The first expression, so far as I have noted, of the need of a more definite political rampart against the crown was that of the Marquis de Mirabeau and his brother. In 1754, the Marquis wrote to his brother: “The more I consider the abuses of society and their remedy, the more I return to what you said to me five years ago, ... that twelve principles established in twelve lines, once written in the head of the Prince or of his minister, and exactly followed in details, would correct and regenerate everything.”[77] But this was only a solitary voice crying in the wilderness; it neither found a response in the people, nor became the determined policy of its enunciator. The people, however, were awakening at least to the abuses of the _ancien régime_, and were groping after a remedy. Books, dealing with the right of insurrection, of the superiority of the nation to the crown, and with the refutation of divine rights and passive obedience, were written, read and discussed.[78] Humanitarian views, the theory of natural rights, and, consequently, a sense of the importance of the third estate, gained ground by degrees. Meanwhile the contest between the king and his _Parlements_ continued. The Notables, called in 1787, affirmed that _the imprescriptible right to determine financial questions belonged only to the representatives of the nation_.[79] The States-General were called for 1789,[80] Owing to the failure of the monarch or minister, purposely or otherwise, to take the initiative, the radical element of the nation were able to secure almost universal suffrage and the union of the orders in one body. Judging from the _cahier_ and the pamphlets of 1788 and 1789, we infer that the consciousness of the inadequacy of the old French Constitution was general.[81] The _cahiers_, upon the question of the French Constitution, were moreover divided; some desired the preservation of the old Constitution, some a declaration of the rights of the nation, some a _charte_, while one formulated a new, complete constitution; on the whole, a majority favored a more careful guarantee of the nation’s rights.[82] The _cahiers_, it must be remarked, show a more perfect and uniform programme of civil reform than of political. The pamphlets of the day, being the expression of the convictions of individuals, reveal more clearly the political thought of the radical element. Count de Mirabeau’s _Lettres de cachet_, published in 1783, may be regarded as among the earliest of such personal expressions. Its attitude was rather negative than constructive. It attempted to show that a despotism depended not at all upon the character of the particular sovereign, but on the absence or insufficiency of laws; that France without a veritable constitution was only a despotic state, and that there is no mean between an absolute despotism and the absolute reign of law.[83] In 1787, the Count declared, “What is necessary is a constitution; France is ripe for the Revolution.”[84]