II.

An immense crowd had attended the first sittings; the exterior aspect of the Assembly had entirely changed; almost all the white heads had disappeared, and it seemed as though France had become young again in the course of a night.  The expression of the physiognomies, the gestures, the attire of the members of the Assembly were no longer the same; that pride of the French noblesse, visible alike in the look and bearing; that dignity of the clergy and the magistrates; that austere gravity of the deputies of the Tiers etat had suddenly given place to the representatives of a new people, whose confusion and turbulence announced rather the invasion of power than the custom and the possession of supreme power.  Many members were remarkable for their youth; and when the president, by virtue of his age, summoned all the deputies who had not yet attained their twenty-sixth year, in order to form the provisional bureau, sixty young men presented themselves, and disputed the office of secretary to the Assembly.  This youth of the representatives of the nation alarmed some, whilst it rejoiced others; for if, on the one hand, such a representation did not possess that mature calmness and that authority of age that the ancient legislators sought in the council of the people; on the other, this sudden return to youth of the representatives of the nation, seemed a symptom of the regeneration of all the established institutions.  It was visible to every body that this new generation had discarded all the traditions and prejudices of the old order of things; and its very age was a guarantee opposite to established rule, and which required that every statesman should by his age give pledges for the past, whilst from these was required guarantees for the future.  Their inexperience was made a merit, their youth an oath.  Old men are needed in times of tranquillity, young ones in times of revolutions.

Scarcely was the Assembly constituted, than the twofold feeling that was destined to dispute and contest every act—­the monarchical and republican feeling—­commenced upon a frivolous pretext, a struggle, puerile in appearance, serious in reality, and in which each party in the course of two days was alternately the conqueror and the conquered.  The deputation that had waited on the king to announce to him the constitution of the Assembly, reported the result of its mission through the medium of the depute Ducastel, the president of this deputation.  “We deliberated,” said he, “as to what form of words we should make use of in addressing his majesty, as we feared to wound the national dignity or the royal dignity, and we agreed to use these terms:—­’Sire, the Assembly is formed, and has deputed us to inform your majesty.’  We proceeded to the Tuileries; the minister of justice announced to us that the king could not receive us before to-day at one o’clock.  We, however, thought that the public safety required