XIV.

The king, surrounded by his ministers, entered the Assembly at three o’clock:  lengthened cries of Vive le roi for a moment checked his speaking.  “Gentlemen,” said Louis XVI., “after the completion of the constitution, you have resolved on to-day terminating your labours.  It would have been desirable, perhaps, that your session should have been prolonged in order that you, yourselves, should prove your work.  But you have wished, no doubt, to mark by this the difference which should exist between the functions of a constituent body and ordinary legislators.  I will exercise all the power you have confided to me in assuring to the constitution the respect and obedience due to it.  For you, gentlemen, who, during a long and painful career, have evinced an indefatigable zeal in your labours, there remains a last duty to fulfil when you are scattered over the face of the empire; it is to enlighten your fellow citizens as to the spirit of the laws you have made; to purify and unite opinions by the example you will give to the love of order and submission to the laws.  Be, on your return to your homes, the interpreters of my sentiments to your fellow-citizens; tell them that the king will always be their first and most faithful friend—­that he desires to be loved by them, and can only be happy with them and by them.”

The president replied to the king:—­“The National Assembly having arrived at the termination of its career, enjoys, at this moment, the first fruit of its labours.  Convinced that the government best suited to France is that which reconciles the respected prerogatives of the throne with the inalienable rights of the people, it has given to the state a constitution which equally guarantees royalty and liberty.  Our successors, charged with the onerous burden of the safety of the empire, will not misunderstand their rights, nor the limits of the constitution:  and you, sire, you have almost completed every thing—­by accepting the Constitution, you have consummated the Revolution.”

The king departed amidst loud acclamations.  It appeared that the National Assembly was in haste to lay down the responsibility of events which it no longer felt itself capable of controlling.  “The National Assembly declares,” says Target, its president, “that its mission is finished, and that, at this moment, it terminates its sittings.”

The people, who crowded round the Manege, and saw with pain the Revolution abdicated into the hands of the king, insulted, as it recognised them, the members of the Right—­even Barnave.  They experienced even on the first day the ingratitude they had so often fomented.  They separated in sorrow and in discouragement.