravest, had become favourable to the popular cause.