Tnfiiience of the Breton Deputation 51 



This energetic urging of revolutionary measures caused 

 tlie deputies of Bretagne to be viewed in a very unfavor- 

 able light by many even of their own order. Some be- 

 lieved them in league with Mirabeau who was still re- 

 garded as an unprincipled agitator. Such was, as early 

 as May 7, the opinion of Duquesnoy,^ who, like the Ga- 

 zette de Leyde,- credited them with the project of dissolv- 

 ing the States General. He believed that they desired 

 merely to humiliate the Nobility; that if they succeeded 

 in this it was of little consequence to them whether or 

 not the nation were free. On May 30, a correspondent 

 whose name is not known wrote to the ministry: "We 

 have learned from a trustworthy source, and this merits 

 the most serious attention, we have learned that the dep- 

 uties of Bretagne have formed the project of thwarting 

 all the operations of the chamber and of so arousing the 

 minds as to prevent the holding of the States General. 

 It has been remarked that the opinions the most extreme 

 and the most violent come always from them. They have 

 a double interest in sustaining their system. It is said 

 that their province pays much less than the others and 

 that they fear an equal partition. They have an old (juar- 

 rel with the Nobility of their country and, always occu- 

 pied with the vengeance they meditate against it, they 



decide the difficulty then existing between the Third Estate and the 

 privileged orders, he makes a pathetic appeal to him to place his 

 confidence in his people who were sincerely attached to him, rather 

 than ally himself with the aristocracy, enemy of both himself and 

 his people. 



^Journal (VAdrien Diiquesnoy, I, 9. Writing of Mirabeau he says: 

 " 'II me parait evident, et a tons les bons esprits, que, M. Necker 

 n'ayant pas voulu acheter son silence ou son appui, il veut faire dis- 

 Boudre les etats, pour entrainer le ministere dans leur chute. Mai-, 

 heureusement, il a beaucoup de partisans. Tons les Bretons sont de 

 son bord; ces gens-ia, ne voyant dans I'assemblee des etats qu 'un 

 moyen, une occasion d'ecraser la Noblesse, contre laquelle lis ont une 

 fureur insensee, il leur import peu que la nation soit libre, heureuse, 

 pourvu qu'ils humilient la Noblesse." 



= See note 4, p. 35, above. 



257 



