The nobles and the clergy immediately rallied round the standard of privileges, insisting, that France would be ruined, if their _rights_ were touched: and so true were they now to their insulated interest, that all the committees into which the _notables_ were divided, excepting that of which _monsieur_ was president, determined against allowing the _tiers-etat_ that increase of power necessary to enable them to be useful. Whilst, however, these disputes and cabals seemed to promise no speedy determination, the people, weary of procrastination, and disgusted with the obstacles continually thrown in the way of the meeting of the states-general, by a court that was ever secretly at work, to regain the trifling privileges, which it pretended to sacrifice to the general good, began to assemble, and even to decide the previous question, by deliberating together in several places. Dauphine set the example; and the three orders uniting sketched a plan for the organization of the whole kingdom, which served as a model for the other provincial states, and furnished grounds for the constituent assembly to work on when forming the constitution. Though the rumour was spread abroad, the court, still so stupidly secure as not to see, that the people, who at this period dared to think for themselves, would not now be noosed like beasts, when strength is brought into subjection by reason, beheld with wonder the arrival of deputations from different quarters, and heard with astonishment the bold tones of men speaking of their rights, tracing society to it’s origin, and painting with the most forcible colours the horrid depredations of the old government. For after the minds of men had been fatigued by the stratagems of the court, the feeble measures of the minister, and the narrow, selfish views of the parliaments, they examined with avidity the productions of a number of able writers, who were daily pouring pamphlets from the press, to excite the _tiers-etat_, to assert it’s rights on enlarged principles, and to oppose vigorously the exorbitant claims of the privileged orders, who stood up for ancient usurpations, as if they were the natural rights of a particular _genus_ of man. Those of the abbé Sieyes and the marquis de Condorcet were the most philosophical; whilst the unctuous eloquence of Mirabeau softened these dry researches, and fed the flame of patriotism. In this posture of affairs, Necker, perceiving that the people were grown resolute, prevailed on the council to decree, that the number of the deputies of the _tiers-etat_ should be equal to that of the two other orders taken together: but whether they were to vote by chambers, or in the same body, was still left undetermined.