a Me ei 
Meeting of the Estates-General, 1789. 197 
he felt assured. ‘‘In vain I have asked, where is the power that 
can separate them hereafter, if the commons insist on remaining 
together, which may be supposed, as such an arrangement will 
leave all the power in their own hands? ... The event now 
appears so clear as not to be difficult to predict; all real powers 
will be henceforward in the commons; having so much inflamed 
the people in the exercise of it, they will find themselves unable 
to use it temperately; the court cannot sit to have their hands 
tied behind them; the clergy, nobility, parliaments and army will, 
’ when they find themselves all in danger of annihilation, unite 
in their mutual defense; but as such a union will demand time, 
they will find the people armed and a bloody civil war must be 
the result.’’38 
But neither the king nor the court recognized in the union of 
the orders on June 27, the significance attributed to it by Young. 
In their conception, the union of the orders by request of the 
king, was but an expedient for gaining time until the troops, 
which were to make possible the successful execution of the 
policy proclaimed on June 23, should have arrived at Paris. 
The coup d'état of July was the result of their attitude toward 
the situation created by the royal session. 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
SOURCES 
Documents 
Ouverture des états-généraux, procés-verbaux et récit des séances des ordres du 
clergé et de la noblesse jusqu’ a leur réunion @ l’assemblée nationale.: Paris, 
1791. 
Besides other material, this volume includes four different sources for 
the sessions of the clergy. The pages run consecutively throughout the 
volume. The four accounts are: (1) Journal des séances du clergé as- 
semblé & Versailles pour les états-généraux .. . rédigé par M. Thibault; 
(2) Récit de ce qui s’est passé dans l’ordre du clergé depuis le 19 juin jusqu'au 
24 du méme mois; (3) Récit de ce qui s'est passé dans l’ordre du clergé; 
(4) Récit des séances du clergé. On page 1 of the fourth account is found 
the following note: ‘‘ Le journal qui précéde est celui des séances du 
clergé rédigé par le secrétaire que la chambre avait nommé officiellement. 
Un autre membre du clergé, M. Coster, ayant, de son cété, rédigé le récit 
38 Young, 183-184. 
41 
