d'Artois brother of the king, the prince of Conde, etc., were among the first. After the 6th October, appearances were still more gloomy, and the emigrating fever became so general, that the roads leading to the Rhine were crowded with elegant equipages of the nobility. They did not sell their estates even before going, but abandoned them under the vain hope that they would soon regain them, sword in hand. The two principal points of re-union for the emigrating nobles, were Coblentz on the Rhine, and Turin in Italy. By thus withdrawing from France, the nobles left the opposing party in complete possession of the power. Had they remained, it is true, they would have been in danger of their lives-but with every excess of the revolutionary ardour the re-action would have been proportionably great, and the weight of the nobles on all such occasions would have been of the utmost importance to the moderate party, if they could only have consented to act in good faith. There are in politics as in morals, certain inflexible duties, and the first of all is, never to abandon our country in a crisis, and scarcely under any conceivable circumstances should we call in a foreign foe to settle intestine divisions. By leaving the kingdom and taking up arms against France, the nobles stimulated the revolutionary ardor, afforded a justificative cause for the confiscation of their estates, and thus furnished the basis on which the Jacobinical government afterwards were enabled to issue that flood of assignats, with which more than one million of men were kept under arms, and France became an over-match for the rest of Europe combined. As for the aid which the nobles furnished to the coalition against France, it was contemptible through the whole war, and their morals, too, were as dissolute in exile as their military efforts were inefficient. The example of emigration, first set by the nobles, did not stop with their order; but as soon as a political party was conquered, the leading men immediately took to flight like the nobles. Thus, as the revolution advanced, the heroes of today became the emigrants of to-morrow. And at Coblentz, which has been called an extra-national Versailles, the nobles endeavored most ridiculously to keep up all the distinctions which had formerly been observed at Versailles, and pertinaciously to frown down all the unfortunate exiles who had favored at all the progress of the revolution.

9. Dissolution of the National Assembly.-The nation

al assembly dissolved itself on 30th September, '91, after having passed the bill of rights, the constitution, and several hundred statutes, by which the orders of nobility were abolished, all titles suppressed, the church stripped of its immense possessions, most of the feudal abuses eradicated, and the power of the king circumscribed within the narrowest bounds.

10. General remarks on the progress of the Revolution from the meeting to the dissolution of the States General.-Fusilade of the Champs de Mars.-Adoption of the Constitution.-In order to form a correct notion of the character of the national assembly, we must understand a striking difference between the French revolution and those which occur in such countries as ours, or even in Great Britain, where the people are in possession of great political power and activity. In France there had been an absolute monarchy; the people entirely deprived of political power, had no political action. They slumbered in their chains. The more enlightened and wealthier classes were the first to awake and assert their rights. The awakening was progressive; ambition too was progressive, and kept spreading to the lower classes till the whole mass was in motion. Very soon satisfied with their progress, the higher classes wished to stop the revolution, but they could no longer do so,-they were pushed onwards by the classes behind them. Those who stopped, even if in the very last rank but one, when they opposed the last, were to it an aristocracy, and were stigmatized with the name. The mere tradesman was called aristocrat by the artizan and hated as such. (Th. 1. 196.) The national assembly, in spite of all the denunciations of Burke, and the assertions of his more shallow disciples, represented the enlightened classes which first awoke in France and cried out against power, and the extent to which the assembly pushed reform, marked the extreme limits to which those classes were willing to go. Let us illustrate by the career of parties and their leaders in the national assembly. During the first period of its session, Necker, the minister, was perhaps the most popular man in France, as evidenced by the scenes of 14th July; but all the reform he wanted was a financial one, with a constitution like that of England. In a very short time the action of the assembly passed beyond the point of Necker's wishes, and his popularity gradually died away. His great organ, Lally Tollendal, was among the first of the members

to set the example of secession from the assembly,-Lafayette and his party were more thorough than Necker,-they were for the bill of rights and a constitution with a bicameral legislature, similar to that of the congress of the United States. In a short time, however, the action of the assembly passed the point of Lafayette's wishes, particularly in regard to the bicameral feature in his plan of government.

Let us now look to the individual, who, beyond all question, was the most perfect type of the assembly. We find in the commencement, Mirabeau exerting all his powers to stimulate the national assembly to accomplish its destinies, battling with all his might against the moderates as long as the revolution seemed lagging back, but in his latter days we as often find him fighting against as for reform. The revolution then had evidently advanced up to the limits. which he prescribed, and was threatening to pass them. Thus he was against taking away the veto power of the king, against the law against the emigrants, in favor of energetic police and the establishment of better order in the capital, etc., etc. It has been said that he was bought up by the court, and that henceforward, if he had lived, his services would have been devoted to the royal cause-that he had made his bargain with the king there is little cause to doubt and that he would consent to receive both money and court favor, we may easily believe, from the general looseness of his moral character. But still, this bargain with royalty laid little or no restraint upon his wishes--it was rather the effect of his conservatism, than his conservatism the effect of the bargain. Mirabeau, with all his violence of character, with all his hatred of nobility and of royalty, with all his ardent desire to evoke the mighty power of the French people, did not nevertheless wish to see the revolution advance to the pitch that would put the power into the hands of the bottom stratum of society. He was a man of birth and splendid intellect; he did not, therefore, wish to reform on the Jack Cade principle of bringing all to an exact level. He had contracted hatred for the nobility, who had maltreated him and driven him from their ranks; still he had no idea of taking refuge in the bosom of the lowest class, with which he had no sympathy. He was vain of his birth in spite of his hatred of the nobility, and could not help showing it even in the days of his most revolutionary ardor, e. g., could never speak of the day of St. Bartholomew with

out saying, "Admiral de Coligny, who, by the way, was a relation of my family." (D. S. 1. 152.) The death of Mirabeau has been considered a great calamity to France. It is supposed, had he lived, his extraordinary powers might have been sufficient to have held back the revolution, and to have established the constitution on a moderate and permanent basis. If any man could have achieved this great function, it would have been Mirabeau. But certainly he could not have accomplished it if the legislative bodies had continued to hold their sessions in Paris, and the war with Europe had broken out. At the period of his death, the people of France, and of Paris particularly, were ahead of the national assembly in revolutionary ardor, and soon the assembly and Mirabeau, its great representative, would have become unpopular.

The action of the national assembly in the latter period of its session was decidedly conservative after the king was brought back from Varennes. Both the clubs of the Jacobins and Cordeliers were for dethroning him at once. Numberless addresses were written to this effect, among which was one by Thos. Paine, distinguished in the American revolution. He alledged France had been tranquil during the king's absence, and consequently did not require a king to govern it-that his flight was an implied abdication-that Louis ought to be dethroned-that all history was full of the crimes of kings, etc. etc. (T. 1. 188.) On 16th July the subject was brought up in national assembly, and after a warm debate, Robespierre, Buxot and Petion against, and Duport, Barnave and Salles in favor of, the king, it was decided that the journey to Varennes was not culpable, that the king was inviolable and should not be dethroned.*

Meanwhile the Jacobin club had framed a petition for deposing the king as a perfidious traitor to his oaths. This petition was carried on the day after to the Champs de Mars, where every friend might sign it on his country's altar. There was a tremendous concourse in the Champs de Mars, Girondists and Jacobins were both there. As the decree in favor of the king, however, had already passed the assembly, Bailly and Lafayette determined to disperse the assemblage in the Champs de Mars as riotous. Lafayette at first ordered the guard to fire in the air, but the mob not dispersing, he sent a volley amongst them, which killed many and

* When these resolutions passed, Robespierre rose and protested against them in the name of humanity.

soon dispersed the rest. This bold act of Bailly and Lafayette, although denounced by the Jacobins, was fully sustained in the national assembly, and in spite of their increasing unpopularity, the factions were ended by their energy, and Robespierre, particularly, was so much alarmed, that he hid himself for some days. The constitution was then adopted, and but for the royalists, who threw every thing into confusion by their ridiculous protests and uncompromising course, it would have been made much more favorable to royalty than it was, for several important modifications had been agreed upon among the leaders and would certainly have passed, but for the absurd conduct of the coté droit. (T. 1. 191.) Thus, in spite of the many denunciations which have been pronounced against the national assembly, when all its acts are fairly reviewed, we are constrained, taking its whole course together, to pronounce it a fair representative of that middle class in France, possessing wealth, intelligence and prudence, and wishing well to order and the laws. Mirabeau, whilst he lived, was the organ of this body, and after his death, perhaps young Barnave. Lafayette was its military chief, and the national guard its military force. Upon the whole then, we may safely pronounce the national assembly, with all its faults, to have deserved well of France. It was neither agrarian nor disorganizing in its wishes. Sir James McIntosh, who wrote his Vindicia Gallica in April, 1791, says, "no commercial house of importance has failed in France since the revolution. Commerce, which shrinks from the breath of civil confusion, has resisted this tempest, and a mighty revolution has been accomplished with less commercial derangement, than could arise from the bankruptcy of a second rate house in London or Amsterdam. The manufacturers of Lyons, the merchants of Bordeaux and Marseilles, are silent amid the lamentations of the Abbe Maury, M. Calonne and Mr. Burke. Happy is that people whose commerce flourishes in ledgers, while it is bewailed in orations; and remains untouched in calculation, whilst it expires in the pictures of eloquence." This simple fact is worth a thousand arguments, and constitutes a high eulogy on the French revolution through its first stage. But, unfortunately, this first period constitutes only the first act in a drama, which we shall find growing more deeply and darkly criminal as it advances.