82 Jeanette Needham. 
have felt that their constituents would support their action 
in voting for the decree. ; 
More than half of the fifty protests laid on the table, con- 
tained the specific request that official record be made of their 
action, evidently in order to justify themselves to their consti- 
tuents.“ A few who did not either protest or explain, but simply 
stated how they had voted, made the same request, apparently 
for the reason just indicated.“ 
The analysis of these declarations shows that, at bottom, 
the question of the definite acceptance of the first declaration 
of the king rested upon a referendum decision by the various 
constituencies of the nobility. The decree had only a small 
plurality of unqualified votes. Others supported it temporarily, 
out of deference for the king,“ or because forced by ‘‘imperious 
circumstances,’’“® because conscience so advised,*” or to secure 
the boon of peace and the safety of the state.*® Whether they 
might continue to create a majority in its favor depended upon 
the attitude of the nobles whom they represented. 
Doubtless the king had not expected so much opposition by 
the nobility to his project for effecting the temporary union of 
the estates. That they had raised such objection to acquiescence 
in the denatured plan for the union of the orders, sponsored by 
-the king, shows how divergent from the revolutionary scheme 
of union, fostered by the third estate, was the nobility’s con- 
ception of the organization of the estates-general. Their atti- 
tude indicates further how urgent the circumstances would 
have to be, that could impel the nobility, as a whole, to a partial 
or even an apparent support of the policy of the despised national 
assembly. 
48 Nos. 9, 10, 21, 40, 49. All state that they made declarations for the 
purpose of justifying themselves at home. 
44 Nos. 6, 9, 10, 40, 36. 
4 Nos. 4, 13, 14, 43, 44, 45, 47- 
46 Nos. 27, 33, 35, 38, 39. 
47 No. €. 
48 Nos. 14, 43, 45, 48. 
