All the above-mentioned important questions were especially vexed in the years 1786, 1787, and 1788. The heads of my fellow-Bretons found abundant cause for excitement in their natural vivacity, in the privileges of the province, the clergy, and the nobles, in the collisions between the Parliament and the States. M. de Calonne[272], for a short while Intendant of Brittany, had increased the internal strife by favouring the cause of the third estate. M. de Montmorin[273] and M. de Thiard were not sufficiently strong leaders to ensure the ascendency of the Court party. The nobility entered into a coalition with the Parliament, which was itself noble; now it opposed M. Necker, M. de Calonne, the Archbishop of Sens[274]; now it thrust back the popular movement, which its own early resistance had favoured. It assembled, deliberated, and protested; the communes or municipalities assembled, deliberated and protested in opposition. The private question of hearth-money was mixed up with the general questions and increased the reigning ill-will. To understand this, it is necessary to explain the constitution of the Duchy of Brittany. [Sidenote: The States of Brittany.] The States of Brittany varied more or less in their formation, in common with all the States of Feudal Europe, which they resembled. The Kings of France were established into the rights of the Dukes of Brittany. The marriage-contract of the Duchess Anne[275], in 1491, not only brought Brittany by way of dower to the crown of Charles VIII. and Louis XII., but contained a covenant by virtue of which an end was put to a contention which traced its origin to Charles of Blois[276] and the Count of Montfort[277]. Brittany contended that daughters were entitled to inherit the Duchy; France maintained that the succession could take place only in the main line, and that when this line came to be extinguished, Brittany, as a great feud, returned to the Crown. Charles VIII. and Anne, and subsequently Anne and Louis XII., mutually surrendered their rights or claims to each other. Claudia, daughter of Anne and Louis XII., who became the wife of François I., on her death left the Duchy of Brittany to François I., her husband, upon the petition of the States assembled at Vannes, and by an edict published at Nantes in 1532 united the Duchy to the Crown of France, guaranteeing the Duchy's rights and privileges. At that time the States of Brittany were summoned every year; but in 1630 the sittings became biennial. The Governor proclaimed the opening of the States. The three orders sat, according to the place, in a church or in the halls of a convent. Each order deliberated apart: they formed three separate assemblies with their various tempests, which turned into a general hurricane when the clergy, the nobles, and the third estate came to meet together. The Court breathed discord, and talents, vanities and ambitions came into play in this restricted field as in any more extended arena.