On July 7th Talleyrand spoke for the first time in the Assembly, and made a great impression. The question had been raised whether the deputies should still consider themselves bound by the instructions given them by the electors. Talleyrand, Sieyès and Mirabeau urged the abandonment of these _cahiers_, and carried it by a huge majority. Lytton defends Talleyrand’s action, and it is intelligible enough. The chief point of his subtle and rather formal speech is that the new Assembly is deliberative, and that therefore “imperative” instructions would only hamper its usefulness. Meantime the situation outside grows serious. Necker is dismissed, Paris is breaking prisons, troops are gathering thick round the capital and Versailles. Talleyrand marks the ascendancy of the violent Mirabeau. On the 13th the Assembly, receiving an unsatisfactory reply from the King, formally demands the withdrawal of the troops, censures the King’s advisers, decrees the consolidation of the national debt, and declares its sitting permanent. After a short adjournment during the night they meet with grave looks at five on the Tuesday morning, and settle down to the work of forming a committee to prepare the constitution.[16] Deputies and spectators run in and out all the morning—the Queen and nobles are mixing with the soldiers in the orangery, the Parisians are arming, the air is thick with plots and rebellion. The Prince de Lambesc gallops past for Paris. Deputies fancy they hear the sound of cannon. At last the heroic nerve of the Assembly fails, and Mirabeau proposes that they send a deputation to the King. Then the Vicomte de Noailles and others from Paris are announced, and walk up the great hall amidst a strained silence. The streets of Paris are red with blood; the people are storming the Bastille, the symbol of the old order. About midnight they hear that the Bastille has fallen. They separate about two, but reassemble early in the morning, and send deputation after deputation to the distracted monarch, who has been awakened from his sleep to be told there is “a revolution.” As the fifth delegation is going, with a ferocious message from Mirabeau, King Louis is announced, and is received with chilling silence. But he makes a fine speech, and promises everything—to disband the troops, recall Necker, and so on.