Paris 133 



Monsieur de Mirabeau was well heard and his proposition much 

 applauded. Monsieur de Mounier, a deputy from Dauphine, of 

 great reputation, and who has also published some pamphlets 

 very well approved by the public, moved a different resolution to 

 declare themselves the legitimate representatives of the majority 

 of the nation; that they should vote by head and not by order: 

 and that they should never acknowledge any right in the repre- 

 sentatives of the clergy or nobility to deliberate separately. 

 Monsieur Rabaud St. Etienne, a protestant from Languedoc, 

 also an author who has written in the present affairs, and a man 

 of considerable talents, spoke also and made his proposition, 

 which was to declare themselves the representatives of the people 

 of France ; to declare all taxes null ; to regrant them during the 

 sitting of the states: to verify and consolidate the debt ; and to 

 vote a loan. All which were well approved except the loan, 

 which was not at all to the feeling of the assembly. This gentle- 

 man speaks clearly and with precision, and only passages of his 

 speech from notes. Monsieur Bernarve, a ver}'- young man from 

 Grenoble, spoke without notes with great warmth and animation. 

 Some of his periods were so well rounded and so eloquently 

 delivered that he met with much applause, several members 

 crying — bravo I 



In regard to their general method of proceeding there are two 

 circumstances in which they are very deficient: the spectators in 

 the galleries are allowed to interfere in the debates by clapping 

 their hands and other noisy expressions of approbation: this 

 is grossly indecent; it is also dangerous; for, if they are per- 

 mitted to express approbation, they are, by parity of reason, 

 allowed expressions of dissent; and they may hiss as well as 

 clap; which it is said they have sometimes done: — this would 

 be to over-rule the debate and influence the deliberations. 

 Another circumstance is the want of order among themselves; 

 more than once to-day there were a hundred members on their 

 legs at a time and Monsieur Baillie absolutely without power to 

 keep order. This arises very much from complex motions 

 being admitted; to move a declaration relative to their title, to 

 their powers, to taxes, to a loan, etc., etc., all in one proposition 

 appears to English ears preposterous, and certainly is sov 

 Specific motions founded on single and simple propositions can 

 alone produce order in debate; for it is endless to have five 

 hundred members declaring their reasons of assent to one part 

 of a complex proposition and their dissent to another part, A 

 debating assembly should not proceed to any business whatever 



