emain. The nobles
felt justified in defending things which were their own by law, by
centuries of unquestioned possession, by purchase and inheritance, by
sanction of government, by the express will of their constituents. In
upholding the interest, and the very existence, of the class they
represented, they might well believe that they acted in the spirit of
true liberty, which depends on the multiplicity of checking forces,
and that they were saving the throne. From the engagement to renounce
fiscal exemption, and submit to the equal burden of taxation, they did
not recede, and they claimed the support of the king. Montlosier, who
belonged to their order, pronounced that their case was good and their
argument bad. Twice they gave the enemy an advantage. When they saw
the clergy waver, they resolved, by their usual majority of 197 to 44,
that each order possessed the right of nullification; so that they
would no more yield to the separate vote of the three Estates than to
their united vote. Evidently the country would support those who
denied the veto and were ready to overrule it, against those who gave
no hope that anything would be done. Again, when they declined the
Government proposals, they isolated themselves, and became an
obstruction. They had lost the clergy. They now repulsed the minister.
Nothing was left them except their hopes of the king. They ruined him
as well as themselves. It did not follow that, because they supported
the monarchy, they were sure of the monarch. And it was a graver
miscalculation to think that a regular army is stronger than an
undisciplined mob, and that the turbulent Parisians, eight miles off,
could not protect the deputies against regiments of horse and foot,
commanded by the gallant gentlemen of France, accustomed for centuries
to pay the tax of blood, and fighting now in their own cause.

There was nothing more to be done. The arts of peace were exhausted. A
deliberate breach with legality could alone fulfil the national
decree. The country had grown tired of dilatory tactics and prolonged
inaction. Conciliation, tried by the Commons, by the clergy, and by
the Government, had been vain. The point was reached where it was
necessary to choose between compulsion and surrender, and the Commons
must either employ the means at their command to overcome resistance,
or go away confessing that the great movement had broken down in their
hands, and that the people had elected the wrong m