The monarchy was demolished, in imitation of the Bastille, at the evening sitting of the National Assembly on the 4th of August. They who, from hatred of the past, decry the nobility to this day, forget that it was a member of that body, the Vicomte de Noailles[353], supported by the Duc d'Aiguillon[354] and Matthieu de Montmorency[355], who upset the edifice which was the object of the revolutionary onslaughts. Upon the motion of the feudal delegate were abolished all feudal rights: rights of hunting and preserving feathered and ground game, tithes and champerty, the privileges of the orders, of the towns and provinces, personal servitude, manorial jurisdiction, purchase of offices. The severest blows struck against the ancient constitution of the State were delivered by noblemen. The patricians began the Revolution, the plebeians completed it: just as old France owed her glory to the French nobility, even so does young France owe to it her liberty, if liberty there be for France. [Sidenote: "Ô Richard! Ô mon Roi!"] The troops encamped around Paris had been sent away, and by one of those contradictory counsels which vexed the will of the King, the Flanders Regiment was summoned to Versailles. The Bodyguards invited the officers of that regiment to dinner[356]; heads grew excited; the Queen appeared in the middle of the banquet, with the Dauphin; toasts were drunk to the health of the Royal Family; the King came in his turn; the military band played the touching and favourite air, "_Ô Richard! ô mon roi[357]!_" No sooner was this news spread through Paris, than it was seized upon by the opposite opinion; people cried that Louis was refusing his sanction to the Declaration of Rights with the intention of escaping to Metz with the Comte d'Estaing[358]. Marat propagated this rumour: he was already writing the _Ami du peuple_[359].