Roger, meanwhile, had found his plans frustrated by the death of the Dauphin. Normally he would have sought access to the Queen as soon as possible, reported the delivery of her letter, and requested permission to remain at her disposal, as that would have placed him in a good position to find out the intentions of the Court. But he did not feel that he had sufficient excuse to disturb her at Marly, so he remainde gloomily in Paris, occupying his mind as well as he could by renewing his acquaintance with various people.
However, on Sunday evening he learned that the Court had returned to Versailles; so on the Monday morning he rode out there again, and, after some difficulty, ran de Vaudreuil to earth. His ex-jailor greeted him as an old friend but advised against any attempt to see the Queen for the moment. He said that far from the Sovereigns having been left to their grief while at Marly they had been disturbed almost hourly with fresh advice as to how to deal with the crisis, and were still fully occupied by it. The Royal Council had joined them there, with the addition of the King's two brothers, and the most frightful wrangles had ensued. Monsieur Necker had prepared a speech for the King which Barentin, the Keeper of the Seals, had violently .opposed as a complete surrender to the Third Estate. Necker had retired in a dudgeon and the others had altered his speech till it was unrecognizable; but no one yet knew for certain what the unstable Monarch really would say at the Royal Session.
Roger said that he would greatly like to be present at it, so de Vaudreuil obligingly secured him a card of admission to the stand reserved for distinguished foreigners.
In consequence, he was up before dawn the following day and early at Versailles to secure his place in the Salle des Menus Plaisirs. It was raining quite hard and when he arrived he found that although the great hall was already a quarter filled with clergy and nobles, standing about talking in little groups, the Third Estate had been locked outside to wait in the wet until the Two senior Orders had taken their seats. Since the hall was so vast that it would hold 2,000 people there seemed no possible excuse for such invidious and flagrant discourtesy.
As an Englishman, he appreciated the great virtues of his own country's political system, by which King, Lords and Commons each enjoyed a degree of power that acted as a protection against a dictatorship by either of the other two; so he sympathized with the Court and nobles of France in their endeavour to retain powers which would act as a brake upon any attempt by the representatives of the masses to overturn the whole established order. But the way they were going about it filled him with angry amazement, and the idea of keeping even a deputation of peasants out in the rain unnecessarily snowed both their stupidity and heartless lack of concern for anything other than their own interests.
Eventually the Third Estate was let in and in due course the royal party arrived, so Roger was able to let his eye rove over the sea of faces behind which lay the thoughts that would prove the making or marring of the France that was to be. Many of the senior prelates looked fat, self-satisfied and dull. The nobles held themselves arrogantly, but they were mainly narrow-headed and rather vacuous-looking. The faces of the Third Estate were, on average, much sharper-featured than those of the other two, their eyes were keener and many of them possessed fine broad foreheads. Roger decided that in them were concentrated four-fifths of the brains, ability and initiative of the whole assembly.
On the King's appearance many of the nobles and clergy had received him with shouts of "Vive le Roi!" but the whole of the Third Estate had maintained a hostile silence. A young Bavarian diplomat, who was next to Roger, remarked to him that the gathering had a sadly different atmosphere from that at the opening of the States on the 5th of May, as then everyone had been hopeful and enthusiastic, whereas now, not only good feeling, but the splendid pageantry of the first meeting, was lacking.
From the throne the King made his will known. As he proceeded to reprimand the Third Estate for its recent assumption of powers without his authority, he spoke awkwardly and without conviction. His uneasiness became even more apparent when two secretaries read on his behalf the decisions arrived at, as these were mainly contrary to his own sentiments and obviously those of the more reactionary members of his Council.
The statements decreed that the Three Orders should remain separate as an essential part of the Constitution, but could meet together when they thought it convenient. Revision of taxes was promised, but all feudal rights and privileges were to be maintained. Provincial Estates were to be established throughout the kingdom, but no promise was given that another States General would be summoned on the dissolution of the present one. The creation of the National Assembly and the measures passed by it the preceding week were declared illegal and thereby cancelled.
Finally the King spoke again, bidding the Three Orders to meet again in their respective chambers the next day, and in the meantime to separate.
When the Monarch had retired the majority of the clergy and nobles followed him, but the Third Estate remained where they were.
The Marquis de Brez6, who was Grand Master of the Ceremonies, then came forward and said in a loud voice:
"Gentlemen, you have heard His Majesty's commands."
All eyes turned to the Comte de Mirabeau. Springing to his feet, the great champion of liberty cried:
"If you have been ordered to make us quit this place, you must ask for orders to use force, for we will not stir from our places save at the point of the bayonet."
The declaration was a bold one, as the town was full of troops, and a company of guards had even been stationed in and about the chamber. But Mirabeau had voiced the feelings of his colleagues, and his words were greeted with a thunder of applause.
De Breze refused to take an answer from a private member, so Bailly, as President of his Order, announced firmly that he had no power to break up the assembly until it had deliberated upon His Majesty's speech.
On De Breze withdrawing an angry tumult ensued. The Abbé Sieves at length got a hearing and with his usual penetrating brevity reminded the deputies that they were today no less than what they were yesterday. Camus followed him with a resolution that the Assembly persisted in its former decrees, which was passed unanimously. Then Mirabeau mounted the tribune and proposed that "This Assembly immediately declare each of its members inviolable, and proclaim that anyone who offers them violence is a traitor, infamous and guilty of a capital crime."
There were excellent grounds for such a proposal at the moment, as many of the more outspoken deputies now feared that their defiance of the royal command might be used as an excuse for their arrest; so the motion was passed by an overwhelming majority. The Assembly, having assumed this new sovereign power of the sacredness of its persons, then adjourned.
After lingering for an hour or so at Versailles, talking to people whom he knew, Roger returned to Paris to find the city in a state of frantic excitement. The King had that day tacitly acknowledged a Constitution; but he had given too little and too late. Good solid citizens as well as the mobs were now alike determined that he should give much more.
It was rumoured that Necker had resigned and this caused a panic-stricken run on the banks. Next day it transpired that he had done so but the King, now scared by such widespread commotions, had humbled himself to the extent of begging the Swiss to continue in office, for a time at least.
On the 25th Roger went again to Versailles and found it as agitated as Paris. That morning, to the wild applause of the population, the