The King, at last aroused, appeared in person in the National Assembly, and announced the withdrawal of the troops from Paris and the recall of Necker. But general mistrust was alive in every bosom, and disorders still continued to a frightful extent, even in the provinces. "In Brittany the towns appointed new municipalities, and armed a civic guard from the royal magazines. In Caen the people stormed the citadel and killed the officers of the salt-tax. Nowhere were royal intendants seen. The custom-houses, at the gates of the provincial cities, were demolished. In Franche-Comté a noble castle was burned every day. All kinds of property were exposed to the most shameful robbery." Then took place the emigration of the nobles, among whom were Condé, Polignac, Broglie, to organize resistance to the revolution which had already conquered the King. Meanwhile, the triumphant Assembly, largely recruited by the liberal nobles and the clergy, continued its sessions, decreed its sittings permanent and its members inviolable. The sittings were stormy; for everybody made speeches, written or oral, yet few had any power of debate. Even Mirabeau himself, before whom all succumbed, was deficient in this talent. He could thunder; he could arouse or allay passions; he seemed able to grasp every subject, for he used other people's brains; he was an incarnation of eloquence,--but he could not reply to opponents with much effect, like Pitt, Webster, and Gladstone. He was still the leading man in the kingdom; all eyes were directed towards him; and no one could compete with him, not even Sieyès. The Assembly wasted days in foolish debates. It had begun its proceedings with the famous declaration of the rights of man,--an abstract question, first mooted by Rousseau, and re-echoed by Jefferson. Mirabeau was appointed with a committee of five to draft the declaration,--in one sense, a puerile fiction, since men are not "born free," but in a state of dependence and weakness; nor "equal," either in regard to fortune, or talents, or virtue, or rank: but in another sense a great truth, so far as men are entitled by nature to equal privileges, and freedom of the person, and unrestricted liberty to get a living according to their choice.