Meeting of the Estates-General, 1789. 15 
case. Still, it was not an easy matter for the assembly to 
express its views in some distinct plan of remedy. The con- 
- dition of affairs gave rise to various motions, interrupted with 
a much discussion which brought no results.” Finally, Mounier, 
possibly profiting by the preceding expression of ideas, made a 
- motion in which he attempted to embody the more clearly 
_ defined views of the assembly as to the most efficient means of 
relieving their embarrassing situation. He proposed that a 
deputation be sent to the king to ask for the withdrawal of the 
_ troops on the grounds that the deputies, as representatives of 
the nation, should have the policing of their place of meeting, 
of entrance into and exit from their hall; that those who guarded 
the doors should be under their orders; and that until the govern- 
ment should remove the troops, the assembly could not deliberate 
with freedom in its ordinary place of meeting.” 
On the launching of this motion, the assembly broke out 
into a period of heated debate over this particular pro- 
posal, and of discussion involving various other proposals ° 
related more or less closely to the matter under consideration.” 
23 Boullé, Documents inédits, Revue de la rév., XIII, 74; Duquesnoy, I, 128; 
a Assemblée nationale, 1, 213; Letire d'un membre de l’ass. nat., 38. All accounts 
indicate that the assembly engaged in discussion without definite aim. 
€ *% Procés-verbal, No. 6, 3-4; Point du jour, I, 45; Duquesnoy, I, 125; Courrier 
de Provence, Lettre XIII, 12; Assemblée nationale, 1, 213. The latter merely 
mentions that there was talk of complaining about the military investment 
of the hall and does not name Mounier. The Procés-verbal likewise fails to 
mention the name of Mounier. The text of the motion as found in the 
____-Procés-verbal, however, is followed in the narrative. The other accounts do 
= not give the details of the proposal, but rather the one fact of protest against 
the troops. Bulietin d'un agent secret, No. 47, dated June 25, 1789 (in La 
révolution francaise, XXIV. 71), notes that there was to be a deputation. 
This writer says it was to be composed of forty members, but evidently he 
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pis cn 
ay 
e had heard what was done the following day, although the number is still 
_—s-wrong. Twenty-four were to form the deputation as decided upon June 25. 
% 25 Duquesnoy, I, 125-126. He gives several motions which apparently 
__ came in after Mounier’s, and at the clergy’s entrance, he says: ‘‘ Pendant 
F -qu’on s’occupait de ces divers objets, on a annoncé le clergé.”” Point du jour, 
a» I, 45. In this, the Mounier motion is followed by the account of one by 
___Brostaret and Pison. Procés-verbal, No. 6, 4: ‘La déliberation sur cette 
4 proposition a été suspendue par l’entrée de MM. du clergé.’’ So nothing 
had been decided upon. Since all these various motions, of which so little is 
# 
129 
oa 
_ 
