would henceforth be useless. On the 27th of June the deliberation became
general. The orders ceased to exist legally, and soon disappeared. The
distinct seats they had hitherto occupied in the common hall soon became
confounded; the futile pre-eminences of rank vanished before national
authority.

The court, after having vainly endeavoured to prevent the formation of the
assembly, could now only unite with it, to direct its operations. With
prudence and candour it might still have repaired its errors and caused
its attacks to be forgotten. At certain moments, the initiative may be
taken in making sacrifices; at others, all that can be done is to make a
merit of accepting them. At the opening of the states-general, the king
might himself have made the constitution, now he was obliged to receive it
from the assembly; had he submitted to that position, he would infallibly
have improved it. But the advisers of Louis XVI., when they recovered from
the first surprise of defeat, resolved to have recourse to the use of the
bayonet, after they had failed in that of authority. They led the king to
suppose that the contempt of his orders, the safety of his throne, the
maintenance of the laws of the kingdom, and even the well-being of his
people depended on his reducing the assembly to submission; that the
latter, sitting at Versailles, close to Paris, two cities decidedly in its
favour, ought to be subdued by force, and removed to some other place or
dissolved; that it was urgent that this resolution should be adopted in
order to stop the progress of the assembly, and that in order to execute
it, it was necessary speedily to call together troops who might intimidate
the assembly and maintain order at Paris and Versailles.

While these plots were hatching, the deputies of the nation began their
legislative labours, and prepared the anxiously expected constitution,
which they considered they ought no longer to delay. Addresses poured in