On the 5th of Slay, the three estates having assembled in the common-hall, the king opened the session by a temperate speech, which was much applauded, after which the clergy and nobility withdrew to their separate rooms to deliberate among themselves. The third estate remained in the common-hall, and in the following sittings proposed that the three orders should assemble and deliberate together, which the other two refused. On the 10th the third estate elected Bailly for their president; and on the following day they were joined by several deputies of the clergy. On tho 17th, on the motion of the Abb6 Sidyes, the third eatate, joiocd by many of the clergy, constituted themselves as a national assembly, and reaolved that as soon as that assembly should be prorogued or dissolved all taxes not sanctioned by it should cease to be legaL The court was alarmed at these innovations, and the king announced that ho was going to hold a royal sitting. Meantime the doors of the hall of the assembly were closed, and a guard placed there to prevent the deputies from entering. Bailly led them, on the 20th to the 'Jen de paume,' where they swore not to separate until they had framed and enforced a new couatitutiou for the kingdom, and the redress of existieg grievances. On the 23rd the king convoked the three estates in the common-hall, and after qualifying the reaelutions of the 17th preceding as illegal, ordered the estates to leave the hall, and withdraw each to their appropriate chamber, to deliberate there upon certain aubjects whioh he laid before them. After the king's departure, the third estate, joined by part of the clergy, refused to leave the hall, and when the grandmaster of the ceremonies came to enforce the kings order, Mirabeau answered him, that they were there to fulfil their duty towards their constituents, and that force alone should disperse them. On the 25th, part of the deputies of the nobility joined tho third estate, and the nano of National Assembly was publicly recognised.
The events that followed rapidly are too numerous and too generally known to be inserted in this article. The Natioual Assembly, by the constitution it formed, changed the old French monarchy into representative republic, with a single chamber aud an hereditary magistrate with the name of king, whose power however was rendered insiguificaut aud nugatory. They suppresaed not only the feudal jurisdictions, but also the manorial dues and fees, the titles of nobility, the tithes, convents, and the corporations of trades; they confiscated the property of the Church ; they abolished the old division of the kingdom by provinces, and ordered a now one by departments; they changed entirely the social relations of the country, so that even Mirabeau was startled at the rapidity with which they were legislatiug, and began to express ominous doubts of the result, (Dumout, 'Sousa). nira de Mirabeau.') " It is easy to destroy," ho said, "but we want men able to reconstruct." Paine'a pamphlet ou the suppoacd Rights of Man' was gravely assumed by that assembly as the basis of their political theory. 31eautime insurrections broke out in Paris and in the provinces ; not ouly the abominable Bastille was taken and destroyed (July 1789), but the ch0teaux, or manorial residences of the nobility, all about the country, were attacked and burnt, with many acts of atrocity. On the 6th of October the palace of Versailles was entered by a mob from Paris, the body-guards were murdered, the royal family were in great danger, and at lad the king consented to remove to Paris, whither he was escorted by the armed populace.
On the same day the famous club of the Jacobins began its meetiuge at Paris. The emigration of the nobles had already begun : several members of the royal family repaired to Germany and Italy. The year 1790 wan passed amidst alarms and insurrections hi the iuterior, and rumours of foreign war, amidst which the assembly coutinued its labours for the new orgaoisatiou of France. It passed a law requiring of all the clergy the oath of fidelity to the new constitutiOu : the pope forbade the oath as schismatic, aud many of the French clergy refused to take it, but they were diamissed from their fuuctions And replaced by others more docile, who however had not the confidence of the more religious among their flocks : thus religious schism was added to civil feuds. Tho king himself was obliged to send away his chaplains. He had by this time become weary of being a mere puppet iu the hands of the assembly, which had despoiled him of almost every royal prerogative, even of the right of pardoning ; the veto,' or power of suspending for a time the passiug of an obnoxious law, had also become illusory, for whenever he attempted to exercise it an insurrection broke out, which, by frightening the court, obliged the king to submit.
lu June 1791, Louis, with his consort, his sister, and his children, endeavoured to escape from France, but was atopped at Varennes, and brought back to Paris. In the following September the assembly, having completed the new constitution for Frauce, preseuted it to Louis, who, after making some remarka ou what he conceived to be its deficiences, swore to observe it. This act acquired him a few moments' popularity : and the assembly, having atated that the object for which it had met was completed, closed its sittings on tho 30th •September. If that assembly committed errors, they were errors of judgment, for the majority were certainly sincere in wishing to maintain the kingly office, which they thought compatible with democratic institutions. Through a mistaken delicacy however they committed a very serious blunder before they parted ; for they resolved that no member of that assembly should be eligible to the next assembly of the representatives of the nation, which became known by the name of the legislative assembly, and which was com posed of much worse materials. The majority in the legislative assembly were men hostile to the monarchical principle altogether; they were divided between Girondins and Jacobins. They began by sequestrating the property of the emigrants ; they issued intolerant decrees against the priests who would not swear to the constitution, and by these means obliged them to run away from France ; they treated the king with marked disrespect, dismissed his guards, pro voked the war against Austria and Prussia, encouraged republicau manifestations in various pelts of the country, and even in the army, established extraordinary courts to judge the emigrants and other people disaffected to the new order of things (the word "incivisme " was invented to designate this new offence), and issued an enormous quantity of paper money, which quickly becoming depreciated, added to the general misery.