ith it. At first the three estates sat separately. If this
usage had continued, the Clergy and the Nobles combined would have
annulled every measure voted by the Commons. For six weeks the Commons
waited. Then on June 10, the Abbe Sieyes said, "Let us cut the cable. It
is time." So the Clergy and the Nobility were summoned, and some of the
Clergy obeyed. This sufficed. On motion of Sieyes, the Commons
proclaimed themselves the National Assembly, and the orders fused.
Immediately caste admitted defeat and through its mouthpiece, the King,
commanded the Assembly to dissolve. The Commons refused to dissolve, and
the Nobles prepared for a _coup d'etat._ The foreign regiments, in the
pay of the government, were stationed about Paris, while the Bastille,
which was supposed to be impregnable, was garrisoned with Swiss. In
reply, on July 14, 1789, the citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille. An
unstable social equilibrium had been already converted by pressure into
a revolution. Nevertheless, excentric as the centre of gravity had now
become, it might have been measurably readjusted had the privileged
classes been able to reason correctly from premise to conclusion. Men
like Lafayette and Mirabeau still controlled the Assembly, and if the
King and the Nobility had made terms, probably the monarchy might have
been saved, certainly the massacres would have been averted. As a
decaying class is apt to do, the Nobility did that which was worst for
themselves. Becoming at length partly conscious of a lack of physical
force in France to crush the revolution, a portion of the nobility, led
by the Comte d'Artois, the future Charles X, fled to Germany to seek for
help abroad, while the bolder remained to plan an attack on the
rebellion. On October 1, 1789, a great military banquet was given at
Versailles. The King and Queen with the Dauphin were present. A royalist
demonstration began. The bugles sounded a charge, the officers drew
their swords, and the ladies of the court tore the tricolor from the
soldiers' coats and replaced it with the white cockade. On October 5, a
vast multitude poured out of Paris, and marched to Versailles. The next
day they broke into the palace, killed the guards, and carried the King
and Queen captive to the Tuileries. But Louis was so intellectually
limited that he could not keep faith with those who wished him well. On
July 14, 1790, the King swore, before half a million spectators, to
maintain the new constitu