With louder and louder vivats, for indeed it is ‘after dinner’ too,—­they abolish Tithes, Seignorial Dues, Gabelle, excessive Preservation of Game; nay Privilege, Immunity, Feudalism root and branch; then appoint a Te Deum for it; and so, finally, disperse about three in the morning, striking the stars with their sublime heads.  Such night, unforeseen but for ever memorable, was this of the Fourth of August 1789.  Miraculous, or semi-miraculous, some seem to think it.  A new Night of Pentecost, shall we say, shaped according to the new Time, and new Church of Jean Jacques Rousseau?  It had its causes; also its effects.

In such manner labour the National Deputies; perfecting their Theory of Irregular Verbs; governing France, and being governed by it; with toil and noise;—­cutting asunder ancient intolerable bonds; and, for new ones, assiduously spinning ropes of sand.  Were their labours a nothing or a something, yet the eyes of all France being reverently fixed on them, History can never very long leave them altogether out of sight.

For the present, if we glance into that Assembly Hall of theirs, it will be found, as is natural, ‘most irregular.’  As many as ’a hundred members are on their feet at once;’ no rule in making motions, or only commencements of a rule; Spectators’ Gallery allowed to applaud, and even to hiss; (Arthur Young, i. 111.) President, appointed once a fortnight, raising many times no serene head above the waves.  Nevertheless, as in all human Assemblages, like does begin arranging itself to like; the perennial rule, Ubi homines sunt modi sunt, proves valid.  Rudiments of Methods disclose themselves; rudiments of Parties.  There is a Right Side (Cote Droit), a Left Side (Cote Gauche); sitting on M. le President’s right hand, or on his left:  the Cote Droit conservative; the Cote Gauche destructive.  Intermediate is Anglomaniac Constitutionalism, or Two-Chamber Royalism; with its Mouniers, its Lallys,—­fast verging towards nonentity.  Preeminent, on the Right Side, pleads and perorates Cazales, the Dragoon-captain, eloquent, mildly fervent; earning for himself the shadow of a name.  There also blusters Barrel-Mirabeau, the Younger Mirabeau, not without wit:  dusky d’Espremenil does nothing but sniff and ejaculate; might, it is fondly thought, lay prostrate the Elder Mirabeau himself, would he but try, (Biographie Universelle, para D’Espremenil (by Beaulieu).)—­which he does not.  Last and greatest, see, for one moment, the Abbe Maury; with his jesuitic eyes, his impassive brass face, ’image of all the cardinal sins.’  Indomitable, unquenchable, he fights jesuitico-rhetorically; with toughest lungs and heart; for Throne, especially for Altar and Tithes.  So that a shrill voice exclaims once, from the Gallery:  “Messieurs of the Clergy, you have to be shaved; if you wriggle too much, you will get cut.” (Dictionnaire des Hommes Marquans, ii. 519.)