Mirabeau hated the assumptions of the aristocracy, but he looked upon royalty as a necessary defence between the lower and the higher orders; at the same time he believed that the welfare of his country demanded that the people should have a voice in the state. [Sidenote: Oct. 25.] He expressed his opinion on this subject in a letter to his uncle the bailli. He says,--"I have always thought, and now more than ever think, that royalty is the only anchor of safety which can preserve us from shipwreck. And how many efforts I have made, and make each day, to support the executive power, and combat the distrust which induces the national assembly to go beyond the mark! For the rest, we must judge of the revolution by the good and evil of its result, not by the license which prevails at present, which forms a state too violent to be durable. I am reassured with regard to the future, by the consideration, that the revolution, be it injurious or beneficial, is, in fact, consummated. The most enlightened men feel that they must assist the change, to lessen its violence; that resistance is as useless as it must be disastrous; and that every citizen, whether zealous or indifferent, must tend to the same end,--facilitate the consolidation of the empire, and give the machine that movement which will allow us to judge of its excellence or its defects. You recommend me to support the executive power; but you will easily discern that the obstinate resistance of one order of the state, by exciting fresh causes of revenge, and producing new commotions, would destroy that power round which the supreme law of the state commands us now to rally." It was in this spirit that he spoke for the veto, though fear, perhaps, of compromising his popularity made him abstain from voting. The veto had become a sort of bugbear. When Mirabeau visited Paris, the mob thronged round his carriage, imploring him to prevent the king from having the veto. They were slaves, they said, if the king had the veto;--the national assembly was useless. "Mirabeau," says Dumont, "carried it off very well: he appeased the people; and, using only vague expressions, dismissed the mob with patrician affability."