After this defiance of the royal authority, the Queen and the court would gladly have obtained the dissolution of the States. Difficulties, however, stood in the way. The financial embarrassments of the Government were still unrelieved. Further, it was clearly impossible for the King to cause his commands to be obeyed, unless he was prepared to appeal to military force, and the consequences of so doing were exceedingly doubtful. Class distinctions prevailed in the army as in other institutions of the old system. The officers, who were all noble, lived in luxury, largely on perquisites made at the men’s expense. The men, cheated of their pay, badly fed, and subjected to a harsh discipline, bitterly resented their wrongs, and despised and hated their officers. If an attempt were made to use intimidation there was great probability that resistance would be offered, that Paris would rise, and that the troops would refuse to fire on the insurgents. Louis was never willing to take decided action, and, for the time, the deputies of the Third Estate were left in enjoyment of victory. The King himself requested the nobles and ecclesiastics, who still kept aloof, to abandon further struggle, and thus after a delay of seven weeks the three Estates were finally constituted as one assembly. ♦Excitement in Paris.♦ The evil consequences of that delay were already but too plainly apparent. Since the meeting of the Estates agitation in Paris had spread from day to day. The Government, unable to use arbitrary and violent means of obtaining order, could no longer effectively perform its duties, because no trust was reposed in it. Political liberty threatened to degenerate rapidly into anarchy. No moral restraints existed amongst a people for centuries unaccustomed to self-government. There was no political organisation, and no standard of political morality. There were no recognised leaders weighted with a sense of responsibility, nor journals with a character to maintain. Appeals were made to the lowest passions, rumours and libels circulated without question of their truth or justice. The fiercer and more bitter his language, the more sure was the orator or journalist to gain a hearing and exert influence.