the Third Estate to decree itself the nation.

The National Assembly had destroyed feudal institutions; but it had not
yet made a constitution, or restored order. Violence and anarchy still
reigned. Then the clubs began to make themselves a power. "Come," said
the lawyer Danton to a friend, in the district of the Cordéliers, "come
and howl with us; you will earn much money, and you can still choose
your party afterwards." But it was in the garden of the Palais Royal,
and in the old church of the Jacobins that the most violent attacks were
made on all existing institutions. "A Fourth Estate (of able editors)
also springs up, increases, multiplies; irrepressible, incalculable."
Then from the lowest quarters of Paris surge up an insurrection of
women, who march to Versailles in disorder, penetrate the Assembly, and
invade the palace. On the 5th of October a mob joins them, of the lowest
rabble, and succeed in forcing their way into the precincts of the
palace. "The King to Paris!" was now the general cry, and Louis XVI.
appears upon the balcony and announces by gestures his subjection to
their will. A few hours after, the King is on his way to Paris, under
the protection of the National Guard, really a prisoner in the hands of
the people. In fourteen days the National Assembly also follows, to be
now dictated to by the clubs.

In this state of anarchy and incipient violence, Mirabeau, whose power
in the Assembly was still unimpaired, wished to halt. He foresaw the
future. No man in France had such clear insight and sagacity as he. He
saw the State drifting into dissolution, and put forth his hand and
raised his voice to arrest the catastrophe which he lamented. "The mob
of Paris," said he, "will scourge the corpses of the King and Queen." It
was then that he gave but feeble support to the "Rights of Man," and
contended for the unlimited veto of the King on the proceedings of the