Not only do the privileged classes make advances but it is no effort to them; they use the same language as the people of the Third-Estate; they are disciples of the same philosophers and seem to start from the same principles.  The nobility of Clermont in Beauvoisis[57] orders its deputies “to demand, first of all, an explicit declaration of the rights belonging to all men.”  The nobles of Mantes and Meulan affirm “that political principles are as absolute as moral principles, since both have reason for a common basis.”  The nobles of Rheims demand “that the king be entreated to order the demolition of the Bastille.”  Frequently, after such expressions and with such a yielding disposition, the delegates of the nobles and clergy are greeted in the assemblies of the ’Third-Estate with the clapping of hands, “tears” and enthusiasm.  On witnessing such effusions how can one avoid believing in concord?  And how can one foresee strife at the first turn of the road on which they have just fraternally entered hand in hand?

Wisdom of this melancholy stamp is not theirs.  They set out with the principle that man, and especially the man of the people, is good; why conjecture that he may desire evil for those who wish him well?  They are conscientious in their benevolence and sympathy for him.  Not only do they utter these sentiments but they give them proof.  “At this moment,” says a contemporary,[58] “the most active pity animates all breasts; the great dread of the opulent is to appear insensible.”  The archbishop of Paris, subsequently followed and stoned, is the donator of 100,000 crowns to the hospital of the Hôtel-Dieu.  The intendant Berthier, who is to be massacred, draws up the new assessment-roll of the Ile-de-France, equalizing the taille, which act allows him to abate the rate, at first, an eighth, and next, a quarter[59].  The financier Beaujon constructs a hospital.  Necker refuses the salary of his place and lends the treasury two millions to re-establish public credit.  The Duc de Charost, from 1770[60] down, abolishes seigniorial corvées on his domain and founds a hospital in his seigniory of Meillant.  The Prince de Beaufremont, the presidents de Vezet, de Chamolles, de Chaillot, with many seigniors beside in Franche-Comté, follow the example of the king in emancipating their serfs[61].  The bishop of Saint-Claude demands, in spite of his chapter, the enfranchisement of his mainmorts.  The Marquis de Mirabeau establishes on his domain in Limousin a gratuitous bureau for the settlement of lawsuits, while daily, at Fleury, he causes nine hundred pounds of cheap bread to be made for the use of “the poor people, who fight to see who shall have it."[62] M. de Barral, bishop of Castres, directs his curates to preach and to diffuse the cultivation of potatoes.  The Marquis de Guerchy himself mounts on the top of a pile of hay with Arthur Young to learn how to construct a hay-stack.  The Marquis de Lasteyrie imports lithography into