asm of the Tennis Court
frustrated the pondered measures of the most liberal minister in
Europe. For it was, in truth, the queen, and in that brief interval it
was decreed that France, so near the goal in that month of June,
should wade to it through streams of blood during the twenty-five most
terrible years in the history of Christian nations.

The council of ministers, which was adjourned in consequence of the
meeting in the Tennis Court, went over to the _noblesse_, and restored
in their interest the principles of the old regime. It resolved that
the king should rescind the recent acts of the Assembly; should
maintain inviolate the division of orders, allowing the option of
debate in common only in cases where neither privilege nor the
Constitution were affected; that he should confirm feudal rights and
even fiscal immunities, unless voluntarily abandoned, and should deny
admission to public employment irrespective of class. Necker's
adversaries prevailed, and the ancient bulwarks were set up again, in
favour of the aristocracy.

Still, a portion of the great scheme was preserved, and the
concessions on the part of the crown were such that some weeks earlier
they would have been hailed with enthusiasm, and the consistent logic
of free institutions exercises a coercive virtue that made many think
that the King's Speech of June 23 ought to have been accepted as the
greater charter of France. That was the opinion of Arthur Young; of
Gouverneur Morris, who had given the final touches to the American
Constitution; of Jefferson, the author of the _Declaration of
Independence_; and afterwards even of Sieyes himself.

On this account, Necker wavered to the last moment, and on the Tuesday
morning prepared to attend the king. His friends, his family, his
daughter, the wonder of the age, made him understand that he could not
sanction by his presence, at a solemn crisis, an act which reversed
one essential half of his policy. He dismissed his carriage, took off
his court suit, and left the vacant place to proclaim his fall. That
evening he sent in his resignation. His significant absence; the
peremptory language of the king; the abrogation of their decrees,
which was effectual and immediate, while the compensating promises
were eventual, and not yet equivalent to laws; the avowed resolve to
identify the Crown with the nobles, struck the Assembly with
consternation. The removal of the constitutional question to the list
of m