If we would be just we must admit that during the revolution there were heroes on both sides, among the monarchists as well as the revolutionaries. Among the monarchists--to name a few of the more notable--were the King, the Queen and Charlotte Corday. On the revolutionary side we can muster practically all of the leaders, who sooner or later almost all perished on the scaffold for their principles, and we can familiarize ourselves with these men through David’s portraits. The outward events of the beginning of the revolution are well known. The financial difficulties of the Government compelled the King and his Advisors to convene the States General, which had not met for generations. The elections of the deputies had already roused popular passion, and when the Government, after the Assembly had convened, endeavored to establish the old order in which all the power was vested in the upper classes and the Third Estate had none, revolt broke loose. Under Mirabeau’s leadership the representatives of the Third Estate left the Assembly, and met, for lack of other quarters, in the Jeu de Paume (the Tennis Court), where they took oath not to dissolve until they had established a new constitution. This “Oath of the Tennis Court” was immortalized by David in a famous composition of which only sketches by David and paintings after his cartoon by other artists have been preserved.[5] [Illustration: FIG. 12. PORTRAIT OF BARÈRE (1793) _Palais, Versailles_] It was a year later, when the Revolutionary Assembly had established its power, that it recalled that great day of the beginning of the revolution and commissioned David to paint the picture. It is again the German poet Halem, who describes the circumstances for us, in a letter written by him after a visit to the Jacobin Club. He writes: “After continued speechifying, Dubois de Crancé, a member of the National Assembly, rose and recalled to the memory of those present that day on June 20th of the preceding year, when six hundred harried and unarmed Deputies, surrounded, as he put it, ‘by the Oriental pomp and the bayonets of despotism,’ laid the cornerstone of French freedom by the well-known oath of the tennis court at Versailles. Never could he recall this event, said he, without his heart beating faster, without a glow of patriotic feeling. He proposed the formulation of an address to the assembly in which they should be asked to sanction (1.) That the tennis court, grave of despotism and cradle of freedom, be declared a national monument, closed, and dedicated to stillness.... (2.) That the wonderful moment of this first oath be perpetuated by a painting 120′ high and 30′ wide, painted by the greatest of the French masters, and hung in the National Convention. ‘I say,’ he continued, ‘by the greatest of the masters, and to whom else could I refer than to him who so nobly depicted Brutus and the Oath of the Horatii?’ The vaulted hall rang with loud cries of assent. David the painter was present.