Experienced Mounier, not wholly new to such things, in Parlementary revolts, which he has seen or heard of, thinks that it were well, in these lamentable threatening circumstances, to unite themselves by an Oath.—­Universal acclamation, as from smouldering bosoms getting vent!  The Oath is redacted; pronounced aloud by President Bailly,—­and indeed in such a sonorous tone, that the cloud of witnesses, even outdoors, hear it, and bellow response to it.  Six hundred right-hands rise with President Bailly’s, to take God above to witness that they will not separate for man below, but will meet in all places, under all circumstances, wheresoever two or three can get together, till they have made the Constitution.  Made the Constitution, Friends!  That is a long task.  Six hundred hands, meanwhile, will sign as they have sworn:  six hundred save one; one Loyalist Abdiel, still visible by this sole light-point, and nameable, poor ’M.  Martin d’Auch, from Castelnaudary, in Languedoc.’  Him they permit to sign or signify refusal; they even save him from the cloud of witnesses, by declaring ‘his head deranged.’  At four o’clock, the signatures are all appended; new meeting is fixed for Monday morning, earlier than the hour of the Royal Session; that our Hundred and Forty-nine Clerical deserters be not balked:  we shall meet ‘at the Recollets Church or elsewhere,’ in hope that our Hundred and Forty-nine will join us;—­and now it is time to go to dinner.

This, then, is the Session of the Tennis-Court, famed Seance du Jeu de Paume; the fame of which has gone forth to all lands.  This is Mercurius de Breze’s appearance as Deus ex machina; this is the fruit it brings!  The giggle of Courtiers in the Versailles Avenue has already died into gaunt silence.  Did the distracted Court, with Gardes-des-Sceaux Barentin, Triumvirate and Company, imagine that they could scatter six hundred National Deputies, big with a National Constitution, like as much barndoor poultry, big with next to nothing,—­by the white or black rod of a Supreme Usher?  Barndoor poultry fly cackling:  but National Deputies turn round, lion-faced; and, with uplifted right-hand, swear an Oath that makes the four corners of France tremble.

President Bailly has covered himself with honour; which shall become rewards.  The National Assembly is now doubly and trebly the Nation’s Assembly; not militant, martyred only, but triumphant; insulted, and which could not be insulted.  Paris disembogues itself once more, to witness, ‘with grim looks,’ the Seance Royale:  (See Arthur Young (Travels, i. 115-118); A. Lameth, &c.) which, by a new felicity, is postponed till Tuesday.  The Hundred and Forty-nine, and even with Bishops among them, all in processional mass, have had free leisure to march off, and solemnly join the Commons sitting waiting in their Church.  The Commons welcomed them with shouts, with embracings, nay with tears; (Dumont, Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, c. 4.) for it is growing a life-and-death matter now.