The echo of humiliations abroad came to swell the dull murmur of public discontent.  Disturbance was arising everywhere.  “From stagnant chaos France has passed to tumultuous chaos,” wrote Mirabeau, already an influential publicist, despite the irregularity of his morals and the small esteem excited by his life; “there may, there should come a creation out of it.”  The Parliament had soon resumed its defiant attitude; like M. de La Fayette at the Assembly of notables, it demanded the convocation of the States-general at a fixed epoch, in 1792; it was the date fixed by M. de Brienne in a vast financial scheme which he had boldly proposed for registration by the court.  By means of a series of loans which were to reach the enormous total of four hundred and twenty millions, the States-general, assembled on the conclusion of this vast operation, and relieved from all pecuniary embarrassment, would be able to concentrate their thoughts on the important interests of the future.  At the same time with the loan-edict, Brienne presented to the Parliament the law-scheme, for so long a time under discussion, on behalf of Protestants.

The king had repaired in person to the palace in royal session; the keeper of the seals, Lamoignon, expounded the necessity of the edicts.  “To the monarch alone,” he repeated, “belongs the legislative power, without dependence and without partition.”  This was throwing down the gauntlet to the whole assembly as well as to public opinion.  Abbe Sabatier and Councillor Freteau had already spoken, when Robert de St. Vincent rose, an old Jansenist and an old member of Parliament, accustomed to express his thoughts roughly.  “Who, without dismay, can hear loans still talked of?” he exclaimed “and for what sum? four hundred and twenty millions!  A plan is being formed for five years?  But, since your Majesty’s reign began, have the same views ever directed the administration of finance for five years in succession?  Can you be ignorant, sir (here he addressed himself to the comptroller-general), that each minister, as he steps into his place, rejects the system of his predecessor in order to substitute that which he has devised?  Within only eight months, you are the fourth minister of finance, and yet you are forming a plan which cannot be accomplished in less than five years!  The remedy, sir, for the wounds of the state has been pointed out by your Parliament:  it is the convocation of the Statesgeneral.  Their convocation, to be salutary, must be prompt.  Your ministers would like to avoid this assembly whose surveillance they dread.  Their hope is vain.  Before two years are over, the necessities of the state will force you to convoke the States-general.”