"You ask," he said, "how, from being deputies, we have made ourselves a convention. I will tell you. The day when, finding our assembly-room shut, bristling and defiled with bayonets, we hastened to the first place that could contain us, and swore that we would perish rather than abandon the interests of the people--on that day, if we were not a convention, we became one. Let them now go and hunt out of the useless nomenclature of civilians the definition of the words National Convention! Gentlemen, you all know the conduct of that Roman who, to save his country from a great conspiracy, had been obliged to outstep the powers conferred upon him by the laws. A captious tribune required from him the oath that he had respected them. He thought, by that insidious proposal, to leave the consul no alternative but perjury or an embarrassing avowal. 'I swear,' said that great man, 'that I have saved the republic.' Gentlemen, we also swear that we have saved the commonwealth." This sublime apostrophe brought the whole Assembly to its feet. The charge of usurpation was not repeated. A great effort was at the same time made to compel the Assembly to adopt the resolution that the "Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion is, and shall ever be, the religion of the nation, and that its worship is the only one authorized." As one of the court party was urging this resolve, and quoting, as a precedent, some intolerant decree of Louis XIV., Mirabeau sent dismay to the heart of the court by exclaiming, "And how should not every kind of intolerance have been consecrated in a reign signalized by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes?" Then, pointing to a window of the Louvre, he continued, in deep and solemn tones which thrilled through every heart, "Do you appeal to history? Forget not that from this very hall I behold the window whence a king of France, armed against his people by an execrable faction that disguised personal interest under the cloak of religion, fired his musket and gave the signal for the massacre of St. Bartholomew!" The effect was electric, and the spirit of intolerance was crushed. The true Christian charity which the Assembly assumed was cordially accepted by the mass of the nation. We love to record the fact that the great majority of the Catholic population were delighted to see the Protestants restored to their civil and religious rights. Even Michelet, hostile as he is to all revealed religion, testifies: "The unanimity was affecting, and one of the sights the most worthy to call down the blessing of God upon earth. In many parts the Catholics went to the temple of the Protestants, and united with them to return thanks to Providence together. On the other hand the Protestants attended at the Catholic _Te Deum_. Far above all the altars, every temple and every church, a divine ray had appeared in heaven."[249] In every place where the Protestants were in the majority they presented the most affecting spectacle of fraternity.