22 Julia Crcicitt Stoddard 



But the message of Necker on the next day made no allusion to 

 them. 1 Then the friends of the measure influenced the assembly 

 to decide that the decrees of August 4 should be presented for 

 royal sanction. 2 Two days later no answer had been received, 

 and the matter was again agitated. Barnave urged the impor- 

 tance of the question in the following words : "I believe, gen- 

 tlemen, that we ought to know what to maintain with respect to 

 the decrees of August 4. Saturday it was said that they would 

 be presented for sanction. But there is no law as to the form 

 of presentation. It is not yet decided whether these decrees shall 

 come under the suspensive veto, like laws made by other legis- 

 lative bodies. It would be very troublesome if they should be 

 stopped by the suspensive veto, because they have been pub- 

 lished and the people everywhere have received them with trans- 

 ports of joy. I believe, therefore, that we ought to suspend the 

 order of the day until we have voted on the question whether 

 the decrees of August 4 shall be sanctioned purely and simply or 

 whether they shall be submitted to the suspensive veto." 3 



Mirabeau went even further than Barnave : "The decrees of 

 August 4," he said, "emanate from the constitutional power. 

 . . . These decrees are not laws, and when you send them to 

 the king, it is simply to have them promulgated, not sanctioned. 

 . . . The decrees are for promulgation ! Will the king refuse 

 it? There is the question and I do not imagine that there can be 

 any question about it." 4 The assembly took no action. 



On the 1 8th of September the king sent a long mc moire in 

 reply to the demand that he sanction the decrees of August 4, in 

 which he expressed approval of some of these measures, found 

 others very reasonable, and gave opinions more or less favorable 

 on several more. 5 But this was not the unqualified sanction de- 

 sired. The reading of the memoire provoked much dissatisfac- 



- 1 Letter et rapport de M. Necker, Paris, 1789. 



* Proces-verbal de /' 'assemble nationale, LXXIII, 7; Cotirrier de Provence* 

 No. XXII. 



3 Histoir parte mentaire, II, 42S. 



4 Mejan, Collection complete des travaux de M. Mirabeau I'aini, II, 125. 



6 Protes-verbal de Passemblie nalionale, No. LXXVIII. 



