[Footnote 4255: Procés-verbaux of the prov. ass. of Normandy, the generalship of Alençon, 252.--Cf. Archives nationales, II, 1149: in 1778 in the generalship of Moulins, thirty-nine persons, mostly nobles, supply from their own funds 18,950 livres to the 60,000 livres allowed by the king for roads and asylums.] [Footnote 4256: Archives nationales, procès-verbaux and registers of the States-General, vol. XLIX. p.712, 714 (the nobles and clergy of Dijon); vol. XVI. p. 183 (the nobles of Auxerre) vol. XXIX. pp.352, 455, 458 (the clergy and nobles of Berry); vol. CL. p.266 (the clergy and nobles of Tours); vol. XXIX; the clergy and nobles of Chateauroux, (January 29, 1789); pp. 572, 582. vol. XIII. 765 (the nobles of Autun).--See as a summary of the whole, the "Résumé des Cahiers" by Prud'homme, 3 vols.] [Footnote 4257: Prud'homme, ibid.. II. 39, 51, 59. De Lavergne, 384. In 1788, two hundred gentlemen of the first families of Dauphiny sign, conjointly with the clergy and the Third-Estate of the province, an address to the king in which occurs the following passage: "Neither time nor obligation legitimizes despotism; the rights of men derive from nature alone and are independent of their engagements."] [Footnote 4258: Lacretelle, "Hist. de France au dix-huitième siècle," V.2.] [Footnote 4259: Procès-verbeaux of the prov. ass. of the Ile-de-France (1787), p.127.] [Footnote 4260: De Lavergne, ibid.. 52, 369.] [Footnote 4261: "Le cri de la raison," by Clerget, curé d'Onans (1789), p.258.] [Footnote 4262: Lucas de Montigny, "Mémoires de Mirabeau," I. 290, 368.--Théron de Montaugé, "L'agriculture et les classes rurales dans le pays Toulousain," p. 14.] [Footnote 4263: "Foreigners generally could scarcely form an idea of the power of public opinion at this time in France; they can with difficulty comprehend the nature of that invisible power which commands even in the king's palace." (Necker, 1784, quoted by De Tocqueville).] [Footnote 4264: Granier de Cassagnac, II. 236.--M. de Malesherbes, according to custom, inspected the different state prisons, at the beginning of the reign of Louis XVI. "He told me himself that he had only released two." (Senac de Meilhan, "Du gouvemement, des moeurs, et des conditions en France.").] [Footnote 4265: Archives nationales, II. 1418, 1149, F. 14, 2073. (Assistance rendered to various suffering provinces and places.)] [Footnote 4266: Aubertin, p.484 (according to Bachaumont).] [Footnote 4267: De Lavergne, 472.]