“For two months,” writes a commandant in the South,[20] “inferior judges and lawyers, with which both town and country swarm, with a view to their election to the States-General, have been racing after the members of the Third-Estate, under the pretext of standing by them and of giving them information. . .  They have striven to make them believe that, in the States-General, they alone would be masters and regulate all the affairs of the kingdom; that the Third-Estate, in selecting its deputies among men of the robe, would secure the might and the right to take the lead, to abolish nobility and to cancel all its rights and privileges; that nobility would no longer be hereditary; that all citizens, in deserving it, would be entitled to claim it; that, if the people elected them, they would have accorded to the Third-Estate whatever it desired, because the curates, belonging to the Third-Estate, having agreed to separate from the higher clergy and unite with them, the nobles and the clergy, united together, would have but one vote against two of the Third-Estate. . . . If the third — Estate had chosen sensible townspeople or merchants they would have combined without difficulty with the other two orders.  But the assemblies of the bailiwicks and other districts were stuffed with men of the robe who had absorbed all opinions and striven to take precedence of the others, each, in his own behalf, intriguing and conspiring to be appointed a deputy.”

“In Touraine,” writes the intendant,[21] “most of the votes have been bespoken or begged for.  Trusty agents, at the moment of voting, placed filled-in ballots in the hands of the voters, and put in their way, on reaching the taverns, every document and suggestion calculated to excite their imaginations and determine their choice for the gentry of the bar.”

“In the sénéchausée of Lectoure, a number of parishes have not been designated or notified to send their reports or deputies to the district assembly.  In those which were notified the lawyers, attorneys and notaries of the small neighboring towns have made up the list of grievances themselves without summoning the community. . .  Exact copies of this single rough draft were made and sold at a high price to the councils of each country parish”. —

This is an alarming symptom, one marking out in advance the road the Revolution is to take:  The man of the people is indoctrinated by the advocate, the pikeman allowing himself to be led by the spokesman.[22]

The effect of their combination is apparent the first year.  In Franche-Comté[23] after consultation with a person named Rouget, the peasants of the Marquis de Chaila “determine to make no further payments to him, and to divide amongst themselves the product of the wood-cuttings.”  In his paper “the lawyer states that all the communities of the province have decided to do the same thing. . .  His consultation is diffused to such an extent around the