The First Revolutionary Step 75 



deed were filled with the greatest patriotism; they loved their 

 country and their king as the nation's chief representative. Many 

 of them, no doubt, went even so far in their imagination as to 

 think that the king was with them and that the victory over the 

 privileged classes was already won; they could not control their 

 emotions therefore, and again and again they burst out into cries 

 of "Vive le roi!" 1 It was a beautiful dream that filled the work- 

 ing hours of the deputies of the third estate. To them, they be- 

 lieved, had fallen the magnificent task of becoming the benefac- 

 tors of twenty-five millions of Frenchmen, of setting the nation 

 in the straight road towards perfection and of making France 

 the model and the savior of the world. 



Not all the deputies were, however, happy. The great states- 

 man, the keen observer, Mirabeau, took matters more philosoph- 

 ically. Referring to his colaborers, he, in the presence of a 

 friend, exclaimed : "What a pity ! Do they imagine that all is 

 over? I should not be surprised if civil war were the fruit of 

 their pretty decree." 2 He was no doubt thinking of the difficulties 

 that confronted the national assembly. He knew that these depu- 

 ties who had no experience whatever in statesmanship had a task 

 almost superhuman before them in the regeneration and recon- 

 stitution of France. In this work of the national assembly, the 

 king, the court, the privileged classes, the nation, the national as- 

 sembly itself had to be taken into consideration. The question 

 might well be asked by a man like Mirabeau whether the social 

 and political conditions of France could be properly adjusted to 

 the ideas of the deputies of the third estate, constituting either 

 alone the national assembly or the majority party in the national 

 assembly. The failure of the national assembly to bring about 

 the necessary reforms meant,' as Mirabeau said in his speeches of 

 June 15 and June 16, revolution, anarchy, despotism. June 17 

 marked a great crisis in the French revolution, but it was only 



l Proces-verbal, no. I, 4-5: "... la salle a retenti des cris multi- 

 plies de vive le roi." 



2 Dumont, 78: "Quelle pitie! me dit Mirabeau; ils s'imaginent done que 

 tout est fini; mais je ne serais pas surpris si la guerre civile etait le fruit 

 de leur beau decret." 



75 



