Mirabeau and the Marquis de Dreux-Brézé (Désiré Blanchet, A Brief History of France..., Belin, 1914) - Dascher

Scene of the royal session of June 23, 1789 during the Estates General of 1789, in a room at the Hôtel des Menus-Plaisirs in Versailles. As the king asks the delegates to separate, he is followed only by the nobility and part of the clergy. The King's request was repeated to Jean Sylvain Bailly by the Grand Master of Ceremonies, Henri-Évrard de Dreux-Brézé, who replied: "The assembled Nation cannot receive orders". Mirabeau then reportedly stepped forward to say, "Go and tell those who sent you that we are here by the will of the people, and that we will only be torn from it by the power of bayonets."