194 Jeanette Needham. 
instructions, was merely another trap for the third estate. In 
his opinion, that provision presupposed the calling of new pro- 
vincial assemblies, to change the instructions, a circumstance 
that would delay the assembly since it did not wish to proceed 
irregularly. But a more dangerous consequence, he held, might 
be the recognition of the right of the king alone to exercise legis- 
lative power, even during the sessions of the states-general. 
Besides these fears, he saw an opportunity for the nobility to 
refuse to submit their credentials to a new verification in the 
assembly, since the king had emphasized their acceptance of the 
declaration of June 23. Article two of the first declaration 
dispensed with the submission to common verification of cre- 
dentials already verified in the pretended chamber of the no-. 
bility. 
But, although thinking men were fully conscious of the dangers 
to the progress of the assembly, there was also the settled con- 
viction that this union of the orders was a step toward the 
ultimate triumph of the ideas of the national assembly and 
toward a new era for France. The editor of the Assemblée 
nationale regarded this event as the final termination of the 
two long months of debate that had agitated France; as the 
forerunner of a union, ‘‘so generally and so ardently desired, 
by the monarch and by all the French people.’’*4 
Although fully conscious of the causes of the union, Boullé 
believed that it settled the method of sitting and, presumably, 
of voting: ‘‘Seeing in the assembly the greatest enemies of the 
nation, such as a D’Eprémesnil, an Abbé Maury, no one has © 
been duped by this union, nor has any one attributed it to other 
motives than to the impossibility of dispensing with it. I do 
not know whether the intention was to place some restrictions 
upon the union, to raise quibbles, for example, upon the mode of 
deliberation, a question upon which the result of circumstances 
has forced a decision, even before it has been discussed; it is 
certain that the public regard what has just occurred as a com- 
plete victory over the aristocracy.” 
8 Biauzat, II, 148. 
34 Assemblée nationale, I, 263. 
% Boullé, Documents inédits, Revue de la révolution, XIV, 30. 
308 
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