IX.] THE GREAT REVOLUTION. 167 her bed-room, while she fled to the king's rooms, and La Fayette cleared the palace of the mob ; but in the morn- ing they were all howling for " the Austrian." She came out on the balcony with her son and daughter. " No children " was the cry, and she sent them back and stood alone, expecting the death-shot, but no one durst give it. The people were for that time satisfied by bringing the whole royal family back into Paris, where they were lodged in the Tuilleries and carefully watched, lest they should make any attempt to raise a party elsewhere and check the revolution. 8. The New Constitution, 1790. — The National As- sembly, called the Constituejit_Assejjibl)r from its work of drawing up a constitution, swept away all the titles and privileges of nobility. It decreed that church pro- perty belonged to the nation, and that the endowments of all the bishoprics, abbeys, chapters, and parishes should be taken by the State, fixed salaries being given to the bishops and clergy. The huge amount of Church property could not at once be disposed of, and government issued promissory notes, which were called assignats, but which in the great scarcity of coin were not worth nearly so much as the sums they were supposed to represent. The clergy were required to bind themselves to strict obedience to the State, and, as this was contrary to canonical obedience to the pope, many of them refused, and were expelled from their preferments. The parlia- ments of the different parts of the kingdom were abolished. The ancient provinces, representing the states out of which France had been made up, were abolished, and the country divided into Departments. Avignon and the Venaissin, which belonged to the pope, though surrounded by France, were annexed ; and the rights which still belonged to certain German nobles over parts of Elsass were extinguished. The king consented to everything in a sort of helpless despair. The queen hoped to come to terms and save some shreds of power, and held conferences with Mirabeau, the only person of reasonable views v/ho had power to control the Jacobins ; but when Mirabeau died in 1791, hope went with him, and the king's brothers and aunts fled from France ; only his sister Elizabeth remained to share his fate. The royal family made one attempt to escape, but were seized at Varennes and brought back amid savage insults, the revolutionary party being persuaded that their object was to bring back the
