Furthermore, be it noted that no member of this Constituent has been, or could be, elected to the new Legislative.  So noble-minded were these Law-makers! cry some:  and Solon-like would banish themselves.  So splenetic! cry more:  each grudging the other, none daring to be outdone in self-denial by the other.  So unwise in either case! answer all practical men.  But consider this other self-denying ordinance, That none of us can be King’s Minister, or accept the smallest Court Appointment, for the space of four, or at lowest (and on long debate and Revision), for the space of two years!  So moves the incorruptible seagreen Robespierre; with cheap magnanimity he; and none dare be outdone by him.  It was such a law, not so superfluous then, that sent Mirabeau to the Gardens of Saint-Cloud, under cloak of darkness, to that colloquy of the gods; and thwarted many things.  Happily and unhappily there is no Mirabeau now to thwart.

Welcomer meanwhile, welcome surely to all right hearts, is Lafayette’s chivalrous Amnesty.  Welcome too is that hard-wrung Union of Avignon; which has cost us, first and last, ‘thirty sessions of debate,’ and so much else:  may it at length prove lucky!  Rousseau’s statue is decreed:  virtuous Jean-Jacques, Evangelist of the Contrat Social.  Not Drouet of Varennes; nor worthy Lataille, master of the old world-famous Tennis Court in Versailles, is forgotten; but each has his honourable mention, and due reward in money. (Moniteur in Hist.  Parl. xi. 473.) Whereupon, things being all so neatly winded up, and the Deputations, and Messages, and royal and other Ceremonials having rustled by; and the King having now affectionately perorated about peace and tranquilisation, and members having answered “Oui! oui!” with effusion, even with tears,—­President Thouret, he of the Law Reforms, rises, and, with a strong voice, utters these memorable last-words:  “The National Constituent Assembly declares that it has finished its mission; and that its sittings are all ended.”  Incorruptible Robespierre, virtuous Petion are borne home on the shoulders of the people; with vivats heaven-high.  The rest glide quietly to their respective places of abode.  It is the last afternoon of September, 1791; on the morrow morning the new Legislative will begin.

So, amid glitter of illuminated streets and Champs Elysees, and crackle of fireworks and glad deray, has the first National Assembly vanished; dissolving, as they well say, into blank Time; and is no more.  National Assembly is gone, its work remaining; as all Bodies of men go, and as man himself goes:  it had its beginning, and must likewise have its end.  A Phantasm-Reality born of Time, as the rest of us are; flitting ever backwards now on the tide of Time:  to be long remembered of men.  Very strange Assemblages, Sanhedrims, Amphictyonics, Trades Unions, Ecumenic Councils, Parliaments and Congresses, have met together on this Planet, and dispersed again; but a stranger