Immediately after this scene Necker sent in his resignation. On the morning of the 24th, this was known in Paris, and produced consternation and a run on the banks. To reassure the public, Necker was immediately reinstated, on the basis that Louis should accept, as now seemed inevitable, the fusion of the orders. On the 25th, a large group of nobles headed by the Duc d'Orleans and the Comte de Clermont Tonnerre joined the assembly, and a week later the Assemblee Nationale was fully constituted, the three orders merged into one. During the two months through which this great constitutional struggle had lasted, the assembly had had a great moral force behind it, a moral force that was fast tending to become something more. The winter of 1788-89 had been one of the most severe of the century. There had been not only the almost chronic shortage of bread, but weather of {60} extraordinary rigour. In the city of Paris the Seine is reported to have been frozen solid, while the suffering among its inhabitants was unparalleled. As an inevitable consequence of this riots broke out. In January there had been food riots in many parts of France that taxed severely the military resources of the Government. They continued during the electoral period, and were occasionally accompanied by great violence. And when the deputies assembled at Versailles there was behind them a great popular force, already half unloosed, that looked to the States-General for appeasement or for guidance. The procedure which the Third Estate and National Assembly stumbled into, gave this popular force an opportunity for expressing itself. The public was admitted to the opening session, and it continued to come to those that followed. From the public galleries came the loudest sounds of applause that greeted the patriotic orator. The Parisian public quickly fell into the way of making the journey to Versailles to join in these demonstrations, and soon transferred them from the hall of the assembly to the street outside. Mirabeau, Sieyes, Mounier, and other popular members were constantly receiving ovations--and soon learnt to {61} convert them into political weapons; while members who were suspected of reactionary tendencies, especially the higher clergy, met with hostile receptions. And all this, well known both to Court and assembly, was but a faint echo of the great force rumbling steadily twelve miles away in the city of Paris. The leaders of the assembly did not scruple to use this pressure of public opinion, of popular violence, for all it was worth. And placed as they were it was not surprising that they should have done so. The deputies were only a small group of men in the great royal city garrisoned with all the traditions of the French royalty and 5,000 sabres and bayonets besides. It was natural that they should seek support then, even if that support meant violence, lawlessness or insurrection.