All the resources were exhausted, disgraceful tricks had despoiled the
hospitals and the poor; credit was used up, the payments of the State
were backward; the discount-bank (_caisse d'escompte_) was authorized to
refuse to give coin.  To divert the public mind from this painful
situation, Brienne proposed to the king to yield to the requests of the
members of Parliament, of the clergy, and of the noblesse themselves.
A decree of August 8, 1788, announced that the States-general would be
convoked May 1, 1789: the re-establishment of the plenary court was
suspended to that date.  Concessions wrested from the weakness and
irresolution of governments do not strengthen their failing powers.
Brienne had exhausted his boldness as well as his basenesses; he
succumbed beneath the outcry of public wrath and mistrust.  He offered
the comptroller-generalship to M. Necker, who refused.  "He told XVI.
"Mercy," is the expression in Brienne's own account, "that under a
minister who, like me, had lost the favor of the public, he could not do
any good."  A court-intrigue at last decided the minister's fall.  The
Count of Artois, egged on by Madame de Polignac, made urgent entreaties
to the queen; she was attached to Brienne; she, however, resigned herself
to giving him up, but with so many favors and such an exhibition of
kindness towards all his family, that the public did not feel at all
grateful to Marie Antoinette.  Already Brienne had exchanged the
archbishopric of Toulouse for that of Sens, a much richer one.  "The
queen offered me the hat and anything I might desire," writes the
prelate, "telling me that she parted from me with regret, weeping at
being obliged to do so, and permitting me to kiss her (_l'embrasser_) in
token of her sorrow and her interest."  "After having made the mistake of
bringing him into the ministry," says Madame Campan [_Memoires,_ t. i.
p. 33], "the queen unfortunately made an equally grave one in supporting
him at the time of a disgrace brought upon him by the despair of the
whole nation.  She considered it only consistent with her dignity to give
him, at his departure, ostensible proofs of her esteem, and, her very
sensibility misleading her, she sent him her portrait adorned with
precious stones and the patent of lady of the palace for his niece,
Madame de Courcy, saying that it was necessary to indemnify a minister
sacrificed by the trickery of courts and the factious spirit of the
nation.  I have since seen the queen shed bitter tears over the errors
she committed at this period."

On the 25th of August, 1788, the king sent for M. Necker.

A burst of public joy greeted the fall of the detested minister and
the return of the popular minister.  There were illuminations in the
provinces as well as at Paris, at the Bastille as well as the houses of
members of Parliament; but joy intermingled with hate is a brutal and a
dangerous one: the crowd thronged every evening on the Pont-Neuf, forcing
carriages as well as foot passengers to halt in front of Henry IV.'s
statue.  "Hurrah for Henry IV.!  To the devil with Lamoignon and
Brienne!" howled the people, requiring all passers to repeat the same
cry.  It was remarked that the Duke of Orleans took pleasure in crossing
over the Pont-Neuf to come in for the cheers of the populace.  "He was
more crafty than ambitious, more depraved than naturally wicked," says M.
Malouet: "resentment towards the court had hurried him into intrigue; he
wanted to become formidable to the queen.  His personal aim was vengeance
rather than ambition, that of his petty council was to effect an upheaval
in order to set the prince at the head of affairs as lieutenant-general
and share the profits."

The tumult in the streets went on increasing; the keeper of the seals,
Lamoignon, had tried to remain in power.  M. Necker, supported by the
queen, demanded his dismissal.  His departure, like that of Brienne, had
to be bought; he was promised an embassy for his son; he claimed a sum of
four hundred thousand livres; the treasury was exhausted, and there was
no finding more than half.  The greedy keeper of the seals was succeeded
by Barentin, premier-president of the Court of Aids.  Two dummies, one
dressed in a _simarre_ (gown) and the other in pontifical vestments, were
burned on the Pont-Neuf: the soldiers, having been ordered to disperse
the crowds, some persons were wounded and others killed; the mob had felt
sure that they would not be fired upon, whatever disorder they showed;
the wrath and indignation were great; there were threats of setting fire
to the houses of MM. de Brienne and de Lamoignon; the quarters of the
commandant of the watch were surrounded.  The number of folks of no
avocation, of mendicants and of vagabonds, was increasing every day in
Paris.

Meanwhile the Parliament had gained its point, the great baillie-courts
were abolished; the same difficulty had been found in constituting them
as in forming the plenary court; all the magistrates of the inferior
tribunals refused to sit in them; the Breton deputies were let out of the
Bastille; everywhere the sovereign courts were recalled.  The return of
the exiles to Paris was the occasion for a veritable triumph and the
pretext for new disorders among the populace.  It was the Parliament's
first duty to see to the extraordinary police (_haute police_) in its
district; it performed the duty badly and weakly.  The populace had
applauded its return and had supported its cause during its exile; the
first resolution of the court was directed against the excesses committed
by the military in repressing the disorders.  When it came to trying the
men seized with arms in their hands and the incendiaries who had
threatened private houses, all had their cases dismissed; by way of
example, one was detained a few days in prison.  Having often been served
in its enterprises by the passions of the mob, the Parliament had not
foreseen the day when those same outbursts would sweep it away like chaff
before the wind with all that regimen of tradition and respect to which
it still clung even in its most audacious acts of daring.

For an instant the return of M. Necker to power had the effect of
restoring some hope to the most far-sighted.  On his coming into office,
the treasury was empty, there was no scraping together as much as five
thousand livres.  The need was pressing, the harvests were bad; the
credit and the able resources of the great financier sufficed for all;
the funds went up thirty percent. in one day, certain capitalists made
advances, the chamber of the notaries of Paris paid six millions into the
treasury, M. Necker lent two millions out of his private fortune.
Economy had already found its way into the royal household; Louis XVI.
had faithfully kept his promises; despite the wrath of courtiers, he had
reduced his establishment.  The Duke of Coigny, premier equerry, had
found his office abolished.  "We were truly grieved, Coigny and I," said
the king, kindly, "but I believe he would have beaten me had I let him."
"It is fearful to live in a country where one is not sure of possessing
to-morrow what one had the day before," said the great lords who were
dispossessed; "it's a sort of thing seen only in Turkey."  Other
sacrifices and more cruel lessons in the instability of human affairs
were already in preparation for the French noblesse.

The great financial talents of M. Necker, his probity, his courage, had
caused illusions as to his political talents; useful in his day and in
his degree, the new minister was no longer equal to the task.  The
distresses of the treasury had powerfully contributed to bring about, to
develop the political crisis; the public cry for the States-general had
arisen in a great degree from the deficit; but henceforth financial
resources did not suffice to conjure away the danger; the discount-bank
had resumed payment, the state honored its engagements, the phantom of
bankruptcy disappeared from before the frightened eyes of stockholders;
nevertheless the agitation did not subside, minds were full of higher and
more tenacious concernments.  Every gaze was turned towards the States-
general.  Scarcely was M. Necker in power, when a royal proclamation,
sent to the Parliament returning to Paris, announced the convocation of
the Assembly for the month of January, 1789.

The States-general themselves had become a topic of the most lively
discussion.  Amid the embarrassment of his government, and in order to
throw a sop to the activity of the opposition, Brienne had declared his
doubts and his deficiency of enlightenment as to the form to be given to
the deliberations of that ancient assembly, always convoked at the most
critical junctures of the national history, and abandoned for one
hundred and seventy-five years past.  "The researches ordered by the
king," said a decree of the council, "have not brought to light any
positive information as to the number and quality of the electors and
those eligible, any more than as to the form of the elections: the king
will always try to be as close as possible to the old usages; and, when
they are unknown, his Majesty will not supply the hiatus till after
consulting the wish of his subjects, in order that the most entire
confidence may hedge a truly national assembly.  Consequently the king
requests all the municipalities and all the tribunals to make researches
in their archives; he likewise invites all scholars and well-informed
persons, and especially those who are members of the Academy of
Inscriptions and Literature, to study the question and give their
opinion."  In the wake of this appeal a flood of tracts and pamphlets had
inundated Paris and the provinces: some devoted to the defence of ancient
usages; the most part intended to prove that the Constitution of the
olden monarchy of France contained in principle all the political
liberties which were but asking permission to soar; some, finally, bolder
and the most applauded of all, like that of Count d'Entraigues, _Note on
the States-General, their Rights and the Manner of Convoking them;_ and
that of Abbe Sieyes, _What is the Third Estate?_  Count d'Entraigues'
pamphlet began thus: "It was doubtless in order to give the most heroic
virtues a home worthy of them that heaven willed the existence of
republics, and, perhaps to punish the ambition of men, it permitted great
empires, kings, and masters to arise."  Sieyes' pamphlet had already sold
to the extent of thirty thousand copies; the development of his ideas was
an audacious commentary upon his modest title.  "What is the third
estate?" said that able revolutionist.  "Nothing.  What ought it to be?
Everything?"  It was hoisting the flag against the two upper orders.
"The deputies of the clergy and of the noblesse have nothing in common
with national representation," he said, "and no alliance is possible
between the three orders in the States-general."

It may be permissible to quote here a page or, so from the second volume
of this history.  "At the moment when France was electing the constituent
assembly, a man, whose mind was more powerful than accurate, Abbe Sieyes,
could say, 'What is the third estate?  Everything.  What has it been
hitherto in the body politic?  Nothing.  What does it demand?  To be
something.'  There were in these words three grave errors.  In the course
of the regimen anterior to 1789, so far was the third estate from being
nothing that it had every day become greater and stronger.  What was
demanded for it in 1789 by M. Sieyes and his friends was not that it
should become something, but that it should be everything.  It was to
desire what was beyond its right and its might; the Revolution, which was
its victory, itself proved this.  Whatever may have been the weaknesses
and the faults of its adversaries, the third estate had to struggle
terribly to vanquish them, and the struggle was so violent and so
obstinate that the third estate was shattered to pieces in it and paid
right dearly for its triumph.  It first of all found despotism instead of
liberty; and when the liberty returned, the third estate found itself
face to face with a twofold hostility: that of its adversaries of the old
regimen and that of absolute democracy, which, in its turn, claimed to be
everything.  Excessive pretension entails unmanageable opposition, and
excites unbridled ambition.  What there was in the words of Abbe Sieyes,
in 1789, was not the truth as it is in history; it was a lying programme
of revolution.  Taking the history of France in its totality and in all
its phases, the third estate has been the most active and most decisive
element in French civilization.  If we follow it in its relations with
the general government of the country, we see it first of all allied
during six centuries with the kingship, struggling pauselessly against
the feudal aristocracy, and giving the prevalence in place of that to a
central and unique power, pure monarchy to wit, closely approximating,
though with certain often-repeated but vain reservations, to absolute
monarchy.  But, so soon as it has gained this victory and accomplished
this revolution, the third estate pursues another: it attacks this unique
power which it had contributed so much to establish, and it undertakes
the task of changing pure monarchy into constitutional monarchy.  Under
whatever aspect we consider it in its two great and so very different
enterprises, whether we study the progressive formation of French society
itself or that of its government, the third estate is the most powerful
and the most persistent of the forces which have had influence over
French civilization.  Not only is this fact novel, but it has for France
quite a special interest; for, to make use of an expression which is much
abused in our day, it is a fact eminently French, essentially national.
Nowhere has burgessdom had a destiny so vast, so fertile as that which
has fallen to it in France.  There have been commons all over Europe, in
Italy, in Spain, in Germany, in England, as well as in France.  Not only
have there been commons everywhere, but the commons in France are not
those which, _qua_ commons, under that name and in the middle ages, have
played the greatest part and held the highest place in history.  The
Italian commons begot glorious republics.  The German commons became free
towns, sovereign towns, which have their own special history, and
exercised throughout the general history of Germany a great deal of
influence.  The commons of England allied themselves with a portion of
the English feudal aristocracy, formed with it the preponderating house
in the British government, and thus played, full early, a powerful part
in the history of their country.  The French commons, under that name and
in their season of special activity, were certainly far from rising to
that importance in politics and that rank in history.  And yet it is in
France that the people of the commons, the burgessdom, became most
completely, most powerfully developed, and ended by acquiring, in the
general social body, the most decided preponderance.  There have been
commons throughout the whole of Europe; there has been in truth no third
estate victorious save in France; it is in the French Revolution of 1789,
assuredly the greatest, that the French third estate reached its
ultimatum, and France is the only country where, in an excess of
burgesspride, a man of great mind could say: 'What is the third estate?
Every thing.'"

So much excitement in men's minds, and so much commotion amongst the
masses, reasonably disquieted prudent folks.  In spite of its natural
frivolity, the court was at bottom sad and anxious.  The time had passed
for the sweet life at the manor-house of Trianon, for rustic amusements
and the charity of youth and romance.  Marie Antoinette felt it deeply
and bitterly; in the preceding year, at the moment when M. de Calonne was
disputing with the Assembly of notables, she wrote to the Duchess of
Polignac who had gone to take the waters in England: "Where you are you
can at least enjoy the pleasure of not hearing affairs talked about.
Though in the country of upper and lower houses, of oppositions and
motions, you can shut your ears and let the talk glide; but here there is
a deafening noise, notwithstanding all I can do; those words opposition
and motion are as firmly established here as in the Parliament of
England, with this difference, that, when you go over to the opposition
in London, you commence by relinquishing the king's graces, whereas here
many oppose all the wise and beneficent views of the most virtuous of
masters and keep his benefits all the same; that perhaps is more clever,
but it is not so noble.  The time of illusions is over, and we are having
some cruel experiences.  Happily all the means are still in the king's
hands, and he will arrest all the mischief which the imprudent want to
make."  The queen preserved some confidence: she only half perceived the
abyss beginning to yawn beneath her feet, she had not yet criticised the
weakness and insufficiency of the king her husband; she did not as yet
write: "The personage over me is not fit, and as for me, whatever may be
said and come what may, I am never anything but secondary, and, in spite
of the confidence reposed by the first, he often makes me feel it."  She
was troubled, nevertheless, and others more sagacious were more so than
she.  "When I arrived at Paris, where I had not been for more than three
years," says M. Malouet, for a long while the king's commissioner in the
colonies, and latterly superintendent of Toulon, "observing the heat of
political discussions as well as of the pamphlets in circulation,
M. d'Entraigues' work and Abbe Sieyes', the troubles in Brittany and
those in Dauphiny, my illusions vanished; I was seized with all the
terrors confided to me by Abbe Raynal on my way to Marseilles.  I found
M. Necker beginning to be afraid, but still flattering himself that he
would have means of continuing, directing, and bringing everything
right."  The Parliament was still more affrighted than M. Malouet and M.
Necker.  Summoned, on the 28th of September, to enregister the king's
proclamation relative to the convocation of the States-general, it added
this clause: "According to the forms observed in 1614."  It was a reply
in the negative on the part of the magistracy to all the new aspirations
to the vote by polling (_vote par tete_) as well as to the doubling of
the third already gained in principle amongst the provincial assemblies;
the popularity of the Parliament at once vanished.  M. d'Espremesnil,
hardly returned from the Isles of St. Marguerite, and all puffed up with
his glory, found himself abandoned by those who had been loudest in
vaunting his patriotic zeal.  An old councillor had but lately said to
him, when he was calling for the States-general with all his might,
"Providence will punish your fatal counsels by granting your wishes."
After the triumph of his return to Paris, amidst the desert which was
forming around the Parliament, "the martyr, the hero of liberty," as his
enthusiastic admirers had been wont to call him, had to realize that
instability of human affairs and that fragility of popularity to which he
had shut his eyes even in his prison, when Mirabeau, ever biting and
cynical, wrote to one of his friends

"Neighborhood will doubtless procure you a visit from that immense
D'Espremesnil, the sage commentator upon Mesmer, who, from the Isles of
St. Marguerite even unto this place, has made everybody laugh at the
ostentation with which he shook his fetters to make them clank."

The troubles amongst the populace had subsided, but agitation amongst the
thoughtful went on increasing, and the embarrassments of M. Necker
increased with the agitation amongst the thoughtful.  Naturally a
stranger to politics properly so called, constantly engaged as he was in
finance or administration, the minister's constitutional ideas were
borrowed from England; he himself saw how inapplicable they were to the
situation of France.  "I was never called upon," he says in his
_Memoirs,_ "to examine closely into what I could make, at the time of my
return to office, of my profound and particular esteem for the government
of England, for, if at a very early period my reflections and my
conversation could not but show symptoms of the opinions I held, at a
very early period, also, I perceived how averse the king was from
anything that might resemble the political practices and institutions of
England."  "M. Necker," says M. Malouet, "showed rare sagacity in espying
in the greatest detail and on the furthest horizon the defects, the
inconveniences of every measure, and it was this faculty of extending his
observations to infinity which made him so often undecided."  What with
these doubts existing in his own mind, and what with the antagonistic
efforts of parties as well as individual wills, the minister conceived
the hope of releasing himself from the crushing burden of his personal
responsibility; he convoked for the second time the Assembly of notables.

Impotent as it was in 1787, this assembly was sure to be and was even
more so in 1788.  Mirabeau had said with audacious intuition: "It is no
longer a question of what has been, but of what has to be."  The notables
clung to the past like shipwrecked mariners who find themselves invaded
by raging waters.  Meeting on the 6th of November at Versailles, they
opposed in mass the doubling of the third (estate); the committee
presided over by Monsieur, the king's brother, alone voted for the double
representation, and that by a majority of only one-voice.  The Assembly
likewise refused to take into account the population of the
circumscriptions (outlying districts) in fixing the number of its
representatives; the seneschalty of Poitiers, which numbered seven
hundred thousand inhabitants, was not to have more deputies than the
bailiwick of Dourdan, which had but eight thousand.  The liberality on
which the notables plumed themselves as regarded the qualifications
required in respect of the electors and the eligible was at bottom as
interested as it was injudicious.  The fact of domicile and payment of
taxes did not secure to the electors the guaranty given by property; the
vote granted to all nobles whether enfeoffed or not, and to all members
of the clergy for the elections of their orders, was intended to increase
the weight of those elected by the number of suffrages; the high noblesse
and the bishops reckoned wrongly upon the influence they would be able to
exercise over their inferiors.  Already, on many points, the petty nobles
and the parish priests were engaged and were to be still more deeply
engaged on the popular side.

At the very moment when the public were making merry over the Assembly of
notables, and were getting irritated at the delay caused by their useless
discussions in the convocation of the States-general, the Parliament, in
one of those sudden fits of reaction with which they were sometimes
seized from their love of popularity, issued a decree explanatory of
their decision on the 24th of September.  "The real intentions of the
court," said the decree, "have been distorted in spite of their
plainness.  The number of deputies of each order is not determined by any
law, by any invariable usage, and it depends upon the king's wisdom to
adjudge what reason, liberty, justice, and the general wish may
indicate."  The Parliament followed up this strange retractation with a
series of wise and far-sighted requests touching the totality of the
public administration.  Its part was henceforth finished, wisdom in words
could not efface the effect of imprudent or weak acts; when the decree
was presented to the king, he gave the deputation a cold reception.  "I
have no answer to make to the prayers of the Parliament," he replied; "it
is with the States-general that I shall examine into the interests of my
people."

Whilst all the constituted bodies of the third estate, municipalities,
corporations, commissions of provincial assemblies, were overwhelming the
king with their addresses in favor of the people's rights, the Prince of
Conti, whose character always bore him into reaction against the current
of public opinion, had put himself at the head of the opposition of the
courtiers.  Already, at one of the committees of the Assembly of
notables, he had addressed Monsieur, the most favorable of all the
princes to the liberal movement.  "The very existence of the monarchy is
threatened," he said, "its annihilation is desired, and we are close upon
that fatal moment.  It is impossible that the king should not at last
open his eyes, and that the princes his brothers should not co-operate
with him; be pleased, therefore, to represent to the king how important
it is for the stability of his throne, for the laws, and for good order,
that the new systems be forever put away, and that the constitution and
ancient forms be maintained in their integrity."  Louis XVI. having shown
some ill-humor at the Prince of Conti's remarks, the latter sent him a
letter signed by all the princes of the royal family except Monsieur and
the Duke of Orleans.  The perils with which the state was threatened were
evident and even greater than the prince's letter made out; the remedies
they indicated were as insufficient in substance as they were
contemptuous in form.  "Let the third estate," they said, cease to attack
the rights of the two upper orders, rights which, not less ancient than
the monarchy, ought to be as unalterable as the constitution; but let it
confine itself to asking for diminution of the imposts with which it may
be surcharged; then the two upper orders might, in the generosity of
their feelings, give up prerogatives which have pecuniary interests for
their object."  .  .  .  Whilst demanding on the part of the third estate
this modest attitude, the princes let fall threatening expressions, the
use of which had been a lost practice to the royal house since the days
of the Fronde.  "In a kingdom in which for so long a time there have been
no civil dissensions, the word schism cannot be uttered without regret,"
they said; "such an event, however, would have to be expected if the
rights of the two upper orders suffered any alteration, and what
confidence would not be felt in the mind of the people in protests which
tended to release them from payment of imposts agreed upon in the
states?"

Thirty dukes and peers had beforehand proposed to the king the
renunciation of all their pecuniary privileges, assuring him that the
whole French noblesse would follow the example if they were consulted.
Passions were too violently excited, and the disorder of ideas was too
general to admit of the proper sense being given to this generous and
fruitless proceeding.  The third estate looked upon it as a manoeuvre
against double representation; the mass of the two orders protested
against the forced liberality which it was attempted to thrust upon them.
People made merry over the signataries.  "Have you read the letter of the
dupes and peers?" they said.

The Assembly of notables had broken up on the 12th of December; the
convocation of the States-general was at hand, and the government of King
Louis XVI. still fluctuated undecidedly between the various parties which
were so violently disputing together over public opinion left to itself.
The dismay of wise men went on increasing, they were already conscious of
the fruitlessness of their attempts to direct those popular passions of
which they had, but lately been reckoning, upon availing themselves in
order to attain an end as laudable as it was moderate.  One of the most
virtuous as well as the most enlightened and the most courageous,
M. Malouet, has related in his _Memoires_ the conversations he held at
this very juncture with the ministers, M. Necker and M. de Montmorin
especially.  It is worth while to give the complete summary, as sensible
as it is firm, a truthful echo of the thoughts in the minds of the cream
of the men who had ardently desired reforms, and who attempted in vain to
rein up the revolution in that fatal course which was to cost the lives
of many amongst them, and the happiness and peace of nearly all.

"It is the first Assembly of notables," said M. Malouet, "which has
apprised the nation that the government was henceforth subordinated to
public opinion.

"This is a false and dangerous position, if it is not strong enough to
enlighten that opinion, direct it, and restrain it.

"The wish of France has summoned the States-general, there was no way but
to obey it.  The doubling of the third (estate) is likewise proclaimed in
an irresistible manner, but as yet there is nothing but your own mistakes
to imperil the kingly authority.

"Your shiftings, your weaknesses, your inconsistencies no longer leave
you the resource of absolute power.  From the moment that, exhibiting
your embarrassments, you are obliged to invoke the counsels and aid of
the nation, you can no longer walk without it; from its strength you must
recruit your own; but your wisdom must control its strength; if you leave
it bridleless and guideless, you will be crushed by it.

"You must not wait, then, for the States-general to make demands upon you
or issue orders to you; you must hasten to offer all that sound minds can
desire, within reasonable limits, whether of authority or of national
rights.

"Everything ought to be foreseen and calculated in the king's council
before the opening of the States-general.  You ought to determine what
can be given up without danger in ancient usages, forms, maxims,
institutions, obsolete or full of abuses.  All that the public experience
and reason denounce to you as proscribed, take heed that you do not
defend; but do not be so imprudent as to commit to the risks of a
tumultuous deliberation the fundamental basis and the essential springs
of the kingly authority.  Commence by liberally granting the requirements
and wishes of the public, and prepare yourselves to defend, even by
force, all that violent, factious, and extravagant systems would assail.
In the state of uncertainty, embarrassment, and denudation in which you
have placed yourselves, you have no strength, I can feel, I can see.  Get
out, then, of this state; put fresh energy into your concessions, into
your plans; in a word, take up a decided attitude, for you have it not.

"The revolution which is at this instant being effected, and which we may
regard as accomplished, is the elevation of the commons to an influence
equal to that of the two other orders.  Another revolution must follow
that, and it is for you to carry it out: that is the destruction of
privileges fraught with abuse and onerous to the people.  When I say that
it is for you to carry it out, I mean that you must take your measures in
such wise as to prevent anything from being done without you, and
otherwise than by your direction.

"Thus, then, you should have a fixed plan of concessions, of reforms,
which, instead of upsetting everything, will consolidate the basis of
legitimate authority.  This plan should become, by your influence, the
text of all the bailiwick memorials.  God forbid that I should propose to
you to bribe, to seduce, to obtain influence by iniquitous means over the
elections!  You need, on the contrary, the most honest, the most
enlightened, the most energetic men.  Such are those who must be brought
to the front, and on whom the choice should be made to fall."

Admirable counsels on the part of the most honest and most far-sighted of
minds; difficult, however, if not impossible, to be put into practice by
feeble ministers, themselves still undecided on the very brink of the
abyss, having to face the repugnance and the passions of the two
privileged orders on which it was a question of imposing painful
sacrifices, however legitimate and indispensable they might be.

M. Malouet and those who thought with him, more in number than anybody
could tell, demanded instructions as to the elections in the bailiwicks.
"Can you have allowed this great crisis to come on without any
preparations for defence, without any combination?" they said to the
ministers.  "You have, through the police, the superintendents, the
king's proctors in the tribunals, means of knowing men and choosing them,
or, at any rate, of directing choice; these means, have you employed
them?"

M. Necker could not give his instructions; he had not yet made up his
mind on the question which was engaging everybody's thoughts; he
hesitated to advise the king to consent to the doubling of the third.
"He had a timid pride which was based on his means, on his celebrity, and
which made him incessantly afraid of compromising himself with public
opinion, which he could no longer manage to control when he found himself
opposed by it," said Malouet.  Marmontel, who knew the minister well,
added, "That solitary mind, abstracted, self-concentrated, naturally
enthusiastic, had little communication with men in general, and few men
were tempted to have communication with him; he knew them only by
glimpses too isolated or too vague, and hence his illusions as to the
character of the people at whose mercy he was placing the state and the
king."

M. Necker's illusions as to himself never disappeared; he had a vague
presentiment of the weakening of his influence over public opinion, and
he was pained thereat.  He resolved at last to follow it.  "It is a great
mistake," he wrote at a later period in his _Memoires,_ "to pretend to
struggle, with only antiquated notions on your side, against all the
vigor of the principles of natural justice, when that justice renews its
impulse and finds itself seconded by the natural desire of a nation.  The
great test of ability in affairs is to obtain the merit of the sacrifice
before the moment when that same sacrifice will appear a matter of
necessity."

The favorable moment, which M. Necker still thought of seizing, had
already slipped by him.  The royal resolution proclaimed under this
strange title, _Result of the King's Council held on the 27th of
December, 1788,_ caused neither great astonishment nor lively
satisfaction amongst the public.  M. Necker was believed to be more
favorable to the doubling of the third (estate) than he really was; the
king was known to be weak and resigned to following the counsels of the
minister who had been thrust upon him.  "The cause of the third estate,"
said the Report to the king, "will always have public opinion for it; the
wishes of the third estate, when unanimous, when in conformity with the
principles of equity, will always be only another name for the wishes of
the nation; the judgment of Europe will encourage it.  I will say, then,
upon my soul and conscience, and as a faithful servant of his Majesty,
I do decidedly think that he may and ought to call to the States-general
a number of deputies of the third estate equal to that of the deputies of
the two other orders together, not in order to force on decisions by poll
(_deliberation par tete_), as appears to be feared, but in order to
satisfy the general wishes of the commons of his kingdom."  "The king,"
said the edict, "having heard the report made in his council by the
minister of finance relative to the approaching convocation of the
States-general, his Majesty has adopted its principles and views, and has
ordained what follows: 1. That the deputies shall be at least one
thousand in number; 2. That the number shall be formed, as nearly as
possible, in the, compound ratio of the population and taxes of each
bailiwick; 3. That the number of deputies of the third estate shall be
equal to that of the two other orders together, and that this proportion
shall be established by the letters of convocation."  The die was cast,
the victory remained with the third (estate), legitimate in principle,
and still possible perhaps to be directed and regulated, but dangerous
and already menacing.  "It is not resistance from the two upper orders
that I fear," said M. Malouet to the ministers, "it is the excess of the
commons; you have done too much, or let too much be done to prevent now
the propositions I submitted to you from being realized; the point is not
to go any further, for beyond lies anarchy.  But if, in the very decided
and very impetuous course taken by public opinion, the king should
hesitate and the clergy and noblesse resist, woe to us, for all is lost!
Do you expect the least appearance of order and reason in a gathering of
twelve hundred legislators, drawn from all classes, without any practice
in discussion and meditation over the important subjects they are about
to handle, carried away by party spirit, by the impetuous force of so
many diverging interests and opinions?  If you do not begin by giving
them fixed ideas, by hedging them, through their constituents, with
instructions and impediments which they cannot break through, look out
for all sorts of vagaries, for irremediable disorders."

In his sad forecast of the confusion which threatened the new Assembly,
M. Malouet counted too much upon the authority of mandates and upon the
influence of the constituents; he was destined to look on, impotent and
despairing, at that great outburst of popular passions which split
asunder all ties and broke through all engagements as so many useless
impediments.  "When the Assembly, in the first paroxysms of its delirium,
dared to annul its oaths and declared itself freed from the yoke of the
instructions which we received from our constituents, the king had a
right--what do I say? he was bound to send us back to our bailiwicks,"
says M. Malouet.  The States-general were convoked for the 27th of April,
1789, and not a soul had yet received instructions from the government.
"Those that we did at last receive were as honest as they were
insufficient.  They told us in substance to get adopted, if we could, the
proposal to present candidates for the departments, and to admit into the
list of candidates none but men whose morality, means, and fair
reputation were established, to prevent wrangles, schism between the
orders, and to carry, as far as in us lay, the most moderate notions as
regarded reforms and innovations.  It was no longer the king speaking, it
was the consulting counsel for the crown, asking advice of everybody, and
appearing to say to everybody: 'What's to be done?  What can I do?  How
much do they want to lop from my authority?  How much of it will they
leave me?" [_Memoires de M. Malouet,_ t. i.  p. 249.] It was a tacit
abdication of the kingship at the juncture when its traditional
authority, if not its very existence, was brought to book.

The party of honest men, still very numerous and recruited amongst all
classes of society, went confidently to the general elections and
preparatory assemblies which had to precede them.  "Hardly conscious were
they of the dark clouds which had gathered around us; the clouds shrouded
a tempest which was not slow to burst."  [Ibidem, p. 260.]

The whole of France was fever-stricken.  The agitation was contradictory
and confused, a medley of confidence and fear, joy and rage, everywhere
violent and contagious.  This time again Dauphiny showed an example of
politic and wise behavior.  The special states of the province had met on
the 1st of December, 1788, authorized by the government, according to a
new system proposed by the delegates of the three orders.  Certain
members of the noblesse and of the clergy had alone protested against the
mode of election.  Mounier constantly directed the decisions of the third
(estate); he restrained and enlightened young Barnave, advocate in the
court, who, for lack of his counsels, was destined to frequently go
astray hereafter.  The deliberations were invariably grave, courteous;
a majority, as decided as it was tolerant, carried the day on all the
votes.  "When I reflect upon all we gained in Dauphiny by the sole force
of justice and reason," wrote Mounier afterwards, in his exile, "I see
how I came to believe that Frenchmen deserve to be free."  M. Mounier
published a work on the convocation of the States-general demanding the
formation of two chambers.  That was likewise the proposition of M. de La
Luzerne, Bishop of Langres, an enlightened, a zealous, and a far-sighted
prelate.  "This plan had probably no approbation but mine," says M.
Malouet.  The opposition and the objections were diverse and
contradictory, but they were general.  Constitutional notions were as yet
novel and full of confusion in all minds.  The most sagacious and most
prudent were groping their way towards a future enveloped in mist.

The useful example of Dauphiny had no imitators.  Bourbonness and
Hainault had accepted the system proposed by M. Necker for the formation
of preparatory assemblies.  Normandy, faithful to its spirit of
conservative independence, claimed its ancient privileges and refused the
granted liberties.  In Burgundy the noblesse declared that they would
give up their pecuniary privileges, but that, on all other points, they
would defend to the last gasp the ancient usages of the province.  The
clergy and noblesse of Languedoc held pretty much the same language.  In
Franche-Comte, where the states-provincial had not sat since Louis XIV.'s
conquest, the strife was so hot on the subject of the administrative
regimen, that the ministry declared the assembly dissolved, and referred
the decision to the States-general.  The Parliament of Besancon
protested, declaring that the constitution of the province could not be
modified save by the nationality of Franche-Comte, and that deputies to
the States-general could not be elected save by the estates of the
country assembled according to the olden rule.  This pretension of the
magistrates excluded the people from the elections; they rose and drove
the court from the sessions-hall.

Everywhere the preparatory assemblies were disturbed, they were
tumultuous in many spots; in Provence, as well as in Brittany, they
became violent.  In his province, Mirabeau was the cause or pretext for
the troubles.  Born at Bignon, near Nemours, on the 9th of March, 1749,
well known already for his talent as a writer and orator as well as for
the startling irregularities of his life, he was passionately desirous of
being elected to the States-general.  "I don't think I shall be useless
there," he wrote to his friend Cerruti.  Nowhere, however, was his
character worse than in Provence: there people had witnessed his
dissensions with his father as well as with his wife.  Public contempt,
a just punishment for his vices, caused his admission into the states-
provincial to be unjustly opposed.  The assembly was composed exclusively
of nobles in possession of fiefs, of ecclesiastical dignitaries, and of a
small number of municipal officers.  It claimed to elect the deputies to
the States-general according to the ancient usages.  Mirabeau's common
sense, as well as his great and puissant genius, revolted against the
absurd theories of the privileged: he overwhelmed them with his terrible
eloquence, whilst adjuring them to renounce their abuseful and obsolete
rights; he scared them by his forceful and striking hideousness.
"Generous friends of peace," said he, addressing the two upper orders,
"I hereby appeal to your honor!  Nobles of Provence, the eyes of Europe
are upon you, weigh well your answer!  Ye men of God, have a care; God
hears you!  But, if you keep silence, or if you intrench yourselves in
the vague utterances of a piqued self-love, allow me to add a word.  In
all ages, in all countries, aristocrats have persecuted the friends of
the people, and if, by I know not what combination of chances, there have
arisen one in their own midst, he it is whom they have struck above all,
thirsting as they were to inspire terror by their choice of a victim.
Thus perished the last of the Gracchi, by the hand of the patricians;
but, wounded to the death, he flung dust towards heaven, calling to
witness the gods of vengeance, and from that dust sprang Marius, Marius
less great for having exterminated the Cimbri than for having struck down
at Rome the aristocracy of the noblesse."

Mirabeau was shut out from the states-provincial and soon adopted eagerly
by the third estate.  Elected at Marseilles as well as at Aix for the
States-general, he quieted in these two cities successively riots
occasioned by the dearness of bread.  The people, in their enthusiasm,
thronged upon him, accepting his will without a murmur when he restored
to their proper figure provisions lowered in price through the terror of
the authorities.  The petty noblesse and the lower provincial clergy had
everywhere taken the side of the third estate.  Mirabeau was triumphant.
"I have been, am, and shall be to the last," he exclaimed, "the man for
public liberty, the man for the constitution.  Woe to the privileged
orders, if that means better be the man of the people than the man of the
nobles, for privileges will come to an end, but the people is eternal!"

Brittany possessed neither a Mounier nor a Mirabeau; the noblesse
there were numerous, bellicose, and haughty, the burgessdom rich and
independent.  Discord was manifested at the commencement of the
states-provincial assembled at Rennes in the latter part of December,
1788.  The governor wanted to suspend the sessions, the two upper orders
persisted in meeting; there was fighting in the streets.  The young men
flocked in from the neighboring towns; the states-room was blockaded.
For three days the members who had assembled there endured a siege; when
they cut their way through, sword in hand, several persons were killed
the enthusiasm spread to the environs.  At Angers, the women published a
resolution declaring that "the mothers, sisters, wives, and sweethearts
of the young citizens of Angers would join them if they had to march to
the aid of Brittany, and would perish rather than desert the
nationality."  When election time arrived, and notwithstanding the
concessions which had been made to them by the government, the Breton
nobles refused to proceed to the nominations of their order if the choice
of deputies were not intrusted to the states-provincial; they persisted
in staying away, thus weakening by thirty voices their party in the
States-general.

The great days were at hand.  The whole of France was absorbed in the
drawing up of the memorials (_cahiers_) demanded by the government from
each order, in each bailiwick.  The weather was severe, the harvest had
been bad, the suffering was extreme.  "Famine and fear of insurrection
overthrew M. Necker, the means of providing against them absorbed all his
days and nights and the greater part of the money he had at his
disposal."  Agitators availed themselves ably of the misery as a means of
exciting popular passion.  The alms-giving was enormous, charity and fear
together opened both hearts and purses.  The gifts of the Duke of Orleans
to the poor of Paris appeared to many people suspicious; but the
Archbishop of Paris, M. de Juigne, without any other motive but his
pastoral devotion, distributed all he possessed, and got into debt four
hundred thousand livres, in order to relieve his flock.  The doors of the
finest houses were opened to wretches dying of cold; anybody might go in
and get warmed in the vast halls.  The regulations for the elections had
just been published (24th of January, 1789).  The number of deputies was
set at twelve hundred.  The electoral conditions varied according to
order and dignity, as well as according to the extent of the bailiwicks;
in accordance with the opinion of the Assembly of notables, the simple
fact of nationality and of inscription upon the register of taxes
constituted electoral rights.  No rating (_cens_) was required.

The preparatory labors had been conducted without combination, the
elections could not be simultaneous; no powerful and dominant mind
directed that bewildered mass of ignorant electors, exercising for the
first time, under such critical circumstances, a right of which they did
not know the extent and did not foresee the purport.  "The people has
more need to be governed and subjected to a protective authority than it
has fitness to govern," M. Malouet had said in his speech to the assembly
of the three orders in the bailiwick of Riom.  The day, however, was
coming when the conviction was to be forced upon this people, so impotent
and incompetent in the opinion of its most trusty friends, that the
sovereign authority rested in its hands, without direction and without
control.

"The elective assembly of Riom was not the most stormy," says M. Malouet,
who, like M. Mounier at Grenoble, had been elected by acclamation head of
the deputies of his own order at Riom, "but it was sufficiently so to
verify all my conjectures and cause me to truly regret that I had come to
it and had obtained the deputyship.  I was on the point of giving in my
resignation, when I found some petty burgesses, lawyers, advocates
without any information about public affairs, quoting the _Contrat
social,_ declaiming vehemently against tyranny, abuses, and proposing a
constitution apiece.  I pictured to myself all the disastrous
consequences which might be produced upon a larger stage by such
outrageousness, and I arrived at Paris very dissatisfied with myself,
with my fellow-citizens, and with the ministers who were hurrying us into
this abyss."

The king had received all the memorials; on some few points the three
orders had commingled their wishes in one single memorial.  M. Malouet
had failed to get this done in Auvergne.  "The clergy insist upon putting