40 Ethel Lee Howie 



recognize the other steps as useless and dangerous. "^^^ The 

 decree as it was finally passed was as follows : 



The order of the nobles in the states-general, all the members of which 

 are accountable to their constituents, to the entire nation and to posterity 

 for the usage they have made of the powers which have been intrusted 

 to them and of the body of the principles transmitted from age to age in 

 the French monarchy, declares that it does not cease to regard as invariable 

 and constitutional maximes the distinction of the orders, the independence 

 of the orders, the form of voting by order, the necessity of the royal 

 sanction for the establishment of laws ; that these principles, as ancient 

 as the monarchy, constantly followed in the assemblies, expressly estab- 

 lished in the solemn laws proposed by the states-general and sanctioned 

 by the king such as those of 1355, 1357, and 1561, are fundamental points 

 of the constitution which cannot be touched, at least that these same 

 powers which have given force of law to them cannot freely agree to 

 abolish them ; announces that its intention has never been to depart from 

 these principles when it has adopted for the present session of the states- 

 general alone, and without reference to the future, the declaration of the 

 king of the 23 of last June, since article I of that declaration announces 

 and preserves the essential principles of the distinction of orders, of the 

 independence and the separate vote of the orders ; that reassured by this 

 formal recognition, led by love of peace and by the desire to render to 

 the states-general their suspended activity, desirous of correcting the error 

 of one of the integral parts of the states-general which has attributed to 

 itself a name and some powers which belong only to the union of the three 

 orders ; wishing to give to the king some proofs of a respectful deference 

 to the invitations reiterated by the letter of the 27 of last June it has felt 

 itself permitted to accede to the partial and momentary derogations that 

 said declaration brings to bear on the constitutive principles ; that it be- 

 lieves it can with the good will of the nobles of the bailliages, and await- 

 ing their ulterior desires, regard that exception as a confirmation of the 

 principles that it is more than ever resolved to maintain for the future ; 

 that it moreover believes itself authorized to assert that the three orders 

 can, when they judge it fitting, take separately the deliberation to unite in 

 a single assembly. 



Through these motives, the order of the nobles without being stopped 

 by the form of the declaration read at the royal session of June 23 last, 

 has accepted it purely and simply; led by imperious circumstances, being 

 always the faithful servant of the king, it went the 27th of last June into 

 the common hall of the states-general inviting anew the other orders to 

 accept the declaration of the king. 



1S9 Gazette dc Lcyde, Sup. No. 56, July 9. 



322 



