During this day, while the parisians were so active for it’s safety, the national assembly was employed in forming a committee, to be charged with digesting the plan of a constitution, for the deliberation of the whole body: to secure the rights of the people on the eternal principles of reason and justice; and thereby to guarantee the national dignity and respectability. Towards the evening, the uncertainty of what was passing at Paris, the mysterious conduct of the cabinet, the presence of the troops at Versailles, the substantiated facts, and the suspected proscriptions, gave to this sitting the involuntary emotions, that must naturally be produced by the approach of a catastrophe, which was to decide the salvation or destruction of a state. Mirabeau, firm to his point, showed the necessity of insisting on the sending away the troops without delay; and soon after the viscount de Noailles, arriving from Paris, informed them, that the arms had been taken from the _hôtel des invalides_; and that the Bastille was actually besieged. The first impulse was for them to go altogether, and endeavour to open the king’s eyes; but, after some reflection, a numerous deputation was nominated;—to insist on the removal of the troops; and to speak to his majesty with that energetic frankness, so much more necessary as he was deceived by every person by whom he was surrounded. Whilst they were absent, two persons, sent by the electors of Paris, informed the assembly of the taking of the Bastille, and the other events of the day; which were repeated to them, when they returned with the king’s vague answer. A second deputation was then immediately sent, to inform him of these circumstances:—To which he replied—‘You more and more distress my heart, by the recitals you bring me of the miseries of Paris. But I cannot believe, that the orders which I have given to the troops, is the cause of them: I have, therefore, nothing to add to the answer that you have already received from me.’ This reply tended to increase the general alarm; and they determined again to prolong the sitting all night; either to be ready to receive the enemy in their sacred function, or to make a last effort near the throne to succour the metropolis. Nothing could surpass the anxious suspense of this situation; for the most resolute of the deputies were uneasy respecting their fate, because their personal safety was connected with the salvation of France. Their nocturnal conversation naturally turned on the late events that had taken place at Paris; the commotions in the provinces; and the horrours of famine, ready to consume those whom a civil war spared. The old men sought for an hour of repose upon the tables and carpets; the sick rested on the benches.—All saw the sword suspended over them, and over their country—and all feared a morrow still more dreadful.