the state,
they will put themselves forward on all occasions as long as they believe
that they are supported by public opinion. It is necessary, therefore,
either to take this support away from them, or to prepare for repeated
contests which will disturb the tranquillity of your Majesty's reign, and
will lead successively either to a degradation of authority or to extreme
measures of which one cannot exactly estimate the consequences."

In order to apply a remedy to the evils he demonstrated as well as to
those which he foresaw, M. Necker had borrowed some shreds from the great
system of local assemblies devised by M. Turgot; he had proposed to the
king and already organized in Berry the formation of provincial
assemblies, recruited in every district (_generalite_) from among the
three orders of the noblesse, the clergy, and the third estate. A part
of the members were to be chosen by the king; these were commissioned to
elect their colleagues, and the assembly was afterwards to fill up its
own vacancies as they occurred. The provincial administration was thus
confided almost entirely to the assemblies. That of Berry had already
abolished forced labor, and collected two hundred thousand livres by
voluntary contribution for objects of public utility. The assembly of
Haute-Guyenne was in course of formation. The districts (_generalites_)
of Grenoble, Montauban, and Moulins claimed the same privilege. The
parliaments were wroth to see this assault upon their power. Louis XVI.
had hesitated a long while before authorizing the attempt. "The
presidents-born, the councillors, the members of the states-districts
(_pays d'etats_), do not add to the happiness of Frenchmen in the
districts which are under their administration," wrote the king in his
marginal notes to M. Necker's scheme. "Most certainly Brittany, with its
states, is not happier than Normandy which happens to be without them.
The most just and most natural among the powers of the parliaments is
that of hanging robbers of the finances. In the event of provincial
administrations, it must not be taken away. It concerns and appertains
to the repose of my people to preserve privileges."

The instinct of absolute power and the traditions of the kingship
struggled in the narrow mind and honest heart of Louis XVI. against the
sincere desire to ameliorate the position of his people and against a
vague impression of new requirements. It was to the former of these