as an appeal to your
judgment, which I value, and from which I will expect a correction, if
they are wrong.

I have the honor to be, with very great esteem and attachment, Dear Sir,
your most obedient and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXCVI.--TO THE MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE, May 6,1789

TO THE MARQUIS DE LA FAYETTE.

Paris, May 6,1789.

My Dear Friend,

As it becomes more and more possible that the _Noblesse_ will go
wrong, I become uneasy for you. Your principles are decidedly with the
_Tiers-Etat_, and your instructions against them. A complaisance to the
latter on some occasions, and an adherence to the former on others, may
give an appearance of trimming between the two parties, which may lose
you both. You will, in the end, go over wholly to the _Tiers-Etat_,
because it will be impossible for you to live in a constant sacrifice of
your own sentiments to the prejudices of the _Noblesse_. But you would
be received by the _Tiers-Etat_, at any future day, coldly, and without
confidence. This appears to me the moment to take at once that honest
and manly stand with them, which your own principles dictate. This will
win their hearts for ever, be approved by the world, which marks and
honors you as the man of the people, and will be an eternal consolation
to yourself. The _Noblesse_, and especially the _Noblesse of Auvergne_,
will always prefer men who will do their dirty work for them. You are
not made for that. They will therefore soon drop you, and the people, in
that case, will perhaps not take you up. Suppose a scission should take
place. The Priests and Nobles will secede, the nation will remain in
place, and, with the King, will do its own business. If violence should
be attempted, where will you be? You cannot then take side with the
people in opposition to your own vote, that very vote which will have
helped to produce the scission. Still less can you array yourself
against the people. That is impossible. Your instructions are indeed
a difficulty. But to state this at its worst, it is only a single
difficulty, which a single effort surmounts. Your instructions can never
embarrass you a second time, whereas an acquiescence under them will
re-produce greater difficulties every day, and without end. Besides, a
thousand circumstances offer as many justifications of your departure
from your instructions. Will it be impossible to persuade all parties,
that (as for good legislation two Hous