CHAPTER III

FROM THE 6TH OF OCTOBER, 1789, TO THE DEATH OF MIRABEAU, APRIL, 1791


The period which forms the subject of this chapter was less remarkable for
events than for the gradually decided separation of parties. In proportion
as changes were introduced into the state and the laws, those whose
interests or opinions they injured declared themselves against them. The
revolution had had as enemies, from the beginning of the states-general,
the court; from the union of orders and the abolition of privileges, the
nobility; from the establishment of a single assembly and the rejection of
the two chambers, the ministry and the partisans of the English form of
government. It had, moreover, against it since the departmental
organization, the provinces; since the decree respecting the property and
civil constitution of the clergy, the whole ecclesiastical body; since the
introduction of the new military laws, all the officers of the army. It
might seem that the assembly ought not to have effected so many changes at
once, so as to have avoided making so many enemies; but its general plans,
its necessities, and the very plots of its adversaries, required all these
innovations.

After the 5th and 6th of October, the assembly emigrated as the court had
done after the 14th of July. Mounier and Lally-Tollendal deserted it,
despairing of liberty from the moment their views ceased to be followed.
Too absolute in their plans, they wanted the people, after having
delivered the assembly on the 14th of July, suddenly to cease acting,
which was displaying an entire ignorance of the impetus of revolutions.