144 Jeanette Needham. 
disconcerted. Instead, “‘they conceived the project of seducing 
in different ways, the deputies of the clergy and the nobility; 
their batteries were directed against those timid, or irresolute, 
or accessible to corruption. No delicacy in their choice of 
means, all were adopted, even to deeds of violence.’’ Barentin 
cites the attack upon the Archbishop of Paris as an example of 
their perfidy. Thus, while the populace, through acts of in- 
timidation, tried to force the clergy and nobility into a single 
assembly, Necker, who was hand in glove with these conspirators, 
was urging the king to induce the upper orders to join the third 
estate. The king, trusting in Necker’s protestations of devotion, 
was led to take the fatal step under specious pretexts. He was 
made to believe that he would prevent an impending division, 
evidently in the nobility,* although Barentin does not so state. 
The king’s fears were aroused by tales of popular dissatisfaction 
at the inactivity of the estates for which the nobility in par- 
ticular was blamed; by reports of the excitement in Paris and 
even in the provinces; finally, by reputed threats against his 
own life and that of the royal family. When the nobility hesi- 
tated to take the fatal step, then Necker and his partisans 
repeated their ‘‘perfidious insinuations’”’ until the king com- 
manded that the Comte d’Artois write the letter which finally 
broke the opposition of the nobles.’ Such is Barentin’s version 
of the manner in which the union of the orders was effected. 
Presumably, both Barentin and Necker himself have mis- 
represented, ignorantly or purposely, or both, the degree of 
Necker’s responsibility for the action of the king in bringing 
about the union of the orders. There can be no doubt, of 
4 Duquesnoy, I, 135-136; Note of Necker, quoted by Loménie, Les Pré- 
liminatres de la séance royale, Annales de l’école libre des sciences politiques, 
V, 128. Duquesnoy wrote of the effects upon the nobility of the answer of 
Bailly to the deputation from the nobility on June 26; ‘‘ On a proposé de se 
retirer 4 l’instant, de mettre un vefo sur tout ce qui se ferait aux états.” Of 
the effect of this attitude of the nobility he wrote: ‘‘ Si demain la réunion 
n’est pas opérée, si la noblesse se sépare, j’ignore tout ce que ceci pourra 
devenir . .’ On the morning of June 27, Necker referred to a “‘ schism ” 
declared by the order of the nobility and stated that some deputies would 
leave Versailles that evening. 
5 Barentin, 239-243. 
258 
