meeting were counted; but not to divide the Orders, it was decided, without discussion, that the president should be chosen from one of the two higher Orders, and the secretary from the commons: the Count de Morges was called to the chair, M. Mounier was named secretary. The Assembly then proceeded to deliberate, and protested in a body against the Édicts of May and the suppression of the Parliament. They demanded the restoration of the old Estates of the province which had been arbitrarily and illegally suspended; they demanded that in these Estates a double number of representatives should be given to the commons; they called for the prompt convocation of the States-General, and decided that on the spot a letter should be addressed to the King stating their grievances and their demands. This letter, couched in violent language and in a tone of civil war, was in fact immediately signed by all the members. Similar protests had already been made, similar demands had been expressed with equal violence; but nowhere as yet had there been so signal an example of the union of all classes. ‘The members of the nobility and the clergy,’ says the Journal of the House, ‘were complimented by a member of the commons on the loyalty with which, laying aside former pretensions, they had hastened to do justice to the commons, and on their zeal to support the union of the three Orders.’ The President replied that the peers would always be ready to act with their fellow-citizens for the salvation of the country.[124] The Assembly of Vizille produced an amazing effect throughout France. It was the last time that an event, happening elsewhere than in Paris, has exercised a great influence on the general destinies of the country. The Government feared that what Dauphiny had dared to do might be imitated everywhere. Despairing at last of conquering the resistance opposed to it, it declared itself beaten. Louis XVI. dismissed his ministers, abolished or suspended his edicts, recalled the Parliaments, and granted the States-General. This was not, it must be well remarked, a concession made by the King on a point of detail, it was a renunciation of absolute power; it was a participation in the Government that he admitted and secured to the country by at length conceding in earnest the States-General. One is astonished in reading the writings of that time to find them speaking of a great revolution already accomplished before 1789. It was in truth a great revolution, but one destined to be swallowed up and lost in the immensity of the Revolution about to follow.