These generalities being adopted, the assembly turned its attention to the organization of the legislative power. This was one of its most important objects; it was to fix the nature of its functions, and establish its relations with the king. In this discussion the assembly had only to decide the future condition of the legislative power. Invested as it was with constituent authority, it was raised above its own decisions, and no intermediate power could suspend or prevent its mission. But what should be the form of the deliberative body in future sessions? Should it remain indivisible, or be divided into two chambers? If the latter form should be adopted, what should be the nature of the second chamber? Should it be made an aristocratic assembly, or a moderative senate? And, whatever the deliberative body might be, was it to be permanent or periodical, and should the king share the legislative power with it? Such were the difficulties that agitated the assembly and Paris during the month of September. If we consider the position of the assembly and its ideas of sovereignty, we shall easily understand the manner in which these questions were decided. It regarded the king merely as the hereditary agent of the nation, having neither the right to assemble its representatives nor that of directing or suspending them. Accordingly, it refused to grant him the initiative in making laws and dissolving the assembly. It considered that the legislative body ought not to be dependent on the king. It moreover feared that by granting the government too strong an influence over the assembly, or by not keeping the latter always together, the prince might profit by the intervals in which he would be left alone, to encroach on the other powers, and perhaps even to destroy the new system. Therefore to an authority in constant activity, they wished to oppose an always existing assembly, and the permanence of the assembly was accordingly declared. The debate respecting its indivisibility, or its division, was very animated. Necker, Mounier, and Lally-Tollendal desired, in addition to a representative chamber, a senate, to be composed of members to be appointed by the king on the nomination of the people. They considered this as the only means of moderating the power, and even of preventing the tyranny of a single assembly. They had as partisans such members as participated in their ideas, or who hoped to form part of the upper chamber. The majority of the nobility did not wish for a house of peers, but for an aristocratic assembly, whose members it should elect. They could not agree; Mounier's party refusing to fall in with a project calculated to revive the orders, and the aristocracy refusing to accept a senate, which would confirm the ruin of the nobility. The greater portion of the deputies of the clergy and of the commons were in favour of the unity of the assembly. The popular party considered it illegal to appoint