the interest of your order, to elect persons of matured judgment and practical experience. It can be no secret to you that the fate of France depends on the attitude assumed by your delegates. The house of the nobility is naturally attached to conservative principles, that of the third estate is liberal and revolutionary. It will be our mission to arbitrate between these contending interests, on the one side to conciliate the people, and on the other to move the aristocracy to relinquish their most obnoxious privileges, and to lend their shoulders to ease the third estate of the yoke which, it is universally acknowledged, presses upon them unduly. Above all, let us avoid being divided in our own house. We touch both of the other estates. On one hand, we are allied with the noblesse; on the other hand, we are attached to the _tiers état_. Through our hierarchy we are in communication with the noble class, through our curates we pulsate with the heart of the unprivileged class. Let not that double union lead to a dissolution of our body, but rather to a harmonization of the other bodies. _Omne regnum in seipsum divisum desolabitur, et domus supra domum cadet._’ This address, so full of good sense, was not without its effect upon the clergy. Some began to feel that they had been a little too hard on the privileged party in the assembly, and that an attempt at conciliation might now well be made. Jean Lebertre, curé of La Couture, rose and said: ‘Monseigneur, and you my fellow-electors,--At the coming assembly of the estates of this realm, it is well that all interests should be represented,--that which desires a redistribution of the funds of the Church, and that which desires that they should remain in the hands of a few as prizes to those who are most diligent and most deserving.’ A Voice: ‘When are the prizes so given?’