His firm-set lips curled with a smile, and with a bow he responded to these enthusiastic greetings.
Presently a running fire of applause arose as a slender pale-faced man with delicate features and an expression of ingenuous good faith appeared. This was Mounier of Grenoble. There passed a man with small face, retreating forehead and sharp eyes, a man with sallow complexion and thin lips, and vivacity and energy depicted in every lineament. No one noticed him on that day, he was an obscure deputy whom none knew—Maximilian Robespierre.
Paris was unrepresented, the elections there had been delayed.
After the Third Estate, separated from it by trumpeters and drummers, walked the nobility. The moment that they appeared, the cheering, which had been continuous on the passage of the Commons, ceased abruptly. The contrast they presented to the Tiers État was significant. Their dress was black, the vest of cloth of gold, and the coat frogged with gold lace. Their cloaks were of silk, their cravats of lace, and their hats of the shape worn in Henry IV's reign, adorned with plumes. Among the nobility, last, and lagging behind, walked the Duke of Orléans, burly, with bad features, wearing large rings in his ears. Instantly a shout arose, 'Vive le Duc d'Orléans!' which ran along the street and roared from the Place d'Armes. The duke laughed good-naturedly, lifted his feathered hat, bowed to the right and then to the left, and laid his hand on his heart.
After the nobles came the curés in their cassocks, short baptismal surplices, and long black cloaks, wearing on their heads the birretta.
A few shouts of greeting rose, not many, but some.
'Oh, Madeleine!' exclaimed Madame Deschwanden, 'who can that priest be? Look, do look at him!' She pointed to a slender abbé with a face of great beauty and refinement. The smooth broad brow was massive, the eyes large and soft, like those of an ox; the straight nose rather long, and the lips and chin indicative of extreme sensibility.
Some one in the crowd shouted, 'Long live the Abbé Grégoire, the friend of the Jew!' Madame Deschwanden looked round and saw an old man with the features of an Israelite raising his hat above his white head and waving his withered hand towards the priest who had attracted her attention. Percenez, who was close to her, said, 'That curé has in his face the making of a great saint and a great patriot. Long live the Abbé Grégoire!' Then suddenly he exclaimed, 'Ah! there is a friend of the people walking along a little way behind him. Vive le Curé Lindet!'
There were two hundred and fifty-nine curés, delegates to the Assembly. They were followed by the bishops, thirty-eight bishops and eleven archbishops, delegates like the curés and elected by the clergy, but separated from their inferiors by a choir in scarlet and lace, bearing silver cross and tall lighted candles, chanting the 'Exsurgat Deus,' which had been chosen by the master of the ceremonies as an oblique hit at the refractory clergy. The bishops wore violet cassocks, lace rochets, and violet-hooded capes. Their gold crosses glittered on their breasts. As they walked proudly along, not a voice was raised in acclamation. Immediately after the bishops marched the Swiss guard with their band, and then the King in his superb royal robes of state, surrounded by his brothers the Count of Provence and the Count of Artois, and the ministers. As he left the church, the cannons on the Place d'Armes were discharged. This was the signal for universal applause. It was heard running from street to street, rising in a billow of sound from the market-place, rattling down the street to the great amphitheatre before the Palace, where it rolled from side to side, and was passed on down the Rue de Satory, whence it was wafted faintly, and where it expired.