48 Charles Kuhlmann 



to accept him as umpire in the dispute between the orders. 

 This the nation must decide — the nation, according to 

 their conception, as represented in the deputies of the 

 Third Estate.^ Otherwise a simple decision of the Coun- 

 cil might at one stroke dispose of the pretentionsa of their 

 order. In this crisis, they did not hesitate to reject the 

 king's mediation, especially since the Nobility had by a 

 new vote just declared that the vote by order and the veto 

 of each order over the decisions of the others were inherent 

 in the constitution of the monarchy.^ When the Sene- 

 chaussee of Eenues was called, Glezen moved that the 

 Third Estate now constitute itself an active assembly, 

 since no compromise was henceforth to be thought of; 

 that all previous conferences had led to nothing useful, 

 and that all future ones 'would be equally futile — they 

 might even give rise to a decision of the king of which the 

 consequences could become very dangerous.^ To this Le 

 Chapelier added that, with the act of constituting, a depu- 

 tation to the kino- with an address containina" the senti- 



^The relatively moderate Legendre wrote on June 2 that the pre- 

 ceding evening they had discussed in the assembly of the province a 

 memoire of the avocats of Rennes against the parliament of Paris 

 which had condemned their address to the king, of the beginning of 

 February, to be burned (see p. 21). Regarding this memoire, he 

 says: "Mais j'ai particulierement et le premier observe la necessite 

 de la corriger dans la partie oii on invoque I'autorite du roi comme 

 le" refuge supreme des dissentions qui peuvent s'elever entre les or- 

 dres." (Italics in the original.) Archives de Brest. The inference 

 is clear that he did not recognize the king's authority in this ques- 

 tion and also that he was not alone in taking this stand, since he 

 was the first. 



Under the date June 4 is entered in the Bulletin de Brest, I, No. 8: 

 "M. le Chapelier ... a devoile I'inexactitude du rapport qui 

 venait d'etre fait des conferences, et les atteints donnees par les com- 

 missaires du roi aux droits de la nation, par I'observation qu'ils avaient 

 faite que le roi n'avait pas renonce a la decision dans son conseil, 

 des difhcultes qui pourraient s'elever entre les trois ordres." 



''Letter of Boulle, May 28, Revue de la Revolution, vol. XI, p. 115. 

 Duquesnoy, I, p. 52. 



Rccits des siances des deputes des communes, p. 44. 



^Bulletin de Rennes, I, No. 13. 



254 



