Then, for the first time, the assembly sought to stop the progress of emigration by a decree; but this decree was a difficult question. If they punished those who left the kingdom, they violated the maxims of liberty, rendered sacred by the declaration of rights; if they did not raise obstacles to emigration, they endangered the safety of France, as the nobles merely quitted it in order to invade it. In the assembly, setting aside those who favoured emigration, some looked only at the right, others only at the danger, and every one sided with or opposed the restrictive law, according to his mode of viewing the subject. Those who desired the law, wished it to be mild; but only one law could be practicable at such a moment, and the assembly shrank from enacting it. This law, by the arbitrary order of a committee of three members, was to pronounce a sentence of civil death on the fugitive, and the confiscation of his property. "The horror expressed on the reading of this project," cried Mirabeau, "proves that this is a law worthy of being placed in the code of Draco, and cannot find place among the decrees of the national assembly of France. I proclaim that I shall consider myself released from every oath of fidelity I have made towards those who may be infamous enough to nominate a dictatorial commission. The popularity I covet, and which I have the honour to enjoy, is not a feeble reed; I wish it to take root in the soil, based on justice and liberty." The exterior position was not yet sufficiently alarming for the adoption of such a measure of safety and revolutionary defence.