64 Charles Kuhlmann 



clauses forbidding them to consent to any measures preju- 

 dicial to the rights and privileges of the province, not fully 

 incorporated in the French State, or to consent to new 

 taxes Avithout reserving the right of Bretagne to sanction 

 them.^ The deputies at their second meeting at 

 Versailles seemed to have recognized the impor lance of 

 these instructions and their incompatibility with the nat- 

 ure of an assembly pretending to legislate sovereignly for 

 the entire nation. ^ On June 14, Avhen the powers of 

 Nantes and Kennes were read, a general murmur arose." 

 Dupont de Nemours declared that the bearers of such in- 

 structions possessing a veto upon the actions of the as- 

 semblj^ could not be admitted as members of it.^ Le Chap- 

 elier A^'as able to postpone the decision of the question by 

 observing that the assembly was at that time not con- 

 cerned with the nature of their powers but with the reg- 

 ularity of their credentials.^ Their attitude upon this 

 subject was throughout vacillating and irrational, dic- 

 tated, it seems, by local spirit and the circumstances of 

 the moment. Although the}^ realized that they could not 

 recognize such instructions, they ignored the letter of the 

 king on June 27 authorizing all bearers of imperative 

 mandates to appl3^ to their constituents for new orders, 

 and refused to allow the question to be decided in the 

 assembly. The motion of Tallyrand on July 6, condem- 

 natory of the imperative mandate, considerably alarmed 



^ These instructions were given especially by the scncchaussces of 

 Rennes, Nantes, Vannes, Dol, Fougeres, Dinan, Quimperle, Carhaix, 

 and Chateaulin. Procvs-verbal, II, No. 40 bis. Here Guerande is also 

 given, but in the correspondence of Pellerin, published by Bord, the 

 committee and the mayor of Guerande deny that there is anything in 

 the cahiers which binds the freedom of its representative to act accord- 

 ing to his judgment, pp. 105, 106. 



= Legendre and Moyot, May 1. MSS. Archives of Brest. 



"^Bulletin de Brest, I, No. 11. 



*Proc<s-v€rbal, 1, the introductory number, p. 73. 



^Le Roulx, June 15. 



270 



