Influence of the Breton Deputation 23 



This pamphlet was soon followed by another, "Le pre- 

 servatif contie Favis a mes compatriots," in which, after 

 summing up the grievances of the Third Estate, he de- 

 fended the king and Necker against the attacks of the 

 Nobility of Bretagne, maintaining that their intention 

 Avas to liberate France by giving it a constitution. "Grat- 

 itude and enthusiasm for the sovereign are the only senti- 

 ments which should manifest themselves and be forever 

 fixed in the hearts of all."^ 



(jrlezen also entered the conflict through the press in a 

 "Lettre d'un honime a 864 nobles bretons," in which he 

 asked why the people of Bretagne were so anxious to 

 change their constitution, if it were the base of their hap- 

 piness as the Nobility maintained. "How dare you to af- 

 firjn in the eighteenth century that a constitution in which 

 the dignity of man is debased and his rights disowned so 

 far as to subject millions of men to the caprices and cu- 

 pidity of a privileged class, that a constitution in which a 

 small number of individuals, establishing themselves as 

 despots, have arrogated to themselves the odious privilege 

 of exemption from the public contributions and to force 

 the people to support the entire burden, that precious por- 

 tion of the nation which, they say ironically, has been al- 

 ways dear to them; that a constitution, finally, Avliich is 

 essentially inconsistent with the public welfare, since in 

 order to achieve it (the public welfare) reforms w^ould be 

 necessary, but which would never be accomplished while 

 those who pretend to be masters, the guardians of that 

 constitution, crush b}' their preponderance the Avell-in- 

 tentioned citizens; . . . how do you dare to say that 

 such a constitution procures the happiness of a great prov^^ 

 ince and that every Breton ought to cling to it as firmly as 

 to his honor? What then are your ideas of honor that they 



'Ibid., 134, 135. 



229 



