196 Jeanette Needham. 
calumnies, the assembly proposed an address to the king in 
exposition of its true principles,’’ an address which should show 
also that corrupting the power of the monarch to the point of 
causing him to change its nature is to commit a crime of /éze- 
majesté against him and that making him doubt, for an instant, 
the inviolable fidelity of the French to his person, is a crime of 
léze-nation.” 
“But the total union of the national representatives in the 
same assembly occurred to render useless these unfortunate pre- 
cautions for which a faithful people should never recognize the 
necessity. From the first instant of this union, hatred and 
rivalries have disappeared. ... The king has finally learned 
that the court is not his people.’’ Then rising to a broader 
conception of the assembly’s mission after the final union of the 
orders, he declared that it was under the ‘‘rule of public opinion”’ 
rather than the ‘‘reign of custom,”’ that the constitution of the 
state was to be framed. ‘The time is past,” he fearlessly pro- 
claimed, ‘‘when, under the imposing veil of constitutional rights, 
a small number of representatives has too much power to limit 
and where the great number never has enough to act; where a 
privileged class can oppose the general welfare and the less 
numerous portion of the nation constantly prevails over the 
entire nation. The power of public opinion will finally destroy 
the bondage of abuses; the courageous and enlightened -patri- 
otism which animates all the national representatives will at 
last effect the grandest revolution which has occurred upon the 
earth, when the constitution of a great realm shall have been 
watered, neither with tears nor with blood.” 
How this sublime augury was actually to work out, Arthur 
Young foretold with almost prophetic vision, it might seem, 
when he gave his views on the ultimate significance of the union 
of June 27. Of the king’s action, he wrote: ‘“‘He was thus 
induced to take this step which is of such importance, that he 
will never more know where to stop or what to refuse; or rather, 
he will find that in the future arrangement of his kingdom, his 
situation will be very nearly that of Charles I, a spectator, 
without power, of the resolutions of a long parliament.’’ That 
the act of union carried with it the triumph of the third estate, 
310 
