Meeting of the Estates-General, 1780. 4I 
man saved him from further maltreatment by throwing him 
into a house and closing the door.‘ The Archbishop of Paris, 
however, was the chief object of popular disfavor. He had been 
hissed and threatened with violence the day before at the royal 
session,’ and again that morning as he came to the chamber of 
_the clergy.” Presumably, some of the reasons for this bitter- 
ness toward him rested upon no foundation in fact, but the 
people believed that he was guilty of numerous crimes against 
the popular cause. It was well known that he was one of the 
staunch defenders of the idea of separate assemblies and that 
he had proposed, in the chamber of the clergy, that credentials 
be verified by order. On behalf of those principles, he made 
the clandestine night trip to Marly, June 19, which was the 
cause of much of the animosity displayed toward him.2! Public 
rumor interpreted that affair in the worst possible manner. One 
version of the Marly episode was that the archbishop had gone 
into the royal presence with the crucifix in his hand as a witness 
to what he was about to say; that in a wild outburst to the 
king, he had attributed all the evils of France in the matter of 
religion to a foreign and irreligious minister.” In truth, he was 
generally accused of being the bitter adversary of Necker and 
of having worked to effect his dismissal.% Others charged him 
18 Young, 180; Jallet, 102; Bulletins d’un agent secret, La révolution francaise, 
XXIV, 71. Young and the writer of the Bulletins were in Paris. Probably 
their information came through the Palais Royal. Young refers to the victim 
as the Bishop of Beauvais, evidently an error based on the fact that Jean- 
Baptiste-Charles-Marie de Beauvais was Bishop of Senez. The writer of 
the Lettre d'un membre de l'assemblée nationale states that the latter was 
responsible for the failure of the Archibshop of Paris to accompany the majority 
to the national assembly. He says that the archbishop had descended 
the first flight of stairs from the hall of the clergy when the Bishop of 
Senez, who dominated him, ran after him and induced him to return to the 
minority. 
19 Lettre d’un membre de | assemblée nationale; Vaissiére, 14. 
20 Tbid., 40; Coster, Récit, 340. 
21 Coster, Récit, 341; Jallet, 93. 
22 Correspondance d’un député de la noblesse de la sénéchaussée de Marseilles 
avec la Marquise de Crequy, Documents inédits, Revue de la révolution, II, 37; 
Bailly, I, 232. Bailly tells a similar story. 
*3 Coster, Récit, 341; Saiffert, Revue de la révolution, VII, 252. 
155 
