156 Jeanette Needham. 
explanations safeguarding the rights of their order. There is no 
information telling how it was drafted, for it is simply incor- 
porated in the minutes of the clergy.’ As the king justified 
his request for union on the basis of the policy announced in 
the royal session, the clergy also justified their consent on the 
basis of four articles, I, VII, VIII, and IX, found in the first 
declaration of June 23, each of these four articles being quoted 
in turn at the opening of the decree. In view of these articles 
reserving all the rights of the clergy, in view of their own action 
in the decrees of June 24 and June 25 respecting the first declara- 
tion, and, finally, because of the king’s letter to the Cardinal 
de la Rochefoucauld, ‘‘the order of the clergy, always eager 
to give to His Majesty testimonials of respect, love and con- 
‘fidence and justly impatient to be able to give itself up, at last, 
to the discussion of the great interest, upon which the national 
welfare depends,’’ passed a double resolution. First, they de- 
clared their intention “to unite with the other two orders of 
the nobility and the third estate in the common hall in order 
to treat affairs of general utility, conformably to the declaration 
of the king, without prejudice of the right which belongs to the 
clergy, in accordance with the constitutional laws of the mon- 
archy, to assemble and to vote separately, a right which they 
cannot and do not desire to abandon in the present session of the 
estates-general and which is expressly reserved to them by 
articles VIII and IX of the same declaration.”” In order to 
fortify their position yet more strongly, they decided, in the 
second place, “‘to address to His Majesty, a letter explanatory 
of the principles, preservative of the monarchy, which guided 
the order of the clergy and the sentiments of union and peace 
which decided it to adopt the plans of conciliation proposed by 
His Majesty, as well as to unite with the other orders in the 
hall of the estates-general.”’ 
7Barmond, Récit, 278-280; Procés-verbal ... de la noblesse, 301-302. 
The texts are practically the same. The Procés quotes the full text of article I 
of the king’s first declaration, while the Récit omits the last sentence. The 
text of the king’s letter is not repeated in the body of the decree as given by 
the Réc‘i, but the Procés quotes most of it. It is given practically the same 
as in the Réczt. 
8 For full text of articles see Procés-verbal of the national assembly, No. 5. 
270 
