ecause
it was at heart anxious to pull that executive down to earth.

Notwithstanding this check, Mirabeau continued to impose on the
assembly by his tremendous personality and by his statesmanship. He
struggled hard in the early part of 1790 to bring the deputies into
line on a question of foreign affairs that then arose,--the Nootka
Sound question. This involved all the traditions of France's foreign
policy and her system of alliances, the _pacte de famille_; but the
assembly saw in it merely a text on which to formulate the limitations
it intended to impose on the royal power in the matter of foreign
relations. At this moment the Court had renewed its clandestine
communications with Mirabeau, there was even one secret {100} interview
between him and the Queen, and large sums were given him as payment for
his advice. These sums he squandered profusely, thus advertising a
fact that was already more than suspected by the public, and rapidly
destroying his hold on opinion.

The winter was a much milder one than the preceding, food was less
scarce, money more plentiful owing to the issue of assignats, public
confidence greatly increased. But the tension between the King and the
assembly did not relax; there was no serious attempt on either side to
take advantage of the improved situation for effecting a
reconciliation. The assembly legislated against the members of the
aristocracy who, following the example of the Comte d'Artois, had
emigrated. Instead of helping the Government to enforce police
measures that would have made their residence in France secure, it
decreed the confiscation of their rents unless they returned within
three months. This was the first of a long series of laws aimed
against the emigres.

Turning from one privileged order to the other, the assembly continued
the attacks on the fabric of the Church which had been begun by the
churchmen themselves in August and October 1789. The surrender of the
tithes, (101) 70,000,000 francs annually, had told most heavily against
the poor country priest and in favour of the landowner, who bore the
burden of his salary. The taking over of the Church lands by the State
had been most felt by the higher ecclesiastics and the monastic orders.
In February 1790 the latter were suppressed, and their members were
relieved of their vows by the assembly, which had now frankly embarked
on an anti-clerical policy. It would not recognise of itself that it
was les