all the sentiments of the king; that she united with all her heart and mind in the measure which his love for his people had just dictated to him.”  And then, bringing the dauphin forward, she added:  “Behold my son.  I shall unceasingly speak to him of the virtues of his most excellent father.  I shall teach him from the earliest age to cherish public liberty, and I hope that he will be its firmest bulwark.”

For a moment the step seemed to have succeeded, though the proofs of its success were still more strongly proofs of the utter want of sense that marked all the proceedings of the Assembly.  As Louis had expressed his assent to the Constitution so far as it was settled, it was proposed, as a fitting compliment to him, that the Assembly and the whole body of the citizens of Paris should take an oath of fidelity to the Constitution without any such reservation.  But in the course of the next few weeks the Assembly showed how little his reproof of its former precipitation and violence had been heeded, since, among the first measures with which it proceeded to the completion of the Constitution, one deprived him of the right of deciding on peace and war, a power which all wise statesmen regard as inseparable from the executive government; another extinguished the right of primogeniture; and a third confiscated all the property of the monastic establishments.

However, those who took the lead in the management of affairs (for Necker and the ministers had long ceased to exert the slightest authority) were blinded by their own fury to the absurdity and inconsistency of their conduct.  Their exultation was unbounded, and, adhering to the line of conduct which she had marked out for herself, Marie Antoinette now yielded to their entreaties that she would show herself to the citizens at the theatre.  Even in the days of her earliest popularity she had never met a more enthusiastic reception.  The greater part of the house rose at her entrance, clapping their hands and cheering, and the disloyalty of a few malcontents only made her triumph more conspicuous, so roughly were they treated by the rest of the audience.  Marie Antoinette was herself touched at the cordiality with which she was greeted, and saw in it another proof that “the people and citizens were good at heart if left to themselves; but,” she added to the Princess de Lamballe, to whom she described the scene, “all this enthusiasm is but a gleam of light, a cry of conscience which weakness will soon stifle.[2]”

It is probably doing no injustice to Mirabeau to believe that the crimes which had made the greatest impression on the queen were not the events which affected him the most strongly.  But he was not only a statesman in intellect, but an aristocrat in every feeling of his heart.  No man was fonder of referring to his illustrious ancestors; or of claiming kindred with men of old renown, such as the Admiral de Coligny, of whom he more than once boasted in the Assembly