Influence of the Breton Deputation 31 



General did not open until the 5tli, they had before them 

 a week which they employed in orientating themselves 

 politically, in discussing the affairs of their deputation, 

 their cahiers, and the question of the manner of voting. 

 They had already learned of the attack^ made upon the 

 validity of their credentials by the Nobility and the Clergy 

 at Saint-Brieuc, and in their very first meeting they con- 

 sidered the manner of their defense. The question was 

 whether or not they shoaild publish a reply at once or 

 postj^one their defense until their credentials should come 

 before the States General. The latter course was decided 

 upon.- For the next meeting, they determined to occupy 

 themselves with the clauses in their oahiers demanding 

 that all taxes voted by the States General should be sub- 

 ject to approval by the estates of Bretagne so far as they 

 applied to that province, an important demand which was 

 later to cause them considerable embarrassment.^ It had 

 Ijeen their intention to begin at once the coordination of 

 the demands made in all the cahiers of the province, in- 

 cluding those of the cures, but it soon appeared to them 

 preferable to consider first of all the gTeat fundamental 

 questions which confronted the States General as a whole 

 — the union of the orders and the manner of voting.^ On 

 April 30, the deputies of Franche-Comte, Normandy, Dau- 

 phine, Guyenne, and Perigord were present at their meet- 

 ing. MO'Unier, who was soon to become one of their 

 strongest opponents, and who in 1792 laid many fatal acts 



indicating the building in which the club met, as situated in the 

 Avenue de Saint-Cloud and the rue de la Pompe (No. 44 in 1889) and 

 the hall upon the ground floor as the one used by the club. See 

 Aulard, La Socictc des Jacobins, I, pp. 3, 4. 



'Declaration of the Clergy and the Nobility. Bih. Nat. Le23/170. ^ 



= MS. letter of Legendre and Moyot, April 28. Archives de Brest. 



Mbid. This was considered as an imperative mandate. See note 

 2, p. 67, below. 



* Legendre and Moyot, May 1. 



237 



