'cannot be restrained from applauding.' The two Privileged Orders, the Noblesse all verified and constituted, may look on with what face they will; not without a secret tremor of heart. The Clergy, always acting the part of conciliators, make a clutch at the Galleries, and the popularity there; and miss it. Deputation of them arrives, with dolorous message about the 'dearth of grains,' and the necessity there is of casting aside vain formalities, and deliberating on this. An insidious proposal; which, however, the Commons (moved thereto by seagreen Robespierre) dexterously accept as a sort of hint, or even pledge, that the Clergy will forthwith come over to them, constitute the States-General, and so cheapen grains!
(Bailly, Memoires, i. 114.)--Finally, on the 27th day of May, Mirabeau, judging the time now nearly come, proposes that 'the inertia cease;' that, leaving the Noblesse to their own stiff ways, the Clergy be summoned, 'in the name of the God of Peace,' to join the Commons, and begin. (Histoire Parlementaire, i. 413.) To which summons if they turn a deaf ear,--we shall see! Are not one Hundred and Forty-nine of them ready to desert?
O Triumvirate of Princes, new Garde-des-Sceaux Barentin, thou Home-Secretary Breteuil, Duchess Polignac, and Queen eager to listen,--what is now to be done? This Third Estate will get in motion, with the force of all France in it; Clergy-machinery with Noblesse-machinery, which were to serve as beautiful counter-balances and drags, will be shamefully dragged after it,--and take fire along with it. What is to be done? The Oeil-de-Boeuf waxes more confused than ever. Whisper and counter-whisper; a very tempest of whispers! Leading men from all the Three Orders are nightly spirited thither; conjurors many of them; but can they conjure this?
Necker himself were now welcome, could he interfere to purpose.
Let Necker interfere, then; and in the King's name! Happily that incendiary 'God-of-Peace' message is not yet answered. The Three Orders shall again have conferences; under this Patriot Minister of theirs, somewhat may be healed, clouted up;--we meanwhile getting forward Swiss Regiments, and a 'hundred pieces of field-artillery.' This is what the Oeil-de-Boeuf, for its part, resolves on.
But as for Necker--Alas, poor Necker, thy obstinate Third Estate has one first-last word, verification in common, as the pledge of voting and deliberating in common! Half-way proposals, from such a tried friend, they answer with a stare. The tardy conferences speedily break up; the Third Estate, now ready and resolute, the whole world backing it, returns to its Hall of the Three Orders; and Necker to the Oeil-de-Boeuf, with the character of a disconjured conjuror there--fit only for dismissal.
(Debates, 1st to 17th June 1789 (in Histoire Parlementaire, i. 422-478).)
And so the Commons Deputies are at last on their own strength getting under way? Instead of Chairman, or Dean, they have now got a President:
Astronomer Bailly. Under way, with a vengeance! With endless vociferous and temperate eloquence, borne on Newspaper wings to all lands, they have now, on this 17th day of June, determined that their name is not Third Estate, but--National Assembly! They, then, are the Nation? Triumvirate of Princes, Queen, refractory Noblesse and Clergy, what, then, are you? A most deep question;--scarcely answerable in living political dialects.
All regardless of which, our new National Assembly proceeds to appoint a 'committee of subsistences;' dear to France, though it can find little or no grain. Next, as if our National Assembly stood quite firm on its legs,--to appoint 'four other standing committees;' then to settle the security of the National Debt; then that of the Annual Taxation: all within eight-and-forty hours. At such rate of velocity it is going: the conjurors of the Oeil-de-Boeuf may well ask themselves, Whither?
