opening of States General of lySp 29 



Jallet relates that the question also arose as to the nature of 

 the organization of the chamber. Could the clergy organize 

 permanently? It was held by certain members that no perma- 

 nent organization could be established until the credentials were 

 legally verified and since the decision had been in favor of provi- 

 sional verification, the organization could not be permanent. 

 Jallet states that it was finally agreed that they should say that 

 the order was " formed " but not " organized."^^ Thus the 

 clergy had begun by adopting a policy which did not commit 

 them definitely to either a radical or a reactionary course. Their 

 temporary organization allowed them to pass any decrees they 

 saw fit and at the same time it did not prevent them, if they so 

 desired, from agreeing later to the verification of credentials in 

 common with the other two orders. The presence of a large 

 number of cures in the order of the clergy was doubtless respon- 

 sible for this attitude of compromise; their sympathies were with 

 the third estate and they were able to keep the higher clergy from 

 binding the order irrevocably to the side of the nobles. 



In the assembly of the nobility there had been nothing of this 

 conciliatory attitude. M. Montboissier, their oldest member, was 

 chosen president.^^ An account of his opening address is given 

 in Proces-verbal of the nobility.^* It is here stated that he 

 expressed his pleasure because his advanced age had given him 

 the honor of being president of this assembly at a time when the 

 nobles all over the country had voiced such generous and patriotic 

 sentiments, evidently a reference to the promises of the nobility 

 that they would renounce their pecuniary privileges. He spoke 

 of the monarch's need of the loyalty of the nobility, asserting that 

 the power of the crown was never more necessary than at that 

 moment, but that it was in danger. The speaker declared that 



beau says it was 133 to 114; Coster, 130 to 114; Biauzat, that it was decided 

 by a small majority; Thibault says that it was decided by a plurality of 

 30 or 40; Boulle states that they decided upon provisional verification. 



32 Jallet, 51. 



^^Proces-verbal de la noblesse, i; Lcttres dii Comte de Mirabeau, No. 

 I, 13; Duquesnoy, I, 10. 



^'^Proces-verbal de la noblesse, i. 



231 



