It was a child telling the tornado not to come in that direction.
When the king's herald read to the National Assembly this foolish message, ending with the formula, "You hear, gentlemen, the orders of the king," Mirabeau sprang to his feet, saying, "Go, tell your master we are here by the will of the people, and will be only removed at the point of the bayonet," the pitiful king then yielding to this defiance, even begging the nobles and deputies of the clergy to join the National Assembly--a revolutionary assembly, which was holding its meetings in his own Palace of Versailles, and which was every day gravitating from its original lofty purpose; its rallying cry for justice and reform of abuses changing to "Down with the Aristocrats!" It was becoming alarming, so Louis ordered the body to disperse; and when soldiers stood at the door to prevent its assembling, it took possession of the queen's tennis court, and there each member took a solemn oath not to dissolve until the object they sought had been secured.
There were some among the clergy and the nobles who realized the necessity for reforms, and who would gladly have joined a movement inaugurated in a different spirit.

Hence, partly from alarm, and partly impelled by other reasons and purposes, more or less pure, there was finally a secession from the two aristocratic bodies; the Duke of Orleans, cousin of the king, leading the movement in one, and three archbishops in the other.

These, with their followers, appeared among the _Tiers Etat_ as converts to the popular cause, the Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the late American War, sitting next to Mirabeau, the powerful and eloquent leader of the whole movement in its first days.
Concerning the genius of Mirabeau there is no difference of opinion.
All are agreed that intellectually he towered far above every one about him.

But whether he was the incarnation of good or of evil, the world is still in doubt;-and also whether he could have guided the forces he had invoked, if a premature death had not swept him off from the scene, leaving Robespierre, a man concerning whom there is no disagreement of opinion, to guide the storm.
Paris was becoming wild with excitement.

Clubs and associations were in every quarter, and detachments of a Parisian mob marched and sang at night, firing the hearts of the rabble.