22 Charles Ktihlmann 



Lanjuinais, avocat and professor of law at the law 

 school of Rennes, had long been known for liis liberal 

 views. Ten years before the opening of the Kevolution 

 he had been violently attacked for an opinion he had pub- 

 lished in favor of the Third Estate relative to the droit 

 do colombicr. As a result of this, he had been practically 

 forced to abandon his profession owing to the dislike eim- 

 ceived against him by the members of the Parliament of 

 Kennes.i When in 1788 Le Guer published the circular 

 letter in which the Nobility announced rudely its opposi- 

 tion to reforms, Lanjuinais promptly replied by a crush- 

 ing analysis of the letter, article by article. After expos- 

 ing the fallacy of Le Guer's argument in maintaining 

 that the interests of each order were sufficiently guarded 

 by the veto of each, he struck at the heart of the contro- 

 versy in frankly announcing the necessity of a funda- 

 mental or constitutional change. Le Guer had said 

 "That all innovation, in opening the door to the arbitrary, 

 will tend only to bring about trouble and anarchy." - 

 With the greatest indignation and irony Lanjuinais re- 

 plied: "Negroes! you have been reduced almost to the 

 condition of brutes; no innovation. Russian peasants! 

 you are slaves; no innovation. Children of the kings of 

 Asia! according to custom the strongest and wiliest among 

 you strangles his brethren; no innovation. Jagas of Af- 

 rica! among you exist the slaughter houses of human 

 flesh; no innovation. People of Bretagne! you suffer 

 greatly, but the nobles are people very well off; no inno- 

 vation. You have the veto to exercise in your favor, in 

 an assembly of seven to eight hundred nobles, by forty 

 and some deputies from the cities, of which several are 

 nobles or aspiring to be."^ 



^ CEuvres cle J. D. Lanjninais, Paris, 1832. I, 6. 

 = Ibid., I, 116. 

 nbid., I, 116. 



228 



