2nd. To create an extraordinary _Conseil de Notables_, which should perform all the functions which the edict of 1764 had apparently entrusted to the General Assembly; the said council to consist of twelve members, whose tenure of office should be for six years, and who should be elected, not by the General Assembly but by the twelve corporations considered as _notable_ (each corporation-electing its own). He enumerates the _corps notables_ as follows:-- The Présidial. The University. The Election. The Officers of Woods and Forests. The Grenier à sel. The Traites. The Mint. The Avocats and Procureurs. The Juges Consuls. The Notaires. The Tradesmen. The Burghers. It appears that nearly all these _notables_ were public functionaries, and nearly all the public functionaries were notables; hence we may conclude, as from a thousand other passages in these documents, that the middle classes were as greedy of place and as little inclined to seek a sphere of activity removed from Government employment. The only difference, as I have said in the text, was that formerly men purchased the trifling importance which office gave them, and that now the claimants beg and entreat some one to be so charitable as to get it for them gratis. We see that, according to the project we have described, the whole municipal power was to rest with the extraordinary council, which would completely restrict the administration to a very small middle-class coterie, while the only assembly in which the people still made their appearance at all was to have no privilege beyond that of electing the municipal officers, without any right to advise or control them. It must also be observed that the Intendant was more in favour of restriction and more opposed to popular influence than the King, whose edict seemed intended to place most of the power in the hands of the General Assembly, and that the Intendant again is far more liberal and democratic than the middle classes, judging at least by the report I have quoted in the text, by which it appears that the _notables_ of another town were desirous of excluding the people even from the election of municipal officers, a right which the King and the Intendant had left to them. My readers will have observed that the Intendant uses the words burghers and tradesmen to designate two distinct categories of notables. It will not be amiss to give an exact definition of these words, in order to show into how many small fractions the middle classes were divided, and by how many petty vanities they were agitated.