158 Jeanette Needham. 
The second provided that .the possessions of the church, 
submitted like lay property to the payment of the taxes necessary 
for the protection of the prosperity of the state, will serve, at 
the same time, as a mortgage and security for the payment of 
the national debt when it shall have been validated and duly 
verified. By the third, it was agreed ‘‘that in harmony with 
the beneficent dispositions announced by the king in the session 
of the 23d of this month, His Majesty will be asked to abolish 
completely without return, the name of fazlle, the use of the 
corvée, the rights of main-morte; to render drafting for the militia 
less burdensome to the poor people of the towns and country; 
finally, to convert the personal charges into pecuniary aids, to 
which the order of the clergy consents to be subjected.”’ 
The fourth stated that ‘‘in considering in the matter of the 
tax, the impositions most useful and most favorable to the law of 
proportional equality, it is just to indemnify, by supplementary 
appropriations, both the hospitals which the present law frees 
from all public contributions, and the curés, taxed as much as 
they can bear under the existing regulations of the clergy, upon 
a basis far lower than that which is used to fix the quota of 
other taxpayers.”’ 
As yet, no word had come from the chamber of the nobility, 
so the clergy next listened to the reading of the memoir ordered 
the previous day in justification of their action on June 19 and 
24.4 Evidently, the committee appointed to draft it did not 
complete their work the evening of June 26, for Coster states 
that it met at the Menus at eight o’clock that morning.” The 
result of their labor was a document of several pages, entitled 
Récit de ce qui s'est passé dans l’ordre du clergé, depuis le 19 juin 
jusqu’au 24 du méme mois. . 
It began by quoting, practically verbatim, the minutes of 
June 24 prior to the withdrawal of the majority of the order, 
which had been drafted by the minority secretary, Barmond. 
1 Barmond, Récit, 282; Coster, Récit, 348. 
12 Coster, Récit, 344. 
13 Published in Overture des états-généraux, procés-verbaux et récit des séances 
des ordres du clergé et de la noblesse, jusqu'd leur réunion a l’assemblée nationale, 
Paris, 1791, pp. 249-267. 
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