54 Charles Kuhlmann 



here that Sieyfes' motion was first introduced and dis- 

 cussed during the evenings of the- 8th and 9th of June.^ 

 "At 9 o'clock I went to the ^alon dc Bretagnc," wrote 

 Boulle on June 10. "It Avas this evening truly the temple 

 of patriotism; all the better citizens of all the provinces 

 were assembled there. They examined, they discussed the 

 means of constituting an active assembly, and the plan 

 of the Abbe Sieyes of whom I have already spoken, ap- 

 peared to be generally approved. But a deputy, in com- 

 municating some information which he said he had re- 

 ceived from a reliable source, excited great alarm. A 

 committee of aristocrats, daily assembled at Madame de 

 Polignac's to oppose the views of the nation and to plot 

 its destruction, had decreed the sinister 'project which it 

 was upon the point of causing the government to adopt. 

 Under pretext of the. divisions which had from the first 

 paralyzed the States General and rendered them incapa- 

 ble of fulfilling their mission, they resolved to dissolve 

 them, or at least, to prorogiie them, which differs only in 

 the term. A royal session Was to be held before the end 

 of the week; and the parliaments, regretting that they 

 have obtained too much, reassuming the exercise of a right 

 which they had recognized as belonging to the nation only, 

 after having so long exercised it to the prejudice of the 

 nation, were to register all the laws, constitutional, po- 

 litical, and civil which circumstances or the needs of the 

 government might demand. M. d'Espremenil, the soul of 

 this committee, at which the letter of the king which 

 caused the renewal of the conferences had been drawn up, 

 at the moment when our pressing invitation embarrassed 

 the Clergy, and at which, to our misfortune and shame, 

 several of our members attend, M. d'Espremenil answered 



'Boullg, letter of June 9. Revue de la Revolution, vol. XII. 



260 



