The First Revolutionary Step 7 



The motion was conservative. Le Chapelier immediately 

 proposed more radical action. 1 He said that the nobles had 

 shown that they would not join the commons, and a compromise 

 between vote by person and vote by order was impossible. He 

 proposed, therefore, that "the deputies of the commons of France 

 declare that they recognize for legal representatives only those 

 whose credentials shall have been examined by commissioners 

 named in the general assembly by all those who have been called 

 to compose it, because it pertains to the 'corps de la nation' as 

 well as to the 'corps privilegies' to know and to decide upon the 

 validity of the credentials of the deputies who present them- 

 selves ; every deputy is a member of the general assembly and can 

 therefore receive from it alone the sanction which constitutes him 

 a member of the states general. And since public opinion is the 

 first and chief care of the national assembly, and since it can only 

 be established by common deliberation, the deputies of the com- 

 mons can not allow that, by some special resolution of chambers 

 which remain isolated, the principle is assailed that each deputy 

 is, after the opening of the states general, no longer the deputy 

 of an order, but that all deputies alike are the representatives of 



put the motions and speeches of Rabaut de Saint-Etienne and of Le Chap- 

 elier on May 13 by mistake. The commons did on May 13 begin to 

 discuss the mission of the nobles and got quite wrought up about it; the 

 deputation of the clergy ended the debate on that day, however, for, imme- 

 diately after it had left, the session was adjourned to nine o'clock the 

 following day. Perhaps the commons felt that this postponement of the 

 discussion was advantageous. All the other sources set the time for the 

 motions on May 14. Both Duquesnoy (I, 17-19) and Biauzat (II, 50-57), 

 writing the evening of May 13, fail to mention the motions when they 

 speak of the deputation of the clergy and of the nobility. And both, writ- 

 ing again on May 15 (I, 19-22 and II, 57-63), speak of them as having 

 been made the day before. Recit, 19 ; Revue dc la revolution, XI, Docu- 

 ments inedits, 12-14. 



x Our sources of information for the debate on May 14th are, Recit, 

 19-22; Duquesnoy, I, 19-23; Biauzat, II, 57-59; La revolution frangaise, 

 XXIII, 365-67; Revue de la revolution, XI, Documents inedits, 12-16; 

 Courrier de Provence, Lettre III, 6-7, IV, 1-4; Etats-generaux, 31-33. It 

 is explained in the preceding note that the Etats-generaux, 31-33, and the 

 Journal des etats-generaux, I, 23-27, by mistake, put the two motions of 

 Rabaut de Saint-Etienne and Le Chapelier on May 13. Malouet made his 

 motion on May 15, however, so both of these works make the same mis- 

 take again. See Biauzat, II, 58; Courrier dc Provence, Lettre, IV, 4-7. 

 Duquesnoy, I, 23, puts Malouet's motion on May 16 even. 



