[128] Lacretelle, ‘Convocation des États-Généraux’; Bertrand de Molleville,’ Observations adressées à l’Assemblée des Notables.’ [129] ‘Observations lues aux représentants du Tiers-État à Bordeaux,’ December, 1788. [130] ‘Requête du Tiers-État de la ville de Bourg,’ December, 1788. [131] ‘Délibérations de la ville de Nîmes en Conseil général.’ [132] ‘Des conditions nécessaires à la légalité des États-Généraux.’ [133] ‘De la députation aux États-Généraux.’ [134] ‘Avis aux Français,’ 1788. A pamphlet written in 1788, but full of the true revolutionary spirit of 1792. [135] Mounier himself was just as little able as the most violent revolutionists, who were soon to appear, to conceive the idea of rights derived from the past; of political usages and customs which are in reality laws, though unwritten, and only to be touched with caution, of interests to be respected and very gradually modified without causing a rupture between that which has been and that which is to be--the idea, in short, which is the first principle of practical and regular political liberty. See Mounier’s ‘Nouvelles Observations sur les États-Généraux.’ [136] The Marquis de Gouy d’Arcy in a ‘Mémoire au Roi en faveur de la noblesse Française, par un patricien ami du peuple,’ 1788. [137] This appears from a correspondence of M---- with M. Necker, examined by me in the archives. CHAPTER VI. THE PREPARATION OF THE INSTRUCTIONS TO THE MEMBERS OF THE STATES-GENERAL DROVE THE CONCEPTION OF A RADICAL REVOLUTION HOME TO THE MIND OF THE PEOPLE. Almost all the institutions of the Middle Ages had a stamp of boldness and truth. Those laws were imperfect, but they were sincere. They had little art, but they had less cunning. They always gave all the rights they seemed to promise. When the commons were convoked to form part of the assemblies of the nation, they were at the same time invested with unbounded freedom in making known their complaints and in sending up their requests. In the cities which were to send deputies to the States-General, the whole people was called upon to say what it thought of the abuses to be corrected and the demands to be made. None were excluded from the right of complaint, and any man might express his grievance in his own way. The means were as simple as the political device was bold. Down to the States-General of 1614, in all the towns, and even in Paris, a large box was placed in the market-place, with a slit in it, to receive the papers and opinions of all men, which a committee sitting at the Hôtel de Ville was empowered to sift and examine. Out of all these diverse remonstrances a bill was drawn up, which expressed the public grievances and the complaint of each individual.