76 Jeanette Needham. 
their financial privileges. It had come to the point where they 
realized that concessions along this line must be made if the 
king were not to be thrown wholly into the arms of the national 
assembly. If they were willing to make pecuniary sacrifices, 
sufficient to place the government on a firm financial basis once 
more, they might hope to save all their other prerogatives, as 
well as those of the king, from destruction by the hostile com- 
mons. ‘The necessities of the situation were driving the privileged 
classes into the arms of the king, in the belief that they could 
still avert the disaster which the third estate had forced upon 
them. 
It was very natural that the last paragraph of the decree 
should have dealt with the solution of the problem of imperative 
instructions. Many of the nobility were in a position of absolute 
impotence under the existing circumstances. Their constituents 
had permitted them no latitude in interpreting their mandates 
so their hands were tied in the face of the crisis in the estates. 
The first declaration of the king offered them a way out of the 
difficulty, and this they proceeded to use. ‘“‘In consequence 
of and in order to execute article V of the aforesaid declaration,” 
they decreed ‘‘that His Majesty will be entreated to summon 
the nobility of the bailliages, whose deputies judge themselves 
bound by imperative mandates, in order that they may receive 
new instructions from their constituents and, moreover, may 
take into consideration, in the form indicated by the king, the 
articles contained in the second declaration of the intentions of 
His Majesty, which the order of the nobility regards as the 
most touching pledge of his justice and his love for his people.” 
Another project for a decree, which aimed also at the ac- 
ceptance of the first declaration, was put before the chamber, 
but it had additional features, namely, to nominate commis- 
sioners in accordance with article XIII of the first declaration, 
as well as to send the decree to the other orders by a deputation 
and to the king by the president.* 
The ensuing discussion led to a rather careful examination 
of all the articles of the first declaration, especially with respect 
to their relation to the mandates of the various deputies. One 
4 Procés-verbal . . . de la noblesse, 266. 
190 
