for Foreign Affairs. "I was abandoning myself," she | princes. On the right of the throne were the seats of says, and I admit it, to the most lively hopes at the clergy, on the left those of the nobles: in front of seeing, for the first time, in France, representatives of the throne was the place of the commons. The king the nation. Madame de Montmorin, whose under- himself had superintended the disposition of the standing was by no means of a superior character, said drapery, which was intended to break the light. to me in a decided tone, which produced some effect on me: 'You are wrong in rejoicing; out of this there will come great disasters for France and for us."" Madame de Montmorin perished on the scaffold with one of her sons; and all her family came to an untimely

end.

The deputies of the Commons (for this was the name that they preferred, considering the name of Tiers Etat as a monument of their ancient servitude) were received with loud shouts of applause as they passed along it was the people cheering their own representatives. The nobility were received with deep silence, though there were among them some friends of the popular cause the Duke of Orleans alone was saluted with the cry of 'Vive d'Orléans!' The clergy passed in silence: no voice was raised to greet them. When the king appeared, the shouts and clapping of hands again commenced; but for the queen there was no salutation from the immense crowd, no sign of affection or respect. She attempted to conceal her emotion, and to brave the silent insult by a show of disdainful haughtiness; but on hearing the cries of 'Long live the Duke of Orléans !'—for Orléans was her enemy, she was near fainting, and had for a moment to be supported by the princess of Lamballe.

The arrangements of the first meeting of the StatesGeneral seemed designed to insult the commons: at least, their feelings were not respected. They were introduced by a back-door, covered by a kind of shed, and were kept waiting, crowded together at the entrance, for several hours, until the royal family, the clergy, and the nobility, who were behind their time, had passed by the great door. Between nine and ten, the Marquis de Brézé and two masters of ceremonies began to arrange the deputies, according to the districts (bailliages) which they represented this tedious ceremony took up two hours. Steps, raised in the form of an amphitheatre, had been reserved for respectable persons and well-dressed women-a kind of select body of spectators-who were soon replaced by a very different set of people. Amidst the crowd of civil and military personages, in their proper costume, Necker, the Minister of Finance, was distinguished by wearing his ordinary dress. His daughter, who was present, says that he was received with applause; and in truth, Necker was then at the height of his popularity. The Duke of Orléans was also well received by the spectators, especially when it was observed that he required the curé of the deputation of Crespy en Valois, to which he belonged, to take precedence of him. One deputy When the procession reached the church of St. of the commons attracted universal attention, and was Louis, the three orders took their place in the nave received with a murmur, but not of approbation. He the king and queen were seated under a canopy of was a man, whose name was known to all Europe by violet-coloured velvet, sprinkled with fleurs-de-lis of the scandals of his private life, the violence of his gold; and the mass commenced. The Bishop of passions, his sufferings, and his abilities. His enorNancy preached a long sermon, of which the leading mous head of hair, his striking ugliness, his commandidea was that religion is the strength of states." His ing figure, fixed all eyes upon him. He walked discourse was listened to somewhat impatiently; but proudly erect through the chamber, for he knew and there was one passage which produced a great sensa- felt his power. It was Mirabeau-one of the deputies tion. After painting in lively colours the vices of the of Aix, in Provence. fiscal system and the misery of the cultivators, he said, "and it is in the name of a good king, of a just and feeling monarch, that these miserable exactors exercise their acts of barbarism." Loud applause followed these words, in spite of the place, and of the etiquette of the French court, which allowed no applause in the presence of the king, even at the theatre. The religious ceremonial was not over before four in the afternoon.

About one o'clock the king made his appearance, followed by the queen, and the princes and princesses; the deputies rose from their seats, and the whole assembly received him with acclamations, as he took his seat on the throne. Louis wore a large mantle, and a hat with feathers, the band of which sparkled with diamonds. The queen was pale, and her countenance showed that she was ill at ease. The business was opened by the master of the ceremonies announcing by a sign that the king was going to address the States. The king took off his hat, and commenced reading his address, which expressed his satisfaction at seeing

A vast rectangular chamber, supported by two rows of columns, called the Salle des Menus, and situated in the avenue to the palace, had been provided at Versailles for the reception of the three orders. It himself surrounded by the "representatives of the was the largest of the chambers at Versailles, which was not within the palace, and was spacious enough to contain the twelve hundred deputies, and a numerous body of spectators. At the extremity of the chamber, on a platform, magnificently decorated, and under a canopy with golden fringe, were placed the king's throne, the chair of the queen, and the seats for the

nation." He spoke of the public debt, which, already enormous at his accession to the throne, had been still further increased during his reign: the cause of it was an expensive, but honourable, war. Increase of taxation, however, had been a necessary consequence of this expenditure, and had made the unequal distribution of it more keenly felt. He spoke of a general

He

already conceived,-which he did not desire to see put into execution. Measures for securing the liberty of the press, for maintaining the public security, and the honour of families; a reform of the criminal law, with a view to make a juster proportion between crime and punishment; the simplification of civil procedure, and the correction of abuses in the administration of justice, would engage the attention of the assembly. further declared, that all useful professions were honourable; that all the citizens of the kingdom, whatever their condition, were members of the same family. At the last meeting of the States-General, in 1614, the spokesman of the nobility had declared "that there was as much difference between them and the Third Estate as between a master and his servant.” The Keeper of the Seals seemed now to put the labourer and the gentleman on the same footing. Notwithstanding these new doctrines, the speech was vague and general: it gave a prospect of social improvement, but the means of securing it were not boldly stated. The speech was not well heard, owing to the feebleness of Barentin's voice.

uneasiness, an extravagant desire of change, which had occupied men's minds, and which would end in a total disunion of all opinion, if it was not speedily settled by wise and moderate counsels. It was with this view that the king had called the States together; and he was justified in his hopes by the disposition that the two first orders had already shown to renounce their pecuniary privileges. The address spoke of considerable retrenchments which had been already made in the public expenditure; that an exact account of the condition of the finances would be submitted to the States; and it expressed the king's confidence in the willingness of the assembly to propose the best means for putting the finances in permanent order, and securing public eredit. The king declared that he took a most lively interest in the happiness of the nation; that they might, and ought, to expect from him everything that could be asked of a sovereign, the best friend of his people. The speech said nothing of constitutional reforms; and yet there were near six hundred men right before the king's face, who were sent to ask for something more than an equal distribution of the taxes, and general promises of good intentions. The king read his speech with his usual simplicity of manner; but there was wanting in his countenance the expression of firmness and energy which characterised the deputies of the people. The queen stood while the king was addressing the assembly; her attire on this occasion was very simple, and she listened in an attitude of respectful attention. The address was followed by longcontinued applause; and the king, again taking his seat on the throne, put his hat on, and the clergy and the nobility did the same. Some members of the Third Estate also begun to put their hats on: others objected to its being done. Confusion arose, mixed with cries of "hats on!" "hats off!" till at last the king, to stop the disorder, took off his hat; and every-speech you would expect from a banker's clerk of some body followed his example.* This trifling circumstance was an indication of a great change of old, the Third Estate used to throw themselves on their knees, as soon as they were in the presence of the king; and this was the etiquette even the last time when the States-General had met, in 1614.

The Keeper of the Seals, Barentin, followed, with a tedious address, below the dignity of the occasion, and seasoned with ill-timed flattery of the king. He spoke, however, of the beneficent measures of the king's reign, of the freedom of the seas, and the independence of America, secured by the triumph of the French arms; of the abolition of torture; of the protection given to commerce and manufactures, and the like. He could not avoid uttering some wholesome truths, which were recognised in France long before the States-General were convened. It was just, he said, that the nobility and the clergy should share the burden of taxation; but the question of taxation was not all. There was not a useful project which the assembly could conceive; there was not an idea tending to the public good, which His Majesty had not * Histoire Parlementaire,' i., 356.

After a few moments' silence, Necker, the DirectorGeneral of the Finances, rose. He had neither the figure, nor the voice, of a man who could command a large assemblage of people. He read a few pages of his address, and then handed it over to M. Broussonnet, Secretary of the Royal Society of Agriculture, who finished it. Necker's address was nearly all about money. With the exception of some vague generalities, it was finance, and nothing more. It is characterized, with some degree of truth, by a plainspoken Englishman,* as "a great opportunity, but lost; no great leading or masterly views-no decision on circumstances in which the people ought to be relieved, and new principles of government adopted; it is the

ability." The great events of history are reduced to miserable proportions, when they are exposed in their naked truth. Necker, a well-meaning man, fully sensible of the crisis, and of the terrible consequences that might follow the convening of the States-General, was more concerned about the style than the matter of his address. At a meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society he had heard Broussonnet read a discourse with a powerful, piercing voice, that was distinctly heard at the greatest distance; and he asked Broussonnet to read for him his address to the States-General. Broussonnet waited on Necker several times for his instructions, and to make sure that he understood the interlineations, which were made even after the speech was finished. He was with Necker the evening before the 5th of May; and yet the next day, when he came to read the speech, he found still more corrections and alterations which Necker had made after he had left him: "they were chiefly in style, and show how very solicitous he was in regard to the form and decoration * Arthur Young, 'Travels in France, 1787, 1788, 1789.' Necker's speech is given at length in the 'Histoire Parlementaire,' vol. i., p. 363.

B 2

of his matter.

The ideas, in my opinion, wanted this | nation?" It certainly was not a fault in Necker's attention more than the style. Mons. Broussonnet policy that he did not propose a complete constitution; himself told me this little anecdote."*

his real fault was, not doing what he could have done;
it was in his power to have determined that the three
orders should have verified their powers in common,
and should have formed, from the first, one assembly.
Public opinion was in favour of that measure; and
some of his friends urged him to it. He would neither
take that decisive step, nor the alternative, which was
also proposed to him, of having the powers of the
deputies verified by the keeper of the seals.
He was

took the dangerous one of leaving the matter to be settled between the hostile parties, after having given the commons the potent argument of numbers. Necker had allowed to the commons double the number of deputies of each of the two other orders: out of the twelve hundred deputies, they had six hundred. But a double representation of the commons, without the power of availing themselves of their numbers, was a mockery-an illusion.

The most important part of Necker's address was the figures. He stated the various sources of the public income, the total of which was 475,294,000 livres. The particulars of the public expenditure were also stated: the total amounted to 531,444,000 livres. The plain conclusion was, an annual deficit of 56,150,000 livres.† Necker's address enumerated, among reforms, the equal distribution of taxation, and the "abolition for ever even of the names of the taxes, which would pre-afraid of failure, whatever resolution he took; and he serve the vestiges of a disunion, of which it was urgent to efface the remembrance." He acknowledged that it would be a narrow view of the purposes of the StatesGeneral to consider them limited to finance, credit, and the interest of money. The States-General had a universal mission, both with respect to the present and the future. They would extend their views even beyond France; perchance one day they might associate in their deliberations the deputies of the colonies, and cast an eye of pity on those unfortunate human creatures who were an object of traffic, who were crowded together in the holds of vessels, and transported to a foreign land, to receive the chains that were ready for them. But these generous aspirations towards something future and remote betrayed the weakness of the minister. He did not venture to touch the question, which he knew must soon be decided, the important question, whether the three orders should deliberate and vote together as one body, or whether they should deliberate and vote separately by orders, each order having a veto on what the other two might agree in? Yet this was a question that had been already discussed out of doors: the instructions of the constituents to their representatives had made it a vital question.§

"The principal object of the States-General," says his daughter, Madame de Staël, " certainly was to make a constitution; but could they require the minister of the king to be the first to enter upon questions which could only be proposed by the representatives of the * Arthur Young, 'Travels,' &c., p. 109.

The livre may be reckoned at 104d. See the table of 'Reduction of Livres' prefixed to 'Young's Travels.'

The cahier of the Tiers Etat of Paris, observes:-" Our representatives shall support the demand of the colony of St. Domingo, to be admitted to the States'-General: they will also claim admission for the deputies of the other

colonies."

§ The cahiers (instructions) to the representatives of the Tiers Etat unanimously declare that the deputies should be considered as representing the whole nation, as the two other orders scarcely composed the fiftieth part. Consequently, that the deliberations should be in one common assembly (par tête et non par ordre). Some cahiers, anticipating the refusal of the clergy and the nobility to allow the vote to be "by head," express an opinion that the deputies of the Third Estate should entitle themselves the National As

sembly, and act as such with those of the nobility and clergy who might choose to join them.- Histoire Parlementaire,' vol. i., p. 331. These were significant indications of the coming storm.

The king terminated the first sitting of the StatesGeneral by rising at half-past four. He left the chamber preceded by his guards, and attended by a numerous train.

It had been determined in the king's council that four chambers should be prepared,—one for each of the three orders, and one for the solemn assemblies of the whole body. The ministers saw that if the commons should occupy the chamber which had been used for the opening of the States-General, the people would look there for the central point of the national representation. And yet this was the very chamber that the commons did occupy. Four chambers had been actually appropriated, and M. St. Priest was instructed to get them ready. But one of the chambers was a riding-school, and the administration of the stables would not give it up. Thus, in spite of the power of royalty, the formidable body of the commons occupied the chamber which the ministers themselves had made the place of assembly for the three orders.

The following was the composition of the StatesGeneral, which were now assembled:-The deputies of the nobility consisted of two hundred and forty-two gentlemen, and twenty-eight members of the parliament: the deputies of the clergy consisted of fortyeight archbishops and bishops, thirty-five abbés and deans, and two hundred and eight curés, who were indebted to Necker for their admission to the order of the clergy. The deputation of the commons consisted of two ecclesiastics, twelve nobles, eighteen magistrates of towns, 'a hundred and two members of the bailiwicks (bailliages), two hundred and twelve advocates (avocats), sixteen physicians, and two hundred and sixteen traders and cultivators.*

This body did not contain a large number of distinguished individuals, though there were in it many esti

* These are the numbers given by Mignet, 'Histoire de la Révolution Française,' Introduction; but they do not make a sum total of 1,200.