At an early hour the Assembly adjourned. Couriers from the hall hastened to expectant Paris with the glad tidings. The most fervid imagination can not conceive the joyful enthusiasm which the intelligence excited in the metropolis and throughout France. The king and his court were at this time a few miles from Versailles, in the Palace of Marly. The clergy and the nobles, in consternation, sent a committee of their most prominent members to implore the interposition of the royal power.[111] But the king had not sufficient nerve for so decisive an act. It was urged that the nobility and the clergy should immediately combine in forming a united body which should constitute an upper house; and thus naturally the kingdom would have fallen into a monarchy like that of England, with its House of Lords and its House of Commons. This would have been a most salutary reform, and would have prepared the way for the gradual and safe advance of the nation from servitude to freedom. But, with madness almost inconceivable, the high nobility with contempt repelled all idea of union.[112] They deemed it a degradation to form a permanent association with the lower clergy and with men who had been within a few centuries ennobled by a decree of the king. Thus the formation of two separate chambers was rendered impossible by the folly of those very men whose existence depended upon it. Thus all was confusion and dismay with the nobles and the clergy, while unanimity and vigor pervaded every movement of the Assembly.[113] In this state of affairs a large proportion of the clergy, composing nearly all the parish ministers, were in favor of uniting with the Assembly. The Duke of Orleans also, among the nobility, led a small minority of the nobles in advocacy of the same measure. But the court generally entreated the king immediately to dissolve the Assembly, by violence if needful. The popular excitement in Paris and in Versailles became intense. The only hope of the people was in the Assembly. Its dissolution left them hopeless and in despair. The king was vacillating, intensely anxious to crush the popular movement, now become so formidable, but still fearing to adopt those energetic measures by which alone it could be accomplished. He at length decided, in accordance with that system of folly with which the court seems to have been inspired, to resort to the very worst measure which could have been adopted. On Friday the 17th of June the majority of the clergy, consisting of a few prelates and about one hundred and forty curates, resolved to withdraw from the dignitaries of the Church and unite with the people, in the Assembly, the next day. The prospect of such an accession to the popular branch struck consternation into the ranks of the privileged classes. A delegation of bishops and nobles in the night hastened to the king at Marly, and persuaded him to interfere to prevent the junction.