Thus far “the conditions of the social compact have been ignored;"[47] now that they have been discovered they must be written out.  To say, with the nobles according to Montesquieu, that the constitution exists, that its great features need not be changed, that it is necessary only to reform abuses, that the States-General exercise only limited power, that they are incompetent to substitute another regime for the monarchy, is not true.  Tacitly or expressly, the Third-Estate refuses to restrict its mandate and allows no barriers to be interposed against it.  It requires its deputies accordingly to vote “not by orders but each by himself and conjointly.” —­ “In case the deputies of the clergy or of the nobility should refuse to deliberate in common and individually, the deputies of the Third-Estate, representing twenty-four millions of men, able and obliged to declare itself the National Assembly not-withstanding the scission of the representation of 400,000 persons, will propose to the King in concert with those among the Clergy and the Nobility disposed to join them, their assistance in providing for the necessities of the State, and the taxes thus assented to shall be apportioned among all the subjects of the king without distinction."[48] —­ Do not object that a people thus mutilated becomes a mere crowd, that leaders cannot be improvised, that it is difficult to dispense with natural guides, that, considering all things, this Clergy and this Nobility still form a select group, that two-fifths of the soil is in their hands, that one-half of the intelligent and cultivated class of men are in their ranks, that they are exceedingly well-disposed and that old historic bodies have always afforded to liberal constitutions their best supports.  According to the principle enunciated by Rousseau we are not to value men but to count them.  In politics numbers only are respectable; neither birth, nor property, nor function, nor capacity, is a title to be considered; high or low, ignorant or learned, a general, a soldier, or a hod-carrier, each individual of the social army is a unit provided with a vote; wherever a majority is found there is the right.  Hence, the Third-Estate puts forth its right as incontestable, and, in its turn, it proclaims with Louis XIV, “I am the State.”

This principle once admitted or enforced, they thought, all will go well.

“It seemed,” says an eye-witness,[49] “as if we were about to be governed by men of the golden age.  This free, just and wise people, always in harmony with itself, always clear-sighted in choosing its ministers, moderate in the use of its strength and power, never could be led away, never deceived, never under the dominion of; or enslaved by, the authority which it confided.  Its will would fashion the laws and the law would constitute its happiness.”