assembled in the jeu de pawne "swore never to separate." 

 Threatened dissolution was the all important matter. He ex- 

 claims, further on, over "the inconceivable facility with 

 which the oath, never to separate, had been taken. It was 

 evident that to act thus was to usurp authority; it was to take 

 from the king the right to dissolve or to suspend the Estates; 

 to render onesself from that time on master of the executive 

 power. "^' 



The words of Rabaud de Saint-Etienne, describing the utter- 

 ances of the deputies as they marched to the jeu de paume 

 have already been cited. 



Malouet declared that "it was the general opinion that the 



king and the first orders desired to annihilate the Estates, have 



the patriotic deputies arrested, and establish despotism by 

 force. '^32 



The same opinion was held outside of the Assembly. Ar- 

 thur Young, who was then in Paris, wrote as follows in his 

 diarj' : "The 20th. News! News! Everyone stares at what 

 everyone might have expected. A message from the king to 

 the presidents of the three orders that he would meet them on 

 Monday; and under pretense of preparing the hall for the 

 Stance royale , the French guards are placed with bayonets to 

 prevent any of the deputies entering the room. The circum- 

 stances of doing this ill-judged act of violence have been as 

 ill-advised as the act itself. Mons. Bailly received no other 

 notice of it than by letter from the Marquis de Breze, and the 

 deputies met at the door of the hall without knowing that it 

 was shut. Thus the seeds of disgust were sown wantonly in 

 the manner of doing a thing which was in itself impalatable 

 and unconstitutional. The resolution taken on the spot was a 

 noble and firm one; it was to assemble instantly at the Jeu de 

 pauiiie^ and there the whole Assembly took a solemn oath 

 never to be dissolved but by their own consent, aiid consider 

 themselves and act as the National Assembly, let them be 

 wherever violence or fortune might drive them, and their ex* 



31 Journal, i pp. 111-113. 



32 Malouet: M^moires. 2 vols. Paris, 1868. i, p. 323. 



