Influence of the Breton Deputation 73 



inviting it to elect, by bisliopries, tlie number of deputies 

 to which it was entitled. But by this time, the sentiments 

 of the Breton deputies had been affected by many rumors 

 and fears of intrigue and counter-revolution in which they 

 suspected their own Nobility to be involved. "The affair 

 of the 26th and 2Tth,"^ writes Le Koulx, "the oath, the 

 resume of facts in which the bourgeois youth were ac- 

 cused of having presented themselves with breastplates, - 

 all these circumstances were recalled as so many injuries 

 for which justice was exacted, and the Breton Committee, 

 judging from what is passing about us by the zeal of the 

 envoy of the Breton Nobility, is not without uneasiness 

 concerning several new jDrojects. They are not able to 

 conceive that the Nobility has not some secret motives, 

 some (irriere pensee, to devote themselves to the absolute 

 veto, or the system of two chambers.'' Their answer 

 therefore was that the proposed step was beneath the dig- 

 nit}^ of the National Assembly which had assigned to the 

 . Breton Nobility its place in the hall. Let them occupy it. 

 The Breton deputies would not make opposition."' 



An incident which gTeatly aroused the apprehensions 

 of the deputies of Bretagne was the so-called "Conspiracy 

 of Brest." On July 24 the ministers of marine and for- 

 eign affaii's informed them that the English were arming 

 in French ports; that they had searched several French 

 vessels and entered into communication with the internal 



'See p. 19. 



-This was a charge made in a vicmoire drawn up by the Clergy 

 and the Nobility after the January riot, and which became accepted 

 as the sense of both the privileged orders. Bib. Nat. Lb39/6900. It 

 was a charge which, by its double meaning, particularly incensed the 

 Third Estate. 



^Le Roulx. An undated letter (No. 58 in the register) but probaDly 

 the 4th or 5th of September, since he seems to refer to Mounier's re- 

 port on the constitution of the legislative body and on the same even- 

 ing that the address of Rennes on the veto was discussed in the Breton 

 Committee. 



279 



