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022 - Book 4 Chapter 1 The Notables Again · The French Revolution Volume 1 - The Bastille

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  Speaker 1: The French Revolution, A history by Thomas Carlyle, Volume one,
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  Speaker 1: Book four, States General, Chapter one, the Notables again. This
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Peter
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  Speaker 1: Dan Book four, Chapter one, the Notables again. The universal
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  Speaker 1: prayer therefore is to be fulfilled always in days of
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  Speaker 1: national perplexity, when wrong abounded and help was not. This
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  Speaker 1: remedy of states general was called for by Amala Shehrb's
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  Speaker 1: nay by a phenolon. Even Parliament's calling for it were
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  Speaker 1: escorted with blessings. And now behold it is vouchsafed us
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  Speaker 1: states general shall verily be. To say, let states general
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  Speaker 1: be was easy to say in what manner they shall be?
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  Speaker 1: Is not so easy. Since the year of sixteen fourteen
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  Speaker 1: there have no States General met in France. All trace
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  Speaker 1: of them has vanished from the living habits of men.
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  Speaker 1: Their structure, powers, methods of procedure, which were never in
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  Speaker 1: any measure fixed, have now become wholly of vague possibility,
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  Speaker 1: clay which the potter may shape this way or that, say,
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  Speaker 1: Rather the twenty five millions of plotters, for so many
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  Speaker 1: have now more or less a vote in it. How
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  Speaker 1: to shape the states general. There is a problem. Each body, corporate,
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  Speaker 1: each privileged, each organized class has secret hopes of its
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  Speaker 1: own in that matter, and also secret misgivings of its own.
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  Speaker 1: For behold this monstrous twenty five million class. Hitherto the
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  Speaker 1: dumb sheep which these others had to agree about. The
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  Speaker 1: manner of shearing is now also arising with hopes it
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  Speaker 1: has ceased or is ceasing to be dumb. It speaks
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  Speaker 1: through pamphlets, or at least brays and growls behind them
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  Speaker 1: in the unison, increasingly wonderfully their volume of sound. As
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  Speaker 1: for the Parliament of Paris, it has at once declared
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  Speaker 1: for the old form of sixteen fourteen, which form had
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  Speaker 1: this advantage that the tierre estate, third estate or commons
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  Speaker 1: figured there as a show mainly, whereas the noblesse and
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  Speaker 1: clergy had but to avoid quarrel between themselves and decide
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  Speaker 1: unobstructed what they thought best. Such was the clearly declared
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  Speaker 1: opinion of the Paris Parliament. But being met by a
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  Speaker 1: storm of mere hooting and howling from other men, such
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  Speaker 1: opinion was blown straightway to the winds, and the popularity
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  Speaker 1: of the parliament along with it, never to return. The
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  Speaker 1: Parliament's part, we said above, was as good as played.
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  Speaker 1: Concerning which, however, there is this further to be noted
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  Speaker 1: the proximity of dates. It was on the twenty second
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  Speaker 1: of Timber that the Parliament returned from vacation or exile
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  Speaker 1: in its estates, to be reinstalled amid boundless jubilee from
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  Speaker 1: all Paris. Precisely next day it was that this same
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  Speaker 1: Parliament came to its clearly declared opinion. And then on
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  Speaker 1: the morrow after that you behold it covered with outrages,
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  Speaker 1: its outer court one vast sibilation, and the glory departed
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  Speaker 1: from it forever more. A popularity of twenty four hours
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  Speaker 1: was in those times no uncommon allowance. On the other hand,
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  Speaker 1: how superfluous was that invitation of lemonies, the invitation to thinkers.
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  Speaker 1: Thinkers and unthinkers by the million are spontaneously at their
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  Speaker 1: post doing what is in them Clubs, Labor Society, publicol Breton, Club, Enraged, Club,
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  Speaker 1: Club des Enragi. Likewise, dinner parties in the Palais Royal,
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  Speaker 1: your Mirabeaus Talleyrand, dining there in company with Chamfort, mo Relais,
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  Speaker 1: with dupawn and hot parliamenteers, not without object for a
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  Speaker 1: certain Necrian lions provider whom one could name, assembles them
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  Speaker 1: there or even their own private determination to have dinner
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  Speaker 1: does it. And then, as to pamphlets in figurative language,
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  Speaker 1: it is a sheer snowing of pamphlets, like to snow
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  Speaker 1: up the government thoroughfares. Now is the time for friends
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  Speaker 1: of freedom, sane and even insane. Count or self styled
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  Speaker 1: Count Daintrig, the young Lagwadosian gentleman, with perhaps chamfor the
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  Speaker 1: cynic to help him, rises into fureral almost pific highest
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  Speaker 1: where many are high Foollys, young Langwadosian gentleman, who himself
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  Speaker 1: so soon emigrating among the foremost, must fly indignant over
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  Speaker 1: the marches, with the contras social in his pocket, towards
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  Speaker 1: out a da darkness, thankless, intriguing, ignis, fatuous hoverings, and
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  Speaker 1: death by the stiletto. Abbeisier has left Chatra cathedral and
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  Speaker 1: canonry and bookshelves there, has let his tonsure grow and
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  Speaker 1: come to Paris with a secular head of the most
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  Speaker 1: irrefragible sort. To ask three questions and answer them. What
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  Speaker 1: is the third estate or what has it hitherto been
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  Speaker 1: in our form of government? Nothing? What does it want
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  Speaker 1: to become? Something Dauleon fought to be sure he on
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  Speaker 1: his way to chaos, as in the thick of this
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  Speaker 1: promulgates his deliberations fathered by him, written by Laclosse of
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  Speaker 1: the Liaison Dangerours, the result of which comes out simply
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  Speaker 1: The third estate is the nation. On the other hand,
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  Speaker 1: Monseigneur d'Artois, with other princes of the Blood, publishes in
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  Speaker 1: solemn memorial to the King that if such things be
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  Speaker 1: listened to, privileged nobility, monarch Ea, church, state and strong
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  Speaker 1: box are in danger, in danger truly, And yet if
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  Speaker 1: you do not listen, are they out of danger? It
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  Speaker 1: is the voice of all France, this sound that rises immeasurable,
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  Speaker 1: manifold as the sound of outbreaking waters. Wise were he
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  Speaker 1: who knew what to do in it, if not to
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  Speaker 1: fly to the mountains and hide himself, how an ideal
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  Speaker 1: all seeing Versailles government, sitting there on such principles in
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  Speaker 1: such an environment, would have determined to demean itself at
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  Speaker 1: this new juncture may even yet be a question. Such
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  Speaker 1: a government would have felt too well that its long
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  Speaker 1: task was now drawing to a close, that under the
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  Speaker 1: guise of these states general at length inevitable a new
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  Speaker 1: omnipotent unknown of democracy was coming into being, in presence
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  Speaker 1: of which no Versailles government either could or should, except
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  Speaker 1: in a provisory character, continue extent to an act which
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  Speaker 1: provisory characters so unspeakably important might its whole faculties, but
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  Speaker 1: have sufficed, and so a peaceable, gradual, well conducted abdication
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  Speaker 1: and domine demittas have been the issue. This for our ideal,
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  Speaker 1: all seeing Versailles government, but for the actual, irrational Versailles
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  Speaker 1: government alas that is, a government existing there only for
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  Speaker 1: its own behoof without right except possession, and now also
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  Speaker 1: without might. It foresees nothing, sees nothing, has not so
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  Speaker 1: much as a purpose, but has only purposes, and the instinct,
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  Speaker 1: whereby all that exists will struggle to keep existing wholly
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  Speaker 1: a vortex in which vain counsels, hallucinations, falsehoods, intrigues, and
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  Speaker 1: imbecilities whirl like withered rubbish in the meeting of winds.
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  Speaker 1: The eud Boeuf has its irrational hopes, if also its fears.
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  Speaker 1: Since hitherto all states general have done as good as nothing,
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  Speaker 1: why should these do more. The commons indeed look dangerous,
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  Speaker 1: but on the whole is not revolt unknown Now for
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  Speaker 1: five generations and impossibility, the three estates can, by management
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  Speaker 1: be set against each other. The third will, as heretofore
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  Speaker 1: join with the king, will, out of mere spite and
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  Speaker 1: self interest, be eager to tax and vex the other two.
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  Speaker 1: The other two are thus delivered bound into our hands,
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  Speaker 1: that we may fleece them likewise, whereupon, money being got,
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  Speaker 1: and the three estates all in quarrel, dismiss them, and
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  Speaker 1: let the future go on as it can. As good
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  Speaker 1: Archbishoplominy was wont to say, there are so many accidents,
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  Speaker 1: and it needs but one to save us, how many
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  Speaker 1: to destroy us. Poor Necker, in the midst of such
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  Speaker 1: an anarchy, does what is possible for him. He looks
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  Speaker 1: into it with obstinately hopeful face. Lords, the known rectitude
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  Speaker 1: of the kingly mind listens indulgent like to the known
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  Speaker 1: perverseness of the queenly and courtly emits. If any proclamation
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  Speaker 1: or regulation one favoring the tierre etta but settles nothing,
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  Speaker 1: hovering afar off rather and advising all things to settle themselves.
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  Speaker 1: The grand questions for the present have got reduced to two.
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  Speaker 1: The double representation and the vote by head shall the
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  Speaker 1: Commons have a double representation, that is to say, have
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  Speaker 1: as many members as the noblesse and clergy united shall
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  Speaker 1: the States General, when once assembled, vote and deliberate in
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  Speaker 1: one body or in three separate bodies, vote by head,
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  Speaker 1: or vote by class order, as they call it. The
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  Speaker 1: these are the moot points, now filling all France with jargon,
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  Speaker 1: logic and eleutheromania. To terminate which nekee bethinks him might
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  Speaker 1: not a second convocation of the notables be fittest. Such
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  Speaker 1: second convocation is resolved on on the sixth of November
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  Speaker 1: of this year, seventeen eighty eight. These notables, accordingly have
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  Speaker 1: reassembled after an interval of some eighteen months. They are
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  Speaker 1: Colon's old notables, the same one hundred and forty four
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  Speaker 1: to show one's impartiality. Likewise, to save time, they sit
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  Speaker 1: there once again in their seven bureaus in the hard
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  Speaker 1: winter weather. It is the hardest winter since seventeen o nine,
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  Speaker 1: thermometer below zero of fahrenheit, Sane River frozen over cold,
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  Speaker 1: scarcity and ellotherromenia clamor are changed world. Since these notables
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  Speaker 1: were organed out in May, go on a year. They
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  Speaker 1: shall see now whether under their seven Princes of the Blood,
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  Speaker 1: in their seven bureaus, they can settle the moot points
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  Speaker 1: to the surprise of patriotism. These notables, once so patriotic,
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  Speaker 1: seem to incline the wrong way towards the anti patriotic side.
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  Speaker 1: They stagger at the double representation. At the vote by head.
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  Speaker 1: There is not affirmative decision. There is mere debating, and
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  Speaker 1: that is not with the best aspects. For indeed, were
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  Speaker 1: not these notables themselves, mostly of the privileged classes They
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  Speaker 1: clam at once. Now they have their misgivings, make their
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  Speaker 1: dolorous representations, Let them vanish, ineffectual, and return no more.
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  Speaker 1: They vanish after a month's session on this twelfth of December,
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  Speaker 1: year seventeen eighty eight, the last terrestrial notables not to
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  Speaker 1: reappear any other time in the history of the world.
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  Speaker 1: And so the clamor still continuing, and the pamphlets and
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  Speaker 1: nothing but patriotic addresses low and louder parting in from
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  Speaker 1: all corners of France. Necker himself, some fortnight after, before
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  Speaker 1: the year is yet done, has to present his report,
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  Speaker 1: recommending at his own risk that some double representation, nay
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  Speaker 1: almost enjoining it. So loud as the jargon and eleutheromania,
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  Speaker 1: What dubitating, what circumambulating, these whole six noisy months, For
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  Speaker 1: it began with Brienne in July, has not report followed report,
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  Speaker 1: and one proclamation flown in the teeth of the other. However,
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  Speaker 1: that first moot point, as we see, is now settled.
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  Speaker 1: As for the second, that of voting by head or
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  Speaker 1: by order, it unfortunately is still left hanging. It hangs there,
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  Speaker 1: we may say, between the privileged orders and the unprivileged,
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  Speaker 1: as a ready made battle prize and necessity of war
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  Speaker 1: from the very first, which battle prize, whosoever seizes it
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  Speaker 1: may thenceforth bear as battle flag with the best omens.
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  Speaker 1: But so at least by royal Edict of the twenty
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  Speaker 1: fourth of January, does it finally, to impatient expectant France
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  Speaker 1: become not only indubitable that national deputies are to meet,
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  Speaker 1: but possible. So far and hardly father, has the royal
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  Speaker 1: regulation gone to begin electing them. End of Book four,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter one