After this determination, several members gave an account of the gross insults they had received at Paris. One in particular, who was not obnoxious to the public, narrowly escaped with life, only because he was mistaken for a deputy against whom the mob had vowed vengeance. Another, who had also been insulted, with proper spirit moved, that a decree respecting libels should instantly be passed. ‘Are we,’ he asked, ‘to be led to liberty only by licentiousness? No; the people, deceived and intoxicated, are rendered furious. How many times (he added) have I lamented the impetuosity of this assembly, who have accustomed the public, seated in our galleries, to praise, to blame, to deride our opinions, without understanding them.—And who has inspired them with this audacity?’—He was interrupted by signs of disapprobation; and personalities now disgraced the debate, in which Mirabeau mingled satirical observations and retorts, that did more credit to his abilities than to his heart. But, a day or two after, recollecting himself, he presented the plan of a decree to prevent riots, which he introduced, by saying, that it was an imitation, though not a copy, of the English riot act. The evening before the departure of the assembly for Paris, passports being still demanded with earnestness, a decree was made, ‘that passports should be granted only for a short and determinate time, on account of urgent business; and that unlimited passports, in cases of ill health, should not be granted before the deputies were replaced by their substitutes;’ and further, cutting a knot that might have revived old claims and animosities, had it been brought forward alone, they decreed, ‘that in future the substitutes should be nominated by the citizens at large; and that, eight days after the first session at Paris, there should be a call of the house; suspending till then the consideration of the propriety of printing and sending to the provinces the list of the absent deputies.’