passed--all but the Commons of Provence,
for they had Mirabeau among them. He alone was hissed. Two ladies who
watched the procession from the same window were the daughter of
Necker and the wife of the Foreign Minister, Montmorin. One thought
with admiration that she was a witness of the greatest scene in modern
history; and the other was sad with evil forebodings. Both were right;
but the feeling of confidence and enthusiasm pervaded the crowd. Near
relations of my own were at Rome in 1846, during the excitement at the
reforms of the new Pope, who, at that moment, was the most popular
sovereign in Europe. They asked an Italian lady who was with them why
all the demonstrations only made her more melancholy. She answered:
"Because I was at Versailles in 1789."

Barentin, the minister who had opposed Necker's plans and viewed the
States-General with apprehension and disgust, spoke after the king. He
was a French judge, with no heart for any form of government but the
ancient one enjoyed by France. Nevertheless he admitted that joint
deliberation was the reasonable solution. He added that it could only
be adopted by common consent; and he urged the two orders to sacrifice
their right of exemption. Necker perplexed his hearers by receding
from the ground which the Chancellor had taken. He assured the two
orders that they need not apprehend absorption in the third if, while
voting separately, they executed the promised surrender. He spoke as
their protector, on the condition that they submitted to the common
law, and paid their taxes in arithmetical proportion. He implied, but
did not say, that what they refused to the Crown would be taken by the
people. In his financial statement he under-estimated the deficit, and
he said nothing of the Constitution. The great day ended badly. The
deputies were directed to hand in their returns to the Master of
Ceremonies, an official of whom we shall soon see more. But the Master
of Ceremonies was not acceptable to the Commons, because he had
compelled them to withdraw, the day before, from their places in the
nave of the church. Therefore the injunction was disregarded; and the
verification of powers, which the Government might have regulated, was
left to the deputies themselves, and became the lever by which the
more numerous order overthrew the monarchy, and carried to an end, in
seven weeks, the greatest constitutional struggle that has ever been
fought out in the world by speech alo