their wealth, or were neglectful of their duties, as the English monks were in the time of Henry VIII.  This Church property had been held so sacred, that Louis XIV. in his greatest necessities never presumed to appropriate any part of it.  The sophistry that it belonged to the nation, and therefore that the representatives of the nation had a right to take it, probably deceived nobody.  It was necessary to give some excuse or reason for such a wholesale robbery, and this was the best which could be invented.  The simple truth was that money at this juncture was a supreme necessity to the State, and this spoliation seemed the easiest way to meet the public wants.  Like most of the legislation of the Assembly, it was defended on the Jesuit plea of expediency,—­that the end justifies the means; the plea of unscrupulous and wicked politicians in all countries.

And this expediency, doubtless, relieved the government for a time, for the government was in the hands of the Assembly.  Royal authority was a mere shadow.  In reality, the King was a prisoner, guarded by Lafayette, in the palace of the Tuileries.  And the Assembly itself was now in fear of the people as represented by the clubs.  There were two hundred Jacobin clubs in Paris and other cities at this time, howling their vituperations not only on royalty but also on everything else which was not already destroyed.

The Assembly having provided for the wants of the government by the confiscation of two thousand millions,—­which, however, when sold, did not realize half that sum,—­issued their assignats, or bonds representing parcels of land assigned to redeem them.  These were mostly 100-franc notes, though there were also issues of ten and even five francs.  The national credit was thus patched up by legislators who took a constitution in hand,—­to quote Burke—­“as savages would a looking-glass.”  Then they proceeded to other reforms, and abolished the parliaments, and instituted the election of judges by the people, thus stripping the King of his few remaining powers.

In the mean time Mirabeau died, worn out with labors and passions, and some say by poison.  Even this Hercules could not resist the consequences of violated natural law.  The Assembly decreed a magnificent public funeral, and buried him with great pomp.  He was the first to be interred in the Pantheon.  For nearly two years he was the leading man in France, and he retained his influence in the Assembly to the end.  Nor did he lose his popularity with the people.  It is not probable that his intrigues to save the monarchy were known, except to a few confidential friends.  He died at the right time for his fame, in April, 1791.  Had he lived, he could not have arrested the tide of revolutionary excesses and the reign of demagogues, and probably would have been one of the victims of the guillotine.