The clergy, however, divided in their interest, proceeded with more caution; and the most discerning of them, perceiving that their order was becoming obnoxious to the people, who now deified the third-estate, proposed a committee of conciliation, with a view, as they pretended, to promote a good understanding between all parties. The king also, in his turn, when the nobles rejected the mediation of the clergy, offered a plan of accommodation; a mighty nothing, that the court brought forth.—But this tub, thrown out to the whale, did not divert the attention of either party from the main object; though the nobles, many of whom were in the secret of the approach of the army, should things be carried to extremes, pretended to acquiesce; yet guarding carefully at the same time all their ancient pretentions: and this insincerity drew on them the universal odium they merited, mixed with the contempt which ineffectual struggles always produce. Conciliatory measures, in fact, were only a solemn farce at this time; though the clergy, rather insidiously, to ingratiate themselves with the people, lamenting the high price of bread, requested, that deputies from the three orders should meet to deliberate how this grievance might be lessened. The deputies of the commons, with becoming dignity, tempered with prudence, adhered to their point; and dexterously parrying off the artful stroke levelled at their popularity, they represented to the clergy, that this was another powerful motive, to make them entreat all parties to rally round the same point, to remedy evils, which excited equal sympathy in their bosoms. The inactivity occasioned by these disputes could not fail to inflame the public mind, especially as fresh publications were daily affording it fuel. For the liberty of the press was now tacitly established, and the freest sentiments uttered, with the heat of superficial knowledge, in defiance of court manifestoes. Still, as a proof that the court merely endured, for a season, what they could not prevent, the journal of the proceedings of the states-general was stopped, by an express order; to evade which it was continued in the form of letters from Mirabeau to his constituents.