The Assembly now turned its attention to the organization of the legislative body of the nation. The all-absorbing question was whether the National Congress or Parliament should meet in one chamber or in two; if in two, whether the upper house should be an aristocratic, hereditary body, like the House of Lords in the British Parliament, or an elective republican Senate, as in the American Congress. The debate was long and impassioned. The people would not consent to an _hereditary_ House of Lords, which would remain an almost impregnable fortress of aristocratic usurpation. They were, however, inclined to assent to an upper house to be composed exclusively of the clergy and the nobles, but to be elected by the people. To this arrangement the haughty lords peremptorily refused their assent. They were equally opposed to an _election_ to the upper house even by the nobles and the clergy, for the high lords and great dignitaries of the Church looked down upon the lower nobility and upon the working clergy with almost as much contempt as they regarded the people. Finding the nobles hostile to any reasonable measure, the masses of the people became more and more irritated. The vast gathering at the Palais Royal soon became unanimous in clamoring for but one chamber. The lords were their enemies, and in a house of lords they could see only a refuge for old and execrable feudality and an insurmountable barrier to reform.[211] When the vote was taken there were five hundred for a single chamber and but one hundred for two chambers.[212] It was unquestionably a calamity to France that two chambers could not have been organized. But the infatuation of the nobles now for the second time prevented this most salutary check upon hasty legislation. The next question to be decided was the _royal veto_. All were united that the laws should be presented to the king for his sanction or refusal. The only question was whether the veto should be absolute or limited. That of the King of England is absolute. That of the President of the United States is limited. All France was agitated by this question. Here the aristocracy made their last desperate stand and fought fiercely. Many of the popular party, alarmed in view of the rapid progress of events, advocated the absolute veto. Its inconsistency, however, with all enlightened principles of liberty was too apparent to be concealed. That the caprice of a single man, and he perhaps weak or dissolute, should permanently thwart the decrees of twenty-seven millions of people appeared so absurd that the whole nation rose against it.