The Left side is also called the d’Orleans side; and sometimes derisively, the Palais Royal.  And yet, so confused, real-imaginary seems everything, ‘it is doubtful,’ as Mirabeau said, ’whether d’Orleans himself belong to that same d’Orleans Party.’  What can be known and seen is, that his moon-visage does beam forth from that point of space.  There likewise sits seagreen Robespierre; throwing in his light weight, with decision, not yet with effect.  A thin lean Puritan and Precisian; he would make away with formulas; yet lives, moves, and has his being, wholly in formulas, of another sort.  ‘Peuple,’ such according to Robespierre ought to be the Royal method of promulgating laws, ’Peuple, this is the Law I have framed for thee; dost thou accept it?’—­answered from Right Side, from Centre and Left, by inextinguishable laughter.  (Moniteur, No. 67 (in Hist.Parl.).) Yet men of insight discern that the Seagreen may by chance go far:  “this man,” observes Mirabeau, “will do somewhat; he believes every word he says.”

Abbe Sieyes is busy with mere Constitutional work:  wherein, unluckily, fellow-workmen are less pliable than, with one who has completed the Science of Polity, they ought to be.  Courage, Sieyes nevertheless!  Some twenty months of heroic travail, of contradiction from the stupid, and the Constitution shall be built; the top-stone of it brought out with shouting,—­say rather, the top-paper, for it is all Paper; and thou hast done in it what the Earth or the Heaven could require, thy utmost.  Note likewise this Trio; memorable for several things; memorable were it only that their history is written in an epigram:  ’whatsoever these Three have in hand,’ it is said, ’Duport thinks it, Barnave speaks it, Lameth does it.’ (See Toulongeon, i. c. 3.)

But royal Mirabeau?  Conspicuous among all parties, raised above and beyond them all, this man rises more and more.  As we often say, he has an eye, he is a reality; while others are formulas and eye-glasses.  In the Transient he will detect the Perennial, find some firm footing even among Paper-vortexes.  His fame is gone forth to all lands; it gladdened the heart of the crabbed old Friend of Men himself before he died.  The very Postilions of inns have heard of Mirabeau:  when an impatient Traveller complains that the team is insufficient, his Postilion answers, “Yes, Monsieur, the wheelers are weak; but my mirabeau (main horse), you see, is a right one, mais mon mirabeau est excellent.”  (Dumont, Souvenirs sur Mirabeau, p. 255.)

And now, Reader, thou shalt quit this noisy Discrepancy of a National Assembly; not (if thou be of humane mind) without pity.  Twelve Hundred brother men are there, in the centre of Twenty-five Millions; fighting so fiercely with Fate and with one another; struggling their lives out, as most sons of Adam do, for that which profiteth not.  Nay, on the whole, it is admitted further to be very dull.  “Dull as this day’s Assembly,” said some one.  “Why date, Pourquoi dater?” answered Mirabeau.