The authors of the _Avis_ desire that it may be made possible to obtain leases of even twenty-five years which should not be treated by the Treasury as an 'alienation' of the property leased. With such leases, they say, 'the farmer would not hesitate to lay out money upon his land, because he would feel sure of getting the benefit of the outlay. This,' they add, 'is one of the principal means which the English Government has employed in bringing agriculture to the state of perfection in which we now see it in that monarchy.' As the greater part of the _cahiers_ of grievances prepared by the Tiers-Etat of Artois for the States-General of 1789 have been lost, this _Avis_ is of great value, as setting before us the real objects of that order in Artois. The _cahiers_ of the Artesian _noblesse_ and the clergy for the States-General are all preserved, and in respect of the general objects to be aimed at in the States-General, these _cahiers_ go much farther than the _Avis_. They seem to show that in Artois, as throughout the kingdom, the _noblesse_ and the clergy were much more enamoured of what are now called the 'principles of 1789' than were the body of the agricultural population. The _noblesse_ and the clergy of Artois wished to see the States-General called at regular intervals, like the English Parliament. They wished the Provincial Estates to be maintained and to be convened annually, and they wished a provincial administration to be established under a system which should give the Tiers-Etat a representation equal to that of both the other orders united, and in which decisions should be reached not by a vote of the orders collectively, but by the members of the whole body voting individually, so that a measure as to which all the members for the Tiers-Etat should be of one mind, might at any time be carried if they could secure the adhesion of even a small number of the members from either of the other orders. Clearly it was not necessary, in the case of Artois, that the Tiers-Etat should be declared to be 'everything,' in order that justice might there be done to the wishes and the interests of the Tiers-Etat! And if not in the case of Artois, why in the case of any other French province?