The Counter Revolution of June-July 83 



fused ; since there is no definite division of authority the various 

 branches are always in contradiction." He proved that the consti- 

 tution was necessary and proposed, in the name of the committee, 

 that the assembly would consider in the bureaus all the articles 

 concerning the constitution of the kingdom and that, before any 

 article had been decreed, a committee of correspondence should be 

 established ; this committee to communicate with all the bureaus so 

 that the dominating opinions could be compared and a uniformity 

 of views established. According to this plan there would be held 

 each week three general assemblies where questions which had 

 been previously considered in the bureaus would be publicly dis- 

 cussed. After all the articles had been thus treated they would 

 then be submitted to general debate. Mounier finished his dis- 

 course by saying that '" without doubt the deputies of all the prov- 

 inces of the kingdom will no longer consider ancient individual 

 rights, which arbitrary power would not guarantee to their prov- 

 inces ; they will prefer a general liberty, a common happiness to 

 the sad privilege of being distinguished in servitude by some weak 

 advantage. All the provinces, then, can through their deputies 

 contract an eternal alliance between themselves and the throne. "'^^^ 

 The Point du jour states that in this memoire the necessity of 

 framing a declaration of the rights of man to serve as a preamble 

 to the constitution was shown. *^' The assembly ordered that the 

 memoire be printed and decreed that the bureaus would take up 

 the question for discussion.^^^ The order of work as presented to 

 the assembly was as follows : 



Article i. All governments should have for their sole aim the 

 maintenance of the rights of man, from which it follows that in 

 order to continually hold the government to this proposed aim the 

 constitution should begin by a declaration of the natural and indes- 

 tructible rights of man. 



2. The monarchical government being fitted to maintain these 



*i^ Proccs-vcrbal, I, following No. 19, gives the complete report ; Point 

 du jour, I, 151. 



417 Point du jour, I, 152. 



418 Bulletins de I'assemblee nationale, July 9, state that M. La Galisson- 

 niere was the deputy who asked that the memoire be printed. Proccs- 

 vcrbal, I, No. 19, 6; Point du jour, I, 152. 



365 



