‘The Notables are very different from the States-general. The Notables were all chosen out of the nobility--one hundred and forty oppressors met together, to decide how much greater oppression we could be made to bear. But in the States-general, the oppressed will have a voice, and can cry out.’ ‘The Notables are summoned again.’ ‘Yes, my friend, they are summoned by Necker, but not to consult on the deficit, but to deliberate on the form of election to the States-general, and on their composition.’ ‘How great is the deficit?’ ‘At the end of last year the expenditure surpassed the receipt by one hundred and ten millions, and the deficit now amounts to sixteen hundred and thirty millions. The exchequer cannot borrow money, for Necker has discredited loans by publishing the state of the finances. Do you think the Notables, the princes of blood-royal, the chiefs of the nobility, the clergy and the magistracy, will pay the debt out of their own pockets? No, no; they like to spend and not to pay. Now, the king is going to call together the States-general. The Notables pay! they saw only in Calonne’s scheme the spoliation of the nobility and clergy, that is why they drove Calonne away, and brought in Loménie de Brienne, the bishop, in his stead; they brought a churchman into the ministry to bury the public credit, dead long ago. De Brienne finds that there is no other resource but to take possession of Calonne’s plans, and ask the Parliament of Paris to consent to a vast loan. But the Parliament is made up of judges, men grave and economical, and they are indignant at an impost on their lands. Why should they be made to pay for Monsieur the Count d’Artois’ fêtes, and the queen’s follies? Why consent to a debt ever accumulating, and acquiesce in the ruin of France? Tell me that, my friend Matthias. When the walls crack, we do not paste paper over the rents to hide them--we dig down to the foundations, and we relay them. Perhaps the Parliament of Paris thought this, my André, so they appealed to the States-general. The States-general we shall have; and then, Matthias, we, the oppressed, the tax-payers, the hungry--we shall have a voice, and shall speak out; and, Matthias! we shall make ourselves heard.’ ‘Go on,’ said the farmer; ‘tell me the rest.’ ‘The king declares that he will convoke the States-general.’ ‘We shall speak out?’ asked André, hesitatingly. ‘Our own fault, if we do not.’ ‘But they will punish us if we do.’ ‘What, Matthias, punish all France! Remember, all France will speak.’ ‘And we can tell the good king that the tax-gatherers, and the excise, and the nobles, and the abbés, are crushing us? that they are strangling us, that we are dying?’ ‘Surely.’ ‘And the tax-gatherers, and the excise, and the nobles, and the abbés, cannot revenge themselves on us for saying that?’ André leaned back and laughed. He had not laughed for many years, and his laugh now was not that of gaiety.