The assembly was then constituted in the nave of the Cathedral. The candles were extinguished, the fumes of incense faded away, the clergy who had assisted in robes retired to lay aside their vestments; seats and a table were placed in the nave at the intersection of the transepts, and M. de Courcy de Montmorin, grand bailiff of Évreux, took his seat as president. Beside him sat M. Girardin, lieutenant-general of the bailiwick, and on his left M. Gozan, procureur of the king. Adrian Buzot, chief secretary, sat pen in hand at the table. On the right, filling the northern transept, sat the clergy in a dense black body, with the bishops of Évreux and Lisieux at their head in purple velvet chairs, studded with gold-headed nails. The bishops wore their violet cassocks, lace rochets, and capes, over which hung their episcopal crosses. In the south transept were placed the nobles; and the third estate filled the first three bays of the nave below the cross. As soon as the assembly was seated, and silence had been established, the grand bailiff rose. He was a venerable man, of noble appearance, with a fresh complexion, bright clear grey eyes, and a flowing beard whiter than the late snow without. Raising his _chapel_ from his blanched head as he began his speech, he replaced it again. His voice, at first trembling and scarcely audible in that vast building, gradually acquired tone, and was, towards the close of the address, heard by every one in that great concourse. ‘I give thanks to Heaven,’ said the old man, lifting his cap and looking upwards, ‘that my life has been prolonged to this moment, which opens before us, under the auspices of a beloved monarch, a perspective of happiness, which we should hardly have ventured to hope for. ‘What an epoch in our annals, and, indeed, in those of humanity! A sovereign consults his people on the means of assuring their felicity, and assembles around him all those gifted with political knowledge, to strengthen, or rather, to relay the bases of general prosperity. ‘Already, from one end of France to the other, those social ideas which establish the rights of man and citizenship on true and solid foundations have been disseminated. Government, far from attempting to hinder the spread of these ideas, has allowed them a liberty in accordance with its own generous purposes. ‘It is for us, gentlemen, to show ourselves worthy of this noble confidence reposed in us by our sovereign; it is for us to second the views of a monarch who consecrates for ever his power, by showing that he desires to endear it to his subjects. ‘Experience has taught kings, as it has their subjects, that this alone is the means of protecting and securing the royal prerogative from the seductions of their ministers, who too frequently have stamped the decrees of their selfish passions, their errors, and their caprice, with the seal of a cherished and sacred authority.