to? In replying, the attorney who holds the
pen, names and points out with his finger each privileged individual,
criticizes his way of living, and estimates his fortune, calculates the
injury done to the village by his immunities, inveighs against the taxes
and the tax-collectors. On leaving these assemblies the villager broods
over what he has just heard. He sees his grievances no longer singly as
before, but in mass, and coupled with the enormity of evils under which
his fellows suffer. Besides this, they begin to disentangle the causes
of their misery: the King is good--why then do his collectors take so
much of our money? This or that canon or nobleman is not unkind--why
then do they make us pay in their place?--Imagine that a sudden gleam of
reason should allow a beast of burden to comprehend the contrast between
the species of horse and mankind. Imagine, if you can, what its first
ideas would be in relation to the coachmen and drivers who bridle
and whip it and again in relation to the good-natured travelers and
sensitive ladies who pity it, but who to the weight of the vehicle add
their own and that of their luggage.

Likewise, in the mind of the peasant, athwart his perplexed brooding, a
new idea, slowly, little by little, is unfolded:--that of an oppressed
multitude of which he makes one, a vast herd scattered far beyond the
visible horizon, everywhere ill used, starved, and fleeced. Towards the
end of 1788 we begin to detect in the correspondence of the intendants
and military commandants the dull universal muttering of coming
wrath. Men's characters seem to change; they become suspicious and
restive.--And just at this moment, the Government, dropping the reins,
calls upon them to direct themselves.[1111]. In the month of November
1787, the King declared that he would convoke the States-General. On the
5th of July 1788, he calls for memoranda (des memoires) on this subject
from every competent person and body. On the 8th of August he fixes the
date of the session. On the 5th of October he convokes the notables,
in order to consider the subject with them. On the 27th of December he
grants a double representation to the Third-Estate, because "its cause
is allied with generous sentiments, and it will always obtain the
support of public opinion." The same day he introduces into the
electoral assemblies of the clergy a majority of cures[1112], "because
good and useful pastors are daily and closely associated with