60 EMPLOYMENT OF THE PLEBISCITE ^358 



The note, so concludes Freudenthal, was laid ad a^ta ; 

 " it could not change a fait accompli." 



The papal protest laid great weight on the manner of 

 application of the plebiscite. For this it found sufficient 

 cause in the fact that deputy de Menou on May 5, 1791, 

 had pressed the case on the strength of the "legality" of 

 the plebiscite and in the further fact that the decree of an- 

 nexation takes specific cognizance of the freely expressed 

 will or vote of the majority of the communities for annexa- 

 tion. The same papal note asserted that in the past the in- 

 habitants of Avignon and the Comtat had more than once 

 appealed to their former sovereigns, the Popes Gregory XI, 

 Nicholas V, Calixte III, and Paul III, to be permitted to 

 remain under the rule and law of the Apostolic See, and 

 that " at the first news of the designs of the National As- 

 sembly on the provinces in November, 1789, the city of 

 Avignon . . . renewed unanimously on December 10, of 

 this year, and all the inhabitants of the Comtat on Novem- 

 ber 25, the solemn declaration of their desire to remain true 

 and obedient to the reigning Popes. "^° 



One must not lose sight of the circumstance that the re- 

 peated adverse decisions of the petition of the people of 

 Avignon by the French Assembly and the latter's insistence 

 on sending a committee of mediators, as well as the con- 

 spicuous stress laid upon the action of the mediating body 

 in the final decree of annexation, clearly point to the prin- 

 ciple of intervention rather than that of popular self-deter- 



et a la servitude personelle, et ceux qui les representent, sont aboHs 

 sans indemnite. Tous les autres sont declares raclietables, et le 

 prix et le mode du rachet seront fixes par I'Assemblee nat'ionak 

 ..." (Ibid., vol. viii, p. 356). See also Soliere. pp. 32-37. 



20 On Nov. 20, 1790, the Abbe Maury introduced in the National 

 Assembly the texts of a resolution of the States of the province of 

 the Comtat and of a letter from the City of Avignon to the Pope. 

 The resolution states that, upon the news of the motion for union 

 of Avipnon with France made in tlic French Assembly by a member 

 from the Provence, the States of the province of the Comtat have 

 gathered to vote by ballot on the question of loyalty to their present 

 sovereign, the Pope. Each person present having cast his vote, ii 

 was found to be unanimously in favor of dispatching to the Pope a 

 letter asserting their unfaltering allegiance (Arch, pari., scr. I, vol. 

 XX, p. 573). 



