The assembly had acquired the entire power; the corporations depended on it; the national guards obeyed it. It was divided into committees to facilitate its operations, and execute them. The royal power, though existing of right, was in a measure suspended, since it was not obeyed, and the assembly had to supply its action by its own. Thus, independently of committees entrusted with the preparation of its measures, it had appointed others to exercise a useful superintendence without. A committee of supply occupied itself with provisions, an important object in a year of scarcity; a committee of inquiry corresponded with the corporations and provinces; a committee of researches received informations against the conspirators of the 14th of July. But finance and the constitution, which the past crises had adjourned, were the special subjects of attention.
After having momentarily provided for the necessities of the treasury, the assembly, although now become sovereign, consulted, by examining the cahiers, the wishes of its constituents. It then proceeded to form its institutions with a method, a liberal and extensive spirit of discussion, which was to procure for France a constitution conformable with justice and suited to its necessities. The United States of America, at the time of its independence, had set forth in a declaration the rights of man, and those of the citizen. This will ever be the first step. A people rising from slavery feels the necessity of proclaiming its rights, even before it forms its government. Those Frenchmen who had assisted at the American revolution, and who co-operated in ours, proposed a similar declaration as a preamble to our laws. This was agreeable to an assembly of legislators and philosophers, restricted by no limits, since no institutions existed, and directed by primitive and fundamental ideas of society, since it was the pupil of the eighteenth century. Though this declaration only contained general principles, and confined itself to setting forth in maxims what the constitution was to put into laws, it was calculated to elevate the mind, and impart to the citizens a consciousness of their dignity and importance. At Lafayette's suggestion, the assembly had before commenced this discussion; but the events at Paris, and the decrees of the 4th of August, had interrupted its labours; they were now resumed, and concluded, by determining the principles which were to form the table of the new law, and which were the assumption of right in the name of humanity.
These generalities being adopted, the assembly turned its attention to the organization of the legislative power. This was one of its most important objects; it was to fix the nature of its functions, and establish its relations with the king. In this discussion the assembly had only to decide the future condition of the legislative power. Invested as it was with constituent authority, it was raised above its own decisions, and no intermediate power could suspend or prevent its mission. But what should be the form of the deliberative body in future sessions? Should it remain indivisible, or be divided into two chambers? If the latter form should be adopted, what should be the nature of the second chamber? Should it be made an aristocratic assembly, or a moderative senate? And, whatever the deliberative body might be, was it to be permanent or periodical, and should the king share the legislative power with it? Such were the difficulties that agitated the assembly and Paris during the month of September.
If we consider the position of the assembly and its ideas of sovereignty, we shall easily understand the manner in which these questions were decided. It regarded the king merely as the hereditary agent of the nation, having neither the right to assemble its representatives nor that of directing or suspending them. Accordingly, it refused to grant him the initiative in making laws and dissolving the assembly. It considered that the legislative body ought not to be dependent on the king. It moreover feared that by granting the government too strong an influence over the assembly, or by not keeping the latter always together, the prince might profit by the intervals in which he would be left alone, to encroach on the other powers, and perhaps even to destroy the new system. Therefore to an authority in constant activity, they wished to oppose an always existing assembly, and the permanence of the assembly was accordingly declared. The debate respecting its indivisibility, or its division, was very animated. Necker, Mounier, and Lally-Tollendal desired, in addition to a representative chamber, a senate, to be composed of members to be appointed by the king on the nomination of the people. They considered this as the only means of moderating the power, and even of preventing the tyranny of a single assembly. They had as partisans such members as participated in their ideas, or who hoped to form part of the upper chamber. The majority of the nobility did not wish for a house of peers, but for an aristocratic assembly, whose members it should elect. They could not agree; Mounier's party refusing to fall in with a project calculated to revive the orders, and the aristocracy refusing to accept a senate, which would confirm the ruin of the nobility. The greater portion of the deputies of the clergy and of the commons were in favour of the unity of the assembly. The popular party considered it illegal to appoint legislators for life; it thought that the upper chamber would become the instrument of the court and aristocracy, and would then be dangerous, or become useless by uniting with the commons. Thus the nobility, from dissatisfaction, and the national party, from a spirit of absolute justice, alike rejected the upper chamber.
This determination of the assembly has been the object of many reproaches. The partisans of the peerage have attributed all the evils of the revolution to the absence of that order; as if it had been possible for anybody whatsoever to arrest its progress. It was not the constitution which gave it the character it has had, but events arising from party struggles. What would the upper chamber have done between the court and the nation? If in favour of the first, it would have been unable to guide or save it; if in favour of the second, it would not have strengthened it; in either case, its suppression would have infallibly ensued. In such times, progress is rapid, and all that seeks to check it is superfluous. In England, the house of lords, although docile, was suspended during the crisis. These various systems have each their epoch; revolutions are achieved by one chamber, and end with two.
The royal sanction gave rise to great debates in the assembly, and violent clamours without. The question was as to the part of the king in the making of laws; the deputies were nearly all agreed on one point. They were determined, in admitting his right to sanction or refuse laws; but some desired that this right should be unlimited, others that it should be temporary. This, in reality, amounted to the same thing, for it was not possible for the king to prolong his refusal indefinitely, and the veto, though absolute, would only have been suspensive. But this faculty, bestowed on a single man, of checking the will of the people, appeared exorbitant, especially out of the assembly, where it was less understood.
Paris had not yet recovered from the agitation of the 14th of July; the popular government was but beginning, and the city experienced all its liberty and disorder. The assembly of electors, who in difficult circumstances had taken the place of a provisional corporation, had just been replaced. A hundred and eighty members nominated by the districts, constituted themselves legislators and representatives of the city. While they were engaged on a plan of municipal organization, each desired to command; for in France the love of liberty is almost the love of power. The committees acted apart from the mayor; the assembly of representatives arose against the committees, and the districts against the assembly of representatives. Each of the sixty districts attributed to itself the legislative power, and gave the executive power to its committees; they all considered the members of the general assembly as their subordinates, and themselves as invested with the right of annulling their decrees. This idea of the sovereignty of the principal over the delegate made rapid progress. Those who had no share in authority, formed assemblies, and then gave themselves up to discussion; soldiers debated at the Oratoire, journeymen tailors at the Colonnade, hairdressers in the Champs Élysées, servants at the Louvre; but the most animated debates took place in the Palais Royal. There were inquired into the questions that occupied the national assembly, and its discussions criticised. The dearth of provisions also brought crowds together, and these mobs were not the least dangerous.
Such was the state of Paris when the debate concerning the veto was begun. The alarm which this right conferred on the king excited, was extreme. It seemed as though the fate of liberty depended on the decision of this question, and that the veto alone would bring back the ancient system. The multitude, ignorant of the nature and limits of power, wished the assembly, on which it relied, to do all, and the king, whom it mistrusted, to do nothing. Every instrument left at the disposal of the court appeared the means of a counter-revolution. The crowds at the Palais Royal grew turbulent; threatening letters were sent to those members of the assembly, who, like Mounier, had declared in favour of the absolute veto. They spoke of dismissing them as faithless representatives, and of marching upon Versailles. The Palais Royal sent a deputation to the assembly, and required the commune to declare that the deputies were revocable, and to make them at all times dependent on the electors. The commune remained firm, rejected the demands of the Palais Royal, and took measures to prevent the riotous assemblies. The national guard supported it; this body was well disposed; Lafayette had acquired its confidence; it was becoming organised, it wore a uniform, submitted to discipline after the example of the French guard, and learned from its chief the love of order and respect for the law. But the middle class that composed it had not yet taken exclusive possession of the popular government. The multitude which was enrolled on the 14th of July, was not as yet entirely disbanded. This agitation from without rendered the debates upon the veto stormy; in this way a very simple question acquired great importance, and the ministry, perceiving how fatal the influence of an absolute decision might prove, and seeing, also, that the unlimited veto and the suspensive veto were one and the same thing, induced the king to be satisfied with the latter, and give up the former. The assembly declared that the refusal of his sanction could not be prolonged by the prince beyond two sessions; and this decision satisfied every one.
The court took advantage of the agitation in Paris to realise other projects. For some time it had influenced the king's mind. At first, he had refused to sanction the decrees of the 4th of August, although they were constitutive, and consequently he could not avoid promulgating them. After accepting them, on the remonstrances of the assembly, he renewed the same difficulties relative to the declaration of rights. The object of the court was to represent Louis XVI. as oppressed by the assembly, and constrained to submit to measures which he was unwilling to accept; it endured its situation with impatience and strove to regain its former authority. Flight was the only means, and it was requisite to legitimate it; nothing could be done in the presence of the assembly, and in the neighbourhood of Paris. Royal authority had fallen on the 23rd of June, military power on the 14th of July; there was no alternative but civil war. As it was difficult to persuade the king to this course, they waited till the last moment to induce him to flee; his hesitation caused the failure of the plan. It was proposed to retire to Metz, to Bouillé, in the midst of his army; to call around the monarch the nobility, the troops who continued faithful, the parliaments; to declare the assembly and Paris in a state of rebellion; to invite them to obedience or to force them to it; and if the ancient system could not be entirely re-established, at least to confine themselves to the declaration of the 20th of June. On the other hand, if the court had an interest in removing the king from Versailles, that it might effect something, it was the interest of the partisans of the revolution to bring him to Paris; the Orleans faction, if one existed, had an interest in driving the king to flight, by intimidating him, in the hope that the assembly would appoint its leader lieutenant-general of the kingdom; and, lastly, the people, who were in want of bread, wished for the king to reside at Paris, in the hope that his presence would diminish, or put a stop to the dearth of provisions. All these causes existing, an occasion was only wanting to bring about an insurrection; the court furnished this occasion. On the pretext of protecting itself against the movements in Paris, it summoned troops to Versailles, doubled the household guards, and sent for the dragoons and the Flanders regiment. All this preparation of troops gave rise to the liveliest fears; a report spread of an anti-revolutionary measure, and the flight of the king, and the dissolution of the assembly, were announced as at hand. Strange uniforms, and yellow and black cockades, were to be seen at the Luxembourg, the Palais Royal, and at the Champs Élysées; the foes of the revolution displayed a degree of joy they had not manifested for some time. The behaviour of the court confirmed these suspicions, and disclosed the object of all these preparations.
The officers of the Flanders regiment, received with anxiety in the town of Versailles, were fêted at the château, and even admitted to the queen's card tables. Endeavours were made to secure their devotion, and a banquet was given to them by the king's guards. The officers of the dragoons and the chasseurs, who were at Versailles, those of the Swiss guards, of the hundred Swiss, of the prevoté, and the staff of the national guard were invited. The theatre in the château, which was reserved for the most solemn fêtes of the court, and which, since the marriage of the second brother of the king, had only been used for the emperor Joseph II., was selected for the scene of the festival. The king's musicians were ordered to attend this, the first fête which the guards had given. During the banquet, toasts to the king and royal family were drunk with enthusiasm, while the nation was omitted or rejected. At the second course, the grenadiers of Flanders, the two bodies of Swiss, and the dragoons were admitted to witness the spectacle, and share the sentiments which animated the guests. The enthusiasm increased every moment. Suddenly the king was announced; he entered attired in a hunting dress, the queen leaning on his arm, and carrying the dauphin. Shouts of affection and devotion arose on every side. The health of the royal family was drunk, with swords drawn; and when Louis XVI. withdrew, the music played, "O Richard! O mon roi! l'univers t'abandonne." The scene now assumed a very significant character; the march of the Hullans, and the profusion of wine, deprived the guests of all reserve. The charge was sounded; tottering guests climbed the boxes, as if mounting to an assault; while cockades were distributed; the tri-coloured cockade, it is said, was trampled on, and the guests then spread through the galleries of the château, where the ladies of the court loaded them with congratulations, and decorated them with ribbons and cockades.