To return to the epoch at which we are arrived. To quell the capital and subdue the deputies, the king and his counsellors summoned troops to surround Paris. Fifteen regiments, composed chiefly of foreigners, advanced. It became evident that the design was formed of using the bayonet, to which Mirabeau had referred, as the only power to which they would submit. He now again came forward to stop the progress of the evil. He proposed an address to the king, demanding that the march of the troops should be countermanded. He still preserved a respectful style towards the monarch, but he did not spare the measures of government, and exposed in open day the direct approach of war and massacre. His speech was covered with applause, and he was commissioned to draw up an address to the king. It was short and forcible: it prophesied, with sagacity, the dangers that must ensue from the presence of the military; it protested with dignity against the force about to be exercised against the assembly, and declared the resolution of the deputies, in spite of snares, difficulties, and terror, to prosecute their task and regenerate the kingdom. "For the first time," says madame de Staël, "France heard that popular eloquence whose natural power is augmented by the importance of events." "It was by Mirabeau," Brougham observes, "that the people were first made to feel the force of the orator, first taught what it was to hear spoken reason and spoken passion; and the silence of ages in those halls was first broken by the thunder of his voice, echoing through the lofty vaults now covering multitudes of excited men."