developed into the notorious Jacobin Club, so called from its
meeting-place, a convent on the Rue St. Honore, once occupied by
Dominican monks who had moved thither from the Rue St. Jacques.

To summon the Estates was a virtual confession that absolutism in
France was at an end. In the seventeenth century the three estates
deliberated separately. Such matters came before them as were
submitted by the crown, chiefly demands for revenue. A decision was
reached by the agreement of any two of the three, and whatever
proposition the crown submitted was either accepted or rejected.
There was no real legislation. Louis no doubt hoped that the
eighteenth-century assembly would be like that of the seventeenth. He
could then, by the coalition of the nobles and the clergy against the
burghers, or by any other arrangement of two to one, secure
authorization either for his loans or for his reforms, as the case
might be, and so carry both. But the France of 1789 was not the France
of 1614. As soon as the call for the meeting was issued, and the
decisive steps were taken, the whole country was flooded with
pamphlets. Most of them were ephemeral; one was epochal. In it the
Abbe Sieyes asked the question, "What is the third estate?" and
answered so as to strengthen the already spreading conviction that the
people of France were really the nation. The King was so far convinced
as to agree that the third estate should be represented by delegates
equal in number to those of the clergy and nobles combined. The
elections passed quietly, and on May fifth, 1789, the Estates met at
Versailles, under the shadow of the court. It was immediately evident
that the hands of the clock could not be put back two centuries, and
that here was gathered an assembly unlike any that had ever met in
the country, determined to express the sentiments, and to be the
executive, of the masses who in their opinion constituted the nation.
On June seventeenth, therefore, after long talk and much hesitation,
the representatives of the third estate declared themselves the
representatives of the whole nation, and invited their colleagues of
the clergy and nobles to join them. Their meeting-place having been
closed in consequence of this decision, they gathered without
authorization in the royal tennis-court on June twentieth, and bound
themselves by oath not to disperse until they had introduced a new
order. Louis was nevertheless nearly successful in his plan of keepin