Dear Sir,

Since my last, which was of May the 19th, I have received yours of
June the 17th and 18th. I am struck with the idea of the geometrical
wheel-barrow, and will beg of you a farther account, if it can be
obtained. I have no news yet of my _conge_.

Though you have doubtless heard most of the proceedings of the States
General since my last, I will take up the narration where that left it,
that you may be able to separate the true from the false accounts you
have heard. A good part of what was conjecture in that letter, is now
become true history.

*****

The National Assembly, then, (for that is the name they take,) having
shown through every stage of these transactions a coolness, wisdom, and
resolution to set fire to the four corners of the kingdom, and to perish
with it themselves, rather than to relinquish an iota from their plan
of a total change of government, are now in complete and undisputed
possession of the sovereignty. The executive and aristocracy are at
their feet; the mass of the nation, the mass of the clergy, and the
army are with them: they have prostrated the old government, and are now
beginning to build one from the foundation. A committee, charged with
the arrangement of their business, gave in, two days ago, the following
order of proceedings.

'1. Every government should have for its only end, the preservation
of the rights of man: whence it follows, that to recall constantly
the government to the end proposed, the constitution should begin by a
declaration of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man.

'2. Monarchical government being proper to maintain those rights, it has
been chosen by the French nation. It suits especially a great society;
it is necessary for the happiness of France. The declaration of the
principles of this government, then, should follow immediately the
declaration of the rights of man.

'3. It results from the principles of monarchy, that the nation, to
assure its own rights, has yielded particular rights to the monarch: the
constitution, then, should declare, in a precise manner, the rights of
both. It should begin by declaring the rights of the French nation, and
then should declare the rights of the King.

'4. The rights of the King and nation not existing but for the happiness
of the individuals who compose it, they lead to an examination of the
rights of citizens.

'5. The French nation not being capable of assembling individually to
exerci