If the renunciation of their rights had been effected by the nobility a few years earlier, the Revolution would doubtless have been avoided, but it was now too late. To give way only when one is forced to do so merely increases the demands of those to whom one yields. In politics one should always look ahead and give way long before one is forced to do so. Louis XVI. hesitated for two months to ratify the decisions voted by the Assembly on the night of the 4th of August. He had retired to Versailles. The leaders sent thither a band of 7,000 or 8,000 men and women of the people, assuring them that the royal residence contained great stores of bread. The railings of the palace were forced, some of the bodyguard were killed, and the king and all his family were led back to Paris in the midst of a shrieking crowd, many of whom bore on the ends of their pikes the heads of the soldiers massacred. The dreadful journey lasted six hours. These events constituted what are known as the ``days'' of October. The popular power increased, and in reality the king, like the whole assembly, was henceforth in the hands of the people--that is, at the mercy of the clubs and their leaders. This popular power was to prevail for nearly ten years, and the Revolution was to be almost entirely its work. While proclaiming that the people constituted the only sovereign, the Assembly was greatly embarrassed by riots which went far beyond its theoretical expectations. It had supposed that order would be restored while it fabricated a Constitution destined to assure the eternal happiness of mankind. We know that during the whole duration of the Revolution one of the chief occupations of the assemblies was to make, unmake, and remake Constitutions. The theorists attributed to them then, as they do to-day, the power of transforming society; the Assembly, therefore, could not neglect its task. In the meantime it published a solemn Declaration of the Rights of Man which summarised its principles. The Constitution, proclamations, declarations, and speeches had not the slightest effect on the popular movements, nor on the dissentients who daily increased in number in the heart of the Assembly. The latter became more and more subjected to the ascendancy of the advanced party, which was supported by the clubs. Danton, Camille Desmoulins, and later Marat and Hebert, violently excited the populace by their harangues and their journals. The Assembly was rapidly going down the slope that leads to extremes.