Then took place the emigration of the nobles, among whom were Conde, Polignac, Broglie, to organize resistance to the revolution which had already conquered the King.

Meanwhile, the triumphant Assembly, largely recruited by the liberal nobles and the clergy, continued its sessions, decreed its sittings permanent and its members inviolable.  The sittings were stormy; for everybody made speeches, written or oral, yet few had any power of debate.  Even Mirabeau himself, before whom all succumbed, was deficient in this talent.  He could thunder; he could arouse or allay passions; he seemed able to grasp every subject, for he used other people’s brains; he was an incarnation of eloquence,—­but he could not reply to opponents with much effect, like Pitt, Webster, and Gladstone.  He was still the leading man in the kingdom; all eyes were directed towards him; and no one could compete with him, not even Sieyes.  The Assembly wasted days in foolish debates.  It had begun its proceedings with the famous declaration of the rights of man,—­an abstract question, first mooted by Rousseau, and re-echoed by Jefferson.  Mirabeau was appointed with a committee of five to draft the declaration,—­in one sense, a puerile fiction, since men are not “born free,” but in a state of dependence and weakness; nor “equal,” either in regard to fortune, or talents, or virtue, or rank:  but in another sense a great truth, so far as men are entitled by nature to equal privileges, and freedom of the person, and unrestricted liberty to get a living according to their choice.

The Assembly at last set itself in earnest to the work of legislation.  In one night, the ever memorable 4th of August, it decreed the total abolition of feudalism.  In one night it abolished tithes to the church, provincial privileges, feudal rights, serfdom, the law of primogeniture, seigniorial dues, and the gabelle, or tax on salt.  Mirabeau was not present, being absent on his pleasures.  These, however, seldom interfered with his labors, which were herculean, from seven in the morning till eleven at night.  He had two sides to his character,—­one exciting abhorrence and disgust, for his pleasures were miscellaneous and coarse; a man truly abandoned to the most violent passions:  the other side pleasing, exciting admiration; a man with an enormous power of work, affable, dignified, with courtly manners, and enchanting conversation, making friends with everybody, out of real kindness of heart, because he really loved the people, and sought their highest good; a truly patriotic man, and as wise as he was enthusiastic.  This great orator and statesman was outraged and alarmed at the indecent haste of the Assembly, and stigmatized its proceedings as “nocturnal orgies.”  The Assembly on that memorable night swept away the whole feudal edifice, and in less time than the English Parliament would take to decide upon the first reading of any bill of importance.