Necker was in exile at Basle. He had left the Polignacs in pride and power at Versailles; _they_ now were fugitives. One morning one of the Polignacs hastened to Necker's apartment and informed him of the overthrow of the court and the triumph of the people. Necker had just received these tidings when a courier placed in his hand the letter of the king recalling him to the ministry. The grandest of triumphs greeted him from the moment his carriage entered France until he was received with a delirium of joy in the streets of Paris. The people, who had with lawless violence punished Foulon and Berthier, who had conspired so inhumanly for the overthrow of their liberties, were determined that others, who with equal malignity had conspired against them, should also be condemned. Necker humanely resolved that an act of general amnesty should be passed. Many of his friends assured him that it was not safe to attempt to secure the passage of such a measure; that the crimes of the leaders of the court were too great to be thus easily forgotten; that the indignant nation, finding Necker pleading the cause of the court, would think that he had been bought over; and that thus he would only secure his own ruin. But Necker, relying upon his popularity, resolved to make the trial. On the 29th of July he repaired to the Hôtel de Ville. As he passed through the streets and entered the spacious hall, he was received with rapturous applause. Deeming his popularity equal to the emergence, he demanded a general amnesty. In the enthusiasm of the moment it was granted by acclamation. Necker retired to his apartments delighted with his success; but before the sun had set he found himself cruelly deceived. The Assembly, led by Mirabeau, remonstrated peremptorily against this usurpation of power by the Municipality of Paris, asserting that that body had no authority either to condemn or to pardon. The measure of amnesty was annulled by the Assembly, and the detention of the prisoners confirmed. The great question which now agitated the Assembly was, what measures were to be adopted to bring order out of the chaos into which France was plunged. All the old courts were virtually annihilated. No new courts had been organized with the sanction of national authority. The nobles and all their friends, in conference with the emigrants and foreign despots, were conspiring to reinstate the reign of despotic power. The people were in a state of terror. The degraded, the desperate, the vicious, in banditti hordes, were sweeping the country, burning and pillaging indiscriminately. It was proposed to publish a decree enjoining upon the people to demean themselves peaceably, to pay such taxes and duties as were not yet suppressed, and to yield obedience for the present to the old laws of the realm, obnoxious and unjust as they undeniably were.