. It
was a crushing and final disaster. For he fell, maintaining the cause
of aristocracy against the nobles, and the cause of prerogative
against the monarch. The Democrats triumphed by 410 votes one day, and
350 the next. The battle for the Constitution on the English model was
fought and lost.

On September 12 Mounier and his friends retired from the Committee. A
new one was at once elected from the victorious majority. At this
critical point a secret Council was held, at which the royalists
advised the king to take refuge in the provinces. Lewis refused to
listen to them. The majority, elated with success, now called on him
to sanction the decrees of August 4. His reply, dated September 18,
is drawn up with unusual ability. He adopted the argument of Sieyes on
the suppression of tithe. He said that a large income would be granted
to the land, and that the rich, who ought to contribute most, would,
on the contrary, receive most. Small holders would profit little,
while those who possessed no land at all would now be mulcted for
payment of the clergy. Instead of relieving the nation, it would
relieve one class at the expense of another, and the rich at the
expense of the poor.

The Assembly insisted that the abolition of feudalism was part of the
Constitution, and ought to receive an unconditional sanction. But they
promised to give most respectful attention to the remarks of the king,
whenever the decrees came to be completed by legislation. The royal
sanction was accordingly given on the following day. Thereupon the
Assembly made a considerable concession. They resolved, on September
21, that the suspensive veto should extend over two legislatures. The
numbers were 728 to 224.

The new Committee, appointed on the 15th, took a fortnight to complete
their scheme, on the adopted principles that there should be one
Chamber, no dissolution, and a power of retarding legislation without
preventing it. On the 29th it was laid before the Assembly by their
reporter, Thouret. The voice was the voice of Thouret, but the hand
was the hand of Sieyes. At that juncture he augured ill of the
Revolution, and repented of his share in it. His Declaration of Rights
had been passed over. His proposal to restore the national credit by
the surrender of tithe had been rejected. His partition of the
Assembly, together with partial renewal, which is favourable to the
executive, by never allowing the new parliament to rise, like a giant
r