Its work was prodigious, its means a nullity; all that enthusiasm can inspire, the Assembly undertook and perfected, without a king, without a military leader, without a dictator, without an army, without any other strength than deep conviction.  Alone, in the midst of an amazed people, with a disbanded army, an emigrating aristocracy, a despoiled clergy, a conspiring court, a seditious city, hostile Europe—­it did what it designed.  Such is the will, such the real power of a people—­and such is truth, the irresistible auxiliary of the men who agitate themselves for God.  If ever inspiration was visible in the prophet or ancient legislator, it may be asserted that the Constituent Assembly had two years of sustained inspiration.  France was the inspired of civilisation.

III.

Let us examine its work.  The principle of power was entirely displaced:  royalty had ended by believing that it was the exclusive depositary of power.  It had demanded of religion to consummate this robbery in the eyes of the people, by telling them that tyranny came from God, and was responsible to God only.  The long heirship of throned races had made it believed that there was a right of reigning in the blood of crowned families.  Government instead of being a function had become a possession; the king master instead of being chief.  This misplaced principle displaced everything.  The people became a nation, the king a crowned magistrate.  Feudality, subaltern royalty, assumed the rank of actual property.  The clergy, which had had institutions and inviolable property, was now only a body paid by the state for a sacred service.  It was from this only one step to receiving a voluntary salary for an individual service.  The magistracy ceased to be hereditary.  They left it its unremoveability to confirm its independence.  It was an exception to the principle of offices when a dismissal was possible, a semi-sovereignty of justice—­but it was one step towards the truth.  The legislative power was distinct from the executive power.  The nation in an assembly freely chosen, declared its will, and the hereditary and irresponsible king executed it.  Such was the whole mechanism of the Constitution—­a people—­a king—­a minister.  But the king irresponsible, and consequently passive, was evidently a concession to custom, the respectful fiction of suppressed royalty.

IV.

He was no longer will; for to will is to do.  He was not a functionary; for the functionary acts and replies.  The king did not reply.  He was but a majestic inutility in the constitution.  The functions destroyed, they left the functionary.  He had but one attribute, the suspensive veto, which consisted of his right to suspend, for three years, the execution of the Assembly’s decrees.  He was an obstacle; legal, but impotent for the wishes of the nation.  It was evident that the Constituent