“Old abuses,” replied the president, “which had for a long time triumphed over the good intentions of the best of kings, oppressed France.  The National Assembly has re-established the basis of public prosperity.  What it has desired the nation has willed.  Your majesty no longer desires in vain the happiness of Frenchmen.  The National Assembly has nothing more to wish, now that on this day in its presence you consummate the constitution by accepting it.  The attachment of Frenchmen decrees to you the crown, and what assures it to you is the need that so great a nation must always have of an hereditary power.  How sublime, sire, will be in the annals of history this regeneration, which gives citizens to France, to Frenchmen a country, to the king a fresh title of greatness and glory, and a new source of happiness!”

The king then withdrew, being accompanied to the Tuileries by the entire Assembly; the procession with difficulty making its way through the immense throng of people which rent the air with acclamations of joy.  Military music and repeated salvos of artillery taught France that the nation and the king, the throne and liberty, were reconciled in the constitution, and that after three years of struggles, agitations, and shocks, the day of concord had dawned.  These acclamations of the people in Paris spread throughout the empire.  France had some days of delirium.  The hopes which softened men’s hearts, brought back their old feelings for its king.  The prince and his family were incessantly called to the windows of their palace to receive the applause of the crowds.  They sought to make them feel how sweet is the love of a people.

The proclamation of the constitution on the 18th had the character of a religious fete.  The Champ-de-Mars was covered with battalions of the national guard.  Bailly, mayor of Paris, the municipal authorities, the department, public functionaries, and all the people betook themselves thither.  One hundred and one cannon shots hailed the reading of the constitutional act, made to the nation from the top of the altar of the country.  One cry of Vive la Nation! uttered by 300,000 voices, was the acceptation by the people.  The citizens embraced, as members of one family.  Balloons, bearing patriotic inscriptions, rose in the evening in the Champs Elysees, as if to bear to the skies the testimony of the joy of a regenerated people.  Those who went up in them threw out copies of the book of the constitution.  The night was splendid with illuminations.  Garlands of flames, running from tree to tree, formed, from the Arc de l’Etoile to the Tuileries, a sparkling avenue, crowded with the population of Paris.  At intervals, orchestras filled with musicians sounded forth the pealing notes of glory and public joy.  M. de La Fayette rode on horseback at the head of his staff.  His presence seemed to place the oaths of the people and the king under the guard of the armed citizens.  The king, the queen, and their children appeared in