28 Charles Kuhlmann 



paralysis of the old organization and the arms of the 

 "jeunes gens." 



As to the formation of their committee at Versailles, it 

 was probably contemplated by many of them before they 

 left the province. The dangers to which they were ex- 

 posed in common, the personal acquaintanceship of the 

 majority of them,^ together with the example of a similar 

 committee of which a number had been members six 

 months before, the clubs at Rennes during the session of 

 the last estates, would alone have suggested it. But the 

 organization was made necessary, in effect, by the formal 

 instructions of several deputations to consult with their 

 co-deputies relative to their cahicrs and the events con- 

 nected with the rioting of the 26th and 2Tth of January. 

 At Saint-Brieuc instructions were given, "To unite with 

 their co-deputies of Bretagne, to communicate to each 

 other their caliiers, and concert together the means to be 

 employed to secure the general welfare and the welfare 

 of this province in particular." ^ At Quimper the dep- 

 uties were to "require their co-deputies of the province 

 to unite with them and to extend that union even to the 

 deputies of the other provinces of the kingdom in order 

 to cause to be repressed the audacity of a tribunal which 

 dares to condemn the memoire which His Majesty has 

 well received, and to blame at once both the confidence of 

 the subjects and the grace of the monarch."^ Rennes and 



'Le Teo in La Revolution frangaise, vol. 36, p. 387, says: "Tous 

 ces hommes se connaissaient personnellement, avaient interet a res- 

 errer leurs relations dans une assembl6e provinciale des deputes de 

 Bretagne." This statement must not be taken literally. It is not 

 probable that they had all met to become personally acquainted — at 

 least there is no evidence to prove it. On the contrary we find the 

 deputies of Saint-Brieuc writing: "Car nous avons beaucoup d'aris- 

 tocrates ici, meme quelques uns parmi les deputes de Bretagne," which 

 would seem to show distrust of some of their colleagues, which could 

 not have' been the case had they known them personally. 



^Art. I of the cahicrs. 



'Procvs-verbal of elections. Archives Nationales B26, liasse 169t>is. 



284 



