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SENIOR DEPUTY OF THE COMMUNES. 175 
pretensions of the courtiers on the eve of an immense 
revolution? When the Greeks of the Lower Empire, 
instead of going on the ramparts valiantly to repel the 
attacks of the Turks, remained night and day collected 
around some sophists in their lyceums and academies, 
their sterile debates at least related to some intellectual 
questions ; but at Versailles, there was nothing in action, 
on the part of two out of three orders, but the most mis- 
erable vanity. 
By an express arrangement, decreed from the begin- 
ning, among the Members of the Communes, the Dean 
or President had to be renewed every week. Notwith- 
standing the incessant representations of Bailly, this leg- 
islative article was long neglected, so fortunate did the 
Assembly feel in having at their head this eminent man, 
who to undeniable knowledge, united sincerity, modera- 
tion, and a degree of patriotism not less appreciated. 
He thus presided over the Third Estate on the me- 
morable days that determined the march of our great 
revolution. 
On the 17th of June, for instance, when the Deputies 
of the Communes, worn out with the tergiversations of 
the other two orders, showed that in case of need they 
would act without their concurrence, and _ resolutely 
adopted the title of National Assembly,—they provided 
against presumed projects of dissolution, by stamping as 
illegal all levies of contribution which were not granted 
by the Assembly. . 
Again, on the 20th of June, when the Members of the 
National Assembly, affronted at the Hall having been 
closed and their meetings suspended without an official 
notification, with only the simple form of placards and 
public criers, as if a mere theatre was in question, they 
