inly the most surprising thing, the
most extraordinary, the greatest, the smallest, etc., etc. But,
fortunately, experience may aid comprehension. In a word, here were
Jacobins, Feuillants, republicans, and monarchists, abjuring all their
discords and assembling near the tree of the Constitution and of
liberty, to promise sincerely that they will act in accordance with law
and not depart from it. Luckily, August is coming, the time when, the
leaves being well grown, the tree of liberty will afford a more secure
shelter."

What had happened on the day before Madame Elisabeth wrote this letter?
There had been a very singular session of the Legislative Assembly. In
the morning, a woman named Olympe de Gouges, whose mother was a dealer
in second-hand clothing at Montauban, being consumed with a desire to
be talked about, had caused an emphatic placard to be posted up, in
which she preached concord between all parties. This placard was like
a prologue to the day's session.

Among the deputies there was a certain Abbe Lamourette, the
constitutional bishop of Lyons, who played at religious democracy. He
was an ex-Lazarist who had been professor of theology at the Seminary
at Toul. Weary of the conventual yoke, he had left his order, and at
the beginning of the Revolution was the vicar-general of the diocese of
Arras. He had published several works in which he sought to reconcile
philosophy and religion. Mirabeau was {241} one of his acolytes and
adopted him as his theologian in ordinary. Finding him fit to
"bishopize" (_a evequailler_), to use his own expression, the great
tribune recommended him to the electors of the Rhone department. It
was thus that the Abbe Lamourette became the constitutional bishop of
Lyons. After his consecration, he issued a pastoral instruction in
such agreement with current ideas that Mirabeau, his protector, induced
the Constituent Assembly to have it sent as a model to every department
in France. In 1792, the Abbe Lamourette was fifty years old. Affable,
unctuous, his mouth always full of pacific and gentle words, he naively
preached moderation, concord, and fraternity in conversations which
were like so many sermons.

For several days the discussions in the Assembly had been of
unparalleled violence. Suspicion, hatred, rancor, wrath, were
unchained in a fury that bordered on delirium. Right and left emulated
each other in outrages and invectives. Lafayette's appearance and the