At the first meeting of the Assembly, the three orders convened in separate departments. Here arose the first difficulty. The nobles and the clergy were unwilling to meet with the representatives of the common people, and the _tiers état_ were determined to maintain their contested rights. La Fayette advocated the cause of the _tiers état_ in the assembly of the nobles, but the aristocracy would not yield, and at the end of five weeks the States-General as a united body was still inactive. At length the _tiers état_ resolved upon momentous action. They formed themselves into a legislative body, under the name of the National Assembly, and declared their intention to accomplish political reform. The king and nobles received this unexpected news with consternation. La Fayette warmly urged a union between the departments, but the king and aristocracy refused. Louis then determined to awe these rebellious subjects to submission. He ordered the doors of the hall where the _tiers état_ usually met to be closed and guarded. When the members gathered and found their usual place of meeting denied them, they proceeded to another, and thereupon issued their defiant demand,—_A Constitution for the French People_; and they solemnly declared with oath, in view of the indignity which had been offered to them by the crown, “never to separate, and to assemble whenever circumstances should require, till the constitution of the kingdom should be established and founded on a solid basis.” At length, on the 23d of June, the king and nobles assembled in the hall formerly occupied by the _tiers état_, and after some delay the doors were opened to that body, and the king reproached them for taking the title of National Assembly, and bade them renounce it, and also commanded that the Assembly should immediately separate. The king then left the hall, followed by the nobles and part of the clergy. But scarcely had the sound of the footsteps of royalty died away ere a man arose in the Assembly. It was Mirabeau. With eyes flashing like stars from the gloomy shadows of his pock-marked, disfigured countenance, he exclaimed:— “What means this insulting dictation? this threatening display of arms? this flagrant violation of the national temple? Who is it that dictates to you the way in which you shall be happy? He who acts by your commission. Who is it that gives you imperious laws? He who acts by your commission,—the minister, who by your appointment is vested with the execution of the laws,—of laws which we only have a right to make.