system-builder, constitutional-builder-general, and build constitutions
which shall unfortunately fall before we get the scaffolding away.

"Among the nobles are Liancourt, and La Rochefoucauld, and pious Lally,
and Lafayette, whom Mirabeau calls Grandison Cromwell, and the Viscount
Mirabeau, called Barrel Mirabeau, on account of his rotundity, and the
quantity of strong liquor he contains. Among the clergy is the Abbé
Maury, who does not want for audacity, and the Curé Grégoire who shall
be a bishop, and Talleyrand-Pericord, his reverence of Autun, with
sardonic grimness, a man living in falsehood, and on falsehood, yet not
wholly a false man.

"So, in stately procession, the elected of France pass on, some to
honor, others to dishonor; not a few towards massacre, confusion,
emigration, desperation."

For several weeks this famous States-General remain inactive, unable to
agree whether they shall deliberate in a single hall or in three
separate chambers. The deputies, of course, wish to deliberate in a
single chamber, since they equal in number both the clergy and nobles,
and some few nobles had joined them, and more than a hundred of the
clergy. But a large majority of both the clergy and the noblesse insist
with pertinacity on the three separate chambers, since, united, they
would neutralize the third estate. If the deputies prevailed, they would
inaugurate reforms to which the other orders would never consent.

Long did these different bodies of the States-General deliberate, and
stormy were the debates. The nobles showed themselves haughty and
dogmatical; the deputies showed themselves aggressive and revolutionary.
The King and the ministers looked on with impatience and disgust, but