The notables convoked to attempt to remedy the financial situation refused a system of equal taxation, and granted only insignificant reforms which the Parliament did not even consent to register. It had to be dissolved. The provincial Parliaments made common cause with that of Paris, and were also dissolved. But they led opinion, and in all parts of France promoted the demand for a meeting of the States General, which had not been convoked for nearly two hundred years. The decision was taken: 5,000,000 Frenchmen, of whom 100,000 were ecclesiastics and 150,000 nobles, sent their representatives. There were in all 1,200 deputies, of whom 578 were of the Third Estate, consisting chiefly of magistrates, advocates, and physicians. Of the 300 deputies of the clergy, 200, of plebeian origin, threw in their lot with the Third Estate against the nobility and clergy. From the first sessions a psychological conflict broke out between the deputies of different social conditions and (therefore) different mentalities. The magnificent costumes of the privileged deputies contrasted in a humiliating fashion with the sombre fashions of the Third Estate. At the first session the members of the nobility and the clergy were covered, according to the prerogatives of their class, before the king. Those of the Third Estate wished to imitate them, but the privileged members protested. On the following day more protests of wounded self-love were heard. The deputies of the Third Estate invited those of the nobility and the clergy who were sitting in separate halls to join them for the verification of their powers. The nobles refused. The negotiations lasted more than a month. Finally, the deputies of the Third Estate, on the proposition of the Abbe Sieyes, considering that they represented 95 per cent. of the nation, declared themselves constituted as a National Assembly. From that moment the Revolution pursued its course. 3. The Constituent Assembly. The power of a political assembly resides, above all, in the weakness of its adversaries. Astonished by the slight resistance encountered, and carried away by the ascendancy of a handful of orators, the Constituent Assembly, from its earliest sessions, spoke and acted as a sovereign body. Notably it arrogated to itself the power of decreeing imposts, a serious encroachment upon the prerogatives of the royal power. The resistance of Louis XVI. was feeble enough. He simply had the hall in which the States assembled closed. The deputies then met in the hall of the tennis-court, and took the oath that they would not separate until the Constitution of the kingdom was an established fact.