Sainte-Beuve was forced to say after reading it that Talleyrand “showed from the first day that he was one of the most enlightened and most penetrating minds of the time.” It met every serious grievance on which his rivals depended, and it was perfectly sincere. Talleyrand was not embittered against his order, like Mirabeau, by his experiences, nor did he lean to democratic principles on the lines of the Duc d’Orléans. He formed a sober and consistent judgment on the social and political situation, and it does no less credit to his humanity than his sagacity. He would claim at the States-General that that body should not be arbitrarily interfered with or prematurely dispersed. He would press for the making of a constitution as its first achievement; and, for all Carlyle’s raillery, this was the first political need of France. In this new constitution the rights of the people must be recognised as well as those of the king. The new political structure must have its first elements in the parish, and so up through Provincial Assemblies to a permanent States-General. All elections shall be free. The sanctity of private or corporate property shall be respected, but only after claims have been judicially examined and unsound claims rejected; in this he is clearly foreshadowing his attitude towards Church property. The administration of justice shall be simplified and purified; the criminal law reformed, lotteries suppressed, privileges abolished. The press shall be free, and the post shall not be interfered with. Feudal servitude shall be abolished. There shall be a strict inquiry into the financial situation, a reduction of expenditure, and the abolition of pecuniary privileges. I repeat that this was not a rhetorical and insincere document, written for the purpose of catching votes. There is, in the first place, no rhetoric about it. It is a plain and sober statement of remedies for the national malady. Then, it is quite in accord with the few previous expressions of Talleyrand’s mind; and it is a faithful presentment of the measures he proposed or supported unequivocally afterwards at the National Assembly. To appreciate it fully, we must, as Mr. Belloc strongly pleads, beware of reading the ideas of ’91 and ’92 into ’89. Camille Desmoulins said there were not ten Republicans in France at that time. There were demands for reform on every point that Talleyrand takes up. I do not claim originality in the details, but the manifesto, as a whole, is an unanswerable refutation of those who would see nothing but frivolity, selfishness and cynicism in its author. His experiences had made him almost incapable of a zeal for an abstract ideal of justice, but his sympathy and humanity, as well as his political sagacity, gave a serious strain to his work. He was elected deputy by a large majority, and his address, with a few additions, was adopted by his clergy as their _cahier_ or book of instructions to their representative.