In this discussion we have shown that while the suggestion of a Declaration of Rights came from the early American State Constitutions, its content was French. Its internal resemblance to the American instruments is attributable to the fact that the abuses to be feared and the recognized political theories were the same in both countries. In truth, France had greater reason to apprehend the return of the long-endured abuses, from which she was even then endeavoring to extricate herself, than had America. Likewise the fact that each country had derived its democratic views from a common source—the teachings of the English Puritans—largely explains the identity of the existing political theories. CONSTITUTION. The States-General which met at Versailles, May 5, 1789, assumed in the following June the name of National Assembly, and undertook the formulation of a written constitution. According to the current views, this epochal transformation was either a political freak of an old monarchy, newly leavened with democratic ideas, or a manifestation of the rare phenomenon of a nation’s being carried sympathetically in the wake of a distant and new-born republic. But a careful consideration of the events, institutions, and conditions of France previous to the action of the National Assembly proves conclusively that the traditional interpretations are not correct. It is foreign to the province of the present paper to explore minutely the shadowy historical region, whence arose the political institutions of monarchical France, or to analyze exhaustively those institutions themselves. It is sufficient to note that already at the beginning of the XVII. century there had developed certain institutions with a normal mode of procedure, that may justly be called a constitution, not embraced in written documents, but one implied in the institutions and usages. The leading features of that constituted government were four: the King, the States-General, the _Conseil d’État_ and the _Parlements_. The king was not only the executive, but the initiator of laws, and the source of justice. The States-General, judged by precedents, was an advisory body to the king, about which there existed much uncertainty as to its composition, its powers and its period of assembling. It was dependent upon the monarch for convocation, and for the promulgation of the results of its deliberations.[62] The _Conseil d’État_, composed of the nobility, was, in a narrower sense, the permanent advisory council of the king. In this body the laws originated, and under its supervision the administration was accomplished. It also had judicial functions, being superior to the _Parlement_ as a _cour de cassation_ in civil cases.