Beacon Lights of History, Volume 09 | Page 5

briefs at Chartres for a stormier sort of pleading. A
Protestant-clerical St. Etienne, a slender young eloquent and vehement
Barnave, will help to regenerate France,
"And then there is worthy Doctor Guillotin, Bailly likewise,
time-honored historian of astronomy, and the Abbé Sieyès, cold, but
elastic, wiry, instinct with the pride of logic, passionless, or with but
one passion, that of self-conceit. This is the Sieyès who shall be
system-builder, constitutional-builder-general, and build constitutions
which shall unfortunately fall before we get the scaffolding away.
"Among the nobles are Liancourt, and La Rochefoucauld, and pious
Lally, and Lafayette, whom Mirabeau calls Grandison Cromwell, and
the Viscount Mirabeau, called Barrel Mirabeau, on account of his
rotundity, and the quantity of strong liquor he contains. Among the
clergy is the Abbé Maury, who does not want for audacity, and the
Curé Grégoire who shall be a bishop, and Talleyrand-Pericord, his
reverence of Autun, with sardonic grimness, a man living in falsehood,
and on falsehood, yet not wholly a false man.
"So, in stately procession, the elected of France pass on, some to honor,
others to dishonor; not a few towards massacre, confusion, emigration,
desperation."
For several weeks this famous States-General remain inactive, unable
to agree whether they shall deliberate in a single hall or in three

separate chambers. The deputies, of course, wish to deliberate in a
single chamber, since they equal in number both the clergy and nobles,
and some few nobles had joined them, and more than a hundred of the
clergy. But a large majority of both the clergy and the noblesse insist
with pertinacity on the three separate chambers, since, united, they
would neutralize the third estate. If the deputies prevailed, they would
inaugurate reforms to which the other orders would never consent.
Long did these different bodies of the States-General deliberate, and
stormy were the debates. The nobles showed themselves haughty and
dogmatical; the deputies showed themselves aggressive and
revolutionary. The King and the ministers looked on with impatience
and disgust, but were irresolute. Had the King been a Cromwell, or a
Napoleon, he would have dissolved the assemblies; but he was timid
and hesitating. Necker, the prime minister, was for compromise; he
would accept reforms, but only in a constitutional way.
The knot was at last cut by the Abbé Sieyès, a political priest, and one
of the deputies for Paris,--the finest intellect in the body, next to
Mirabeau, and at first more influential than he, since the Count was
generally distrusted on account of his vices. Nor had he as yet exhibited
his great powers. Sieyès said, for the Deputies alone, "We represent
ninety-six per cent of the whole nation. The people is sovereign; we,
therefore, as its representatives, constitute ourselves a national
assembly." His motion was passed by acclamation, on June 17, and the
Third Estate assumed the right to act for France.
In a legal and constitutional point of view, this was a usurpation, if ever
there was one. "It was," says Von Sybel, the able German historian of
the French Revolution, "a declaration of open war between arbitrary
principles and existing rights." It was as if the House of Representatives
in the United States, or the House of Commons in England, should
declare themselves the representatives of the nation, ignoring the
Senate or the House of Lords. Its logical sequence was revolution.
The prodigious importance of this step cannot be overrated. It
transferred the powers of the monarchy to the Third Estate. It would
logically lead to other usurpations, the subversion of the throne, and the

utter destruction of feudalism,--for this last was the aim of the
reformers. Mirabeau himself at first shrank from this violent measure,
but finally adopted it. He detested feudalism and the privileges of the
clergy. He wanted radical reforms, but would have preferred to gain
them in a constitutional way, like Pym, in the English Revolution. But
if reforms could not be gained constitutionally, then he would accept
revolution, as the lesser evil. Constitutionally, radical reforms were
hopeless. The ministers and the King, doubtless, would have made
some concessions, but not enough to satisfy the deputies. So these same
deputies took the entire work of legislation into their own hands. They
constituted themselves the sole representatives of the nation. The
nobles and the clergy might indeed deliberate with them; they were not
altogether ignored, but their interests and rights were to be disregarded.
In that state of ferment and discontent which existed when the
States-General was convened, the nobles and the clergy probably knew
the spirit of the deputies, and therefore refused to sit with them. They
knew, from the innumerable pamphlets and tracts which were issued
from the press, that radical changes were desired, to which they
themselves were opposed; and they had the moral support of the
Government on