a 
7 
. 
. 
Meeting of the Estates-General, 1789. 195 
Duquesnoy assumed that the verification of credentials in 
common was assured by this step and he went on to discuss the 
relation of that principle to the matter of vote by head. ‘“‘It is 
true,” he wrote, “that they have talked of this object only, 
and have not explained themselves as to vote by head or order, 
but, on the other side, the opinion of the majority of the clergy 
is sufficiently known, that of individuals who compose the 
nobility is not more hidden and all recognize that the verification 
in common is only a subterfuge, which has served as the pretext 
for our quarrels, of which the sole object has always been vote 
by head. Besides, the motives which have directed the nobility 
are much more powerful for the vote than they ever were for 
the common verification of credentials.’’*® 
The Point du jour of June 29 is given over to a review of the 
conditions under which the assembly had labored before the 
union and then to a most optimistic and far-reaching augury 
as to what that union would mean for the future of the French 
nation.*” Barere charged to the reactionaries about the king 
all the adverse circumstances that had impeded the action of 
the assembly. On their advice, troops had been stationed 
around the hall, but the assembly had dared to protest against 
the military occupation for this reason. Although the “minds 
and votes of the deputies would have been as free in the midst 
of a camp and the din of arms as in the midst of a senate, . . . it 
was not sufficient for the members of the national assembly to 
be free; it was necessary besides that they should be believed 
to be free.’”’ Another move of the malicious aristocracy had 
been to slander the national representatives both to the king 
and to the people; they had presented to the deputies “under 
the form of law some favors and some sacrifices of authority 
in order to cause them to acquiesce, by this bait, in the legislative 
power or to force them to a resistance which would render them 
out of favor even with their constituents. But to offset these 
86 Duquesnoy, I, 137-138. 
87 Point du jour, 1, 69-72; La révolution francaise, XXIV, 77; Bulletins 
d’un agent secret, No. 49. The writer of the bulletin has made the Point du 
jour the basis of his observations on the significance of the union of the 
orders. The copying is largely literal. 
309 
