The three orders of men, the Clergy, the Nobility, and the Commons, or Third Estate, were to hold their elections separately in every district, [Footnote: Saillage, sénéchaussée.] unless they should, by separate votes, agree to unite.[Footnote: The three orders did not often unite, but there is often evidence of communication between them. They all united at Bayonne, A. P. iii. 98. Montfort l'Amaury, A. P. iv. 37. Rozières, A. P. iv. 91. Fenestrange, A. P. v. 710. Mohon, A. P. v. 729. The Clergy and the Nobility united at Lixheim, A. P. v. 713; the Nobility and the Third Estate at Péronne, A. P. v. 355.] In accordance with ancient custom they were to draw up petitions, complaints, and remonstrances, which were intended to form a basis for legislation. These complaints were to be brought to the Estates, and were to serve as instructions, more or less positive, to the deputies who brought them. They were known in French political language as Cahiers. The cahiers of the Clergy and of the Nobility were drawn up in the electoral meetings which took place in every district. To these local assemblies of the Clergy, all bishops, abbots, and parish priests, holding benefices, were summoned. Chapters and monasteries sent only representatives. The result of this arrangement was that the parish priests far outnumbered the regular ecclesiastics and dignitaries, and that the clerical cahiers oftenest express the wishes of the lower portion of the secular clergy. This preponderance of the lower clergy appears to have been foreseen and desired by the royal advisers. The king had expressed his wish to call to the assemblies of the Clergy "all those good and faithful pastors who are occupied closely and every day with the poverty and the assistance of the people and who are more intimately acquainted with its ills and its apprehensions."[Footnote: Règlement du 24 Jan. 1789, A. P. i. 544. Parish priests were not allowed to leave their parishes to go to the assemblies if more than two leagues distant, unless they left curates to do their work. But this provision did not keep enough of them away to alter the character of the assemblies.] To the local assemblies of the nobles, all Frenchmen of the order, not less than twenty-five years of age, were summoned. Men, women, or children possessing fiefs might appear by proxy. The latter provision did not suffice to take the meetings out of the control of the more numerous part of the order,--the poorer nobility. To pride of race and intense loyalty to the king, these country gentlemen united distrust and dislike of the court, and the desire that all nobles at least should have equal rights and chances. Their cahiers differ somewhat from place to place, but are wonderfully alike in general current.[Footnote: N., Périgord, A. P., v. 341.]