order altogether. But it is evident, that there was so great a difference between the situation of the peerage of Great Britain and that of the noblesse of France, that the same person who is of opinion that the abolition of the privileges of the latter was necessary for the freedom and happiness of France, may also be convinced, that the maintenance of those of the former is a security for the freedom and happiness of Great Britain.

CHAPTER VII.

The Assembly of the States-General-Jealousies-Disputes respecting the Verification of the Powers of the Deputies-The King attempts to conciliate the Three Orders-The Tiers-Etat postpone his Compromise-Artful Proposal of the Clergy— Eluded by the Commons-The Solicitude of the King-The Tiers-Etat proceed to the Verification of the Returns without the other two Orders, and assume the Legislative Government -Dispute concerning the Name the Assembly should assumeObservations and Discourses of Mirabeau.

A

LITTLE before the meeting of the states-general, and during the heat and commotion which elections and party animosity always produce in a populous city, a catastrophe of a melancholy nature took place, the source of which has never been clearly ascertained.

A man of an excellent character, of the name of Reveillon, carried on an immense paper manufactory in the suburb of St. Antoine, by which he employed a great number of the poor in that quarter. A report was spread that he intended to diminish the wages of the workmen ; and what rendered this more alarming to these poor people and their families, there was a scarcity of bread at the time in which this rumour arose. The bare falsehood was soon accompanied with many additional and aggravating circumstances, and particularly certain expressions of an insulting nature to the distresses of the poor were repeated as having been used by M. Reveillon,

Although nothing could be more opposite to the general conduct and character of the man, these rumours were readily believed by the unthinking multitude.

They dragged the figure of a man with a label around the neck, inscribed with, the name of Reveillon and with the offensive words he was said to have uttered, to the Place de Greve, and there performed the ceremony of an execution. Having passed the night in drinking and riot, they went the following day and burst into M. Reveillon's house, destroyed his furniture, burnt his books and papers, broke into his cellars, increasing their fury by

renewed intoxication.

There had been a relaxation in the police of Paris unknown before that period, during the whole time occupied in the elections. The lieutentant of police, from timidity or negligence, had taken no measure for crushing this insurrection at the beginning. A party of soldiers, too weak for the purpose, were sent when it was too late, to protect the house of M. Reveillon; they were repulsed by the pillagers. A large body of the French and Swiss guards then marched against them with two pieces of artillery. After having in vain summoned the mob around the house to retire, the commanding officer ordered the soldiers to fire over the heads of the multitude, in the hope that it would have intimidated and dispersed them. It had a contrary effect: the multitude pelted the guards with stones from the streets, the windows, and the top of the house. By a second fire the enraged soldiers killed a considerable number of the rabble; and then, rushing into the house, put all to the sword whom they found in the rooms or in the cellars. The scene was horrible; above one hundred of the populace are said to have been slaughtered; a considerable number of the military were wounded, and a few killed.

It has been repeatedly asserted by one party, that the source of this melancholy affair was a manoeuvre of the court, to furnish a pretext for ordering so large a body of

troops near the capital and Versailles as would overawe the populace, and render the assembly of the states more complaisant to the view of the court than they were supposed to be.

On the other hand the partisans of the court, have asserted, that the insurrection was excited, at a great expense of money, by certain leaders of the popular party, on purpose to shew the people their own strength and the weakness of government, and to intimidate the king into acquiescence with their measures.

As neither party have been able to establish their assertions on any thing like proof, the probability is, that both are unfounded; and that the commotion which was attended with such fatal consequences originated either in private malice against M. Reveillon, or simply in a false report hastily believed by a profligate populace, whose natural credulity was sharpened by the scarcity of bread and the hope of pillage.

When a nation is divided in opinion on subjects which 'heat the understanding and inflame the passions, there is hardly any wickedness of which one party is not capable of accusing the other; and by these reciprocal accusations of crimes, which perhaps neither was capable of committing, they become familiarized with ideas which they never before entertained, and are gradually prepared for deeds which they would otherwise have shrunk from with horror.

On the day of the assembling of the states-general, the deputies attended the king to the church of St. Lewis at Versailles, where they heard a sermon preached by the bishop of Nancy. The drift of this discourse was to prove, that all wise legislators had cherised religion, as the purest source of happiness to nations, or, as he expressed it, la source unique et intarissable de leur prosperité. The sermon was abundantly interspersed with praises of the king; and the queen was apostrophized in the following terms. Fille des Césars, emule et confidante des bien

faits de ton auguste epoux!'* There is certainly nothing extraordinary in a bishop's praising religion in a church, or a king and queen in a sermon preached before themselves; but it is a subject of melancholy reflection to think how all the three have been treated since by some of those who heard their praises with applause at the time; and it is impossible not to imagine, that if the French nation had not been deprived of all regard for the first, they never would have behaved in the barbarous manner they did to the two last. It is likewise worthy of notice, that the state in which the inhabitants of France have been since they lost religious impressions, is no refutation of the bishop's doctrine.

From the church the king went to the hall appointed for the states. He was seated on a throne erected for the purpose, the queen placing herself at his side on a seat not so high as that of the king; the royal family were seated around: the clergy on one side of the hall, and the noblesse on the other; the tiers-etat at the bottom.

Such an assembly, the representatives of a great nation, and, above all, the purpose for which they were convened, to reform long-continued and severely-felt abuses, and to make regulations on which the happiness of millions of human beings in a great measure depended, must have produced warm emotion, and raised the highest expecta tion.

The king pronounced a discourse adapted to the occasion, which was followed by one from the keeper of the seals; and the meeting concluded with a very long one from N. Necker, which however was more attended to than either of the other two.

Considering the different views, interests, and prejudices of the auditory, M. Necker must have possessed more address than falls to the lot of humanity, to have composed a discourse which would have entirely pleased an audience whose views and wishes were so different,

* Daughter of the Cæsars! You who emulate and are the confidante of the benevolent actions of your august husband!

and the minds of many of them so ill disposed towards the speaker. The nobles looked on him as a low-born upstart, who by intrigue and talents fit for a counting-house had wriggled himself into a situation to which he had no right; the clergy were jealous of him as a Protestant: and as M. Necker's discourse did not point directly to the object aimed at by the deputies of the tiers-etat, whose views were the most exalted, they also were displeased with it; and they would have been still more so, if they had not perceived that it displeased the noblesse and the clergy.

There existed a great jealousy in the three orders which composed the assembly; two of them dreading to be stripped of privileges they had long enjoyed, and the third being filled with indignation at the degradation and oppression under which they had long suffered to this original jealousy, which already burned with two great heat in the breasts of some of the deputies, certain circumstances of a frivolous nature served as additional fuel. In the ceremo nial of presenting the deputies to the king, a distinction, which it would have been wiser to have omitted, was made between the two first orders and the third. In admitting the clergy and noblesse, both foldings of the door were thrown open, and they were received by the king in his cabinet: but in admitting the deputies of the tiers-etat the opening of one-half of the door was thought sufficient; and they were received by his majesty in a kind of antichamber. This circumstance of the door might have been thought equally unpolite, but it would not have been quite so imprudent, if the tiers-etat had not previously obtained a double representation.

Such distinctions may be proper for keeping up the idea of superiority, when neither the superiority itself nor the power of supporting it is to be called in question; but when the first is disputed, and the second declining, they had best not be brought forward. The very circumstance of the states-general being summoned was of itself a proof that the tiers-etat were not to be treated with the ap