Meeting of the Estates-General, 1780. 141 
decrepit heroes who have, alas! for them, only their services and 
their misfortunes? In vain do they ask of the pitiless ministry a 
wretched pension; money is necessary to secure an audience; 
without money, the doors are closed, the ministry is deaf. Woe 
to the one who has, to support his claim, only. certificates- of 
honor and titles of fame. He will be set aside, rejected, even 
crushed if he insist; and the pension owed for his services will 
be given to a dancer or a courtier. 
“Beside this disgusting list of the abuses of our present 
system, place for a moment an outline of the advantages which a 
new constitution offers us. In place of a condition of debase- 
ment, your condition will be respected. You will enjoy, from 
the public, the esteem and the consideration which the defenders 
of the country merit. ... The suppression of the greater 
part of the governors, under-governors, commandants, lieute- 
nants of the king and other useless officers whose appointments 
exhaust the state and are thefts made from the military treasury, 
will follow. Without all these thieves who devour our sub- 
sistence, the life and health of the soldier will be more assured; 
double pay will furnish us an honest living and this increase 
will add nothing to the burdens of the people, since it will be 
taken from the superfluity of so many useless beings to furnish 
the necessities for those who are useful.” 
Just as this frank critic of the old military régime was laying 
bare the reasons why the majority of the soldiery of France 
threw in their lot with the national assembly, he learned, so he 
tells us, of the oath and acclamation of the French Guards. 
The news roused him to a fresh outburst of patriotic fervor: 
“French, Europeans, inhabitants of two hemispheres, men of all 
ranks, of all countries to whom liberty is dear, know that on 
the 25th of June, 1789, in a city called Paris, three thousand 
brave soldiers have sworn ‘to defend to their last breath, their 
country, their liberty, their prince, surrounded by a small 
group of scoundrels; to protect against any sort of violence their 
fellow citizens in general, and each of the members of the national 
assembly in particular; finally not to permit that any one among 
them be arrested or punished for this act of patriotism.’ 
“Brave soldiers of the third estate, in whatever rank, in what- 
255 
