taking so much trouble on themselves with no object but the public welfare.  Never was an aristocracy so deserving of power at the moment of losing it; the privileged class, aroused from their indolence, were again becoming public men, and, restored to their functions, were returning to their duties.  In 1778, in the first assembly of Berry, the Abbé de Seguiran, the reporter, has the courage to state that “the distribution of the taxes should be a fraternal partition of public obligations."[54] In 1780 the abbés, priors and chapters of the same province contribute 60,000 livres of their funds, and a few gentlemen, in less than twenty-four hours, contribute 17,000 livres.  In 1787, in the assembly of Alençon the nobility and the clergy tax themselves 30,000 livres to relieve the indigent in each parish subject to taxation[55]. in the month of April, 1787, the king, in an assembly of the notables, speaks of “the eagerness with which archbishops and bishops come forward claiming no exemption in their contributions to the public revenue.”  In the month of March, 1789, on the opening of the bailiwick assemblies, the entire clergy, nearly all the nobility, in short, the whole body of the privileged class voluntarily renounce their privileges in relation to taxation.  The sacrifice is voted unanimously; they themselves offer it to the Third-Estate, and it is worth while to see their generous and sympathetic tone in the manuscript procès-verbaux.

“The nobility of the bailiwick of Tours,” says the Marquis de Lusignan,[56] “considering that they are men and citizens before being nobles, can make amends in no way more in conformity with the spirit of justice and patriotism that animates the body, for the long silence to which it has been condemned by the abuse of ministerial power, than in declaring to their fellow-citizens that, in future, they will claim none of the pecuniary advantages secured to them by custom, and that they unanimously and solemnly bind themselves to bear equally, each in proportion to his fortune, all taxes and general contributions which the nation shall prescribe.”

“I repeat,” says the Comte de Buzançois at the meeting of the Third-Estate of Berry, “that we are all brothers, and that we are anxious to share your burdens. . . .  We desire to have but one single voice go up to the assembly and thus manifest the union and harmony which should prevail there.  I am directed to make the proposal to you to unite with you in one memorandum. "

“These qualities are essential in a deputy,” says the Marquis de Barbancon speaking for the nobles of Chateauroux, “integrity, firmness and knowledge; the first two are equally found among the deputies of the three orders; but knowledge will be more generally found in the Third-Estate, which is more accustomed to public affairs.”

“A new order of things is unfolding before us,” says the Abbé Legrand in the name of the clergy of Chateauroux; “the veil of prejudice is being torn away and giving place to Reason.  She is possessing herself of all French hearts, attacking at the root whatever is based on former opinion and deriving her power only from herself.”