the Commons by the great concession exceeded their literal and legal
power, and it was accepted and employed accordingly.

The mode of election was regulated on January 24. There were to be
three hundred deputies for the clergy, three hundred for the nobles,
six hundred for the Commons. There were to be no restrictions and no
exclusions; but whereas the greater personages voted directly, the
vote of the lower classes was indirect; and the rule for the Commons
was that one hundred primary voters chose an elector. Besides the
deputy, there was the deputy's deputy, held in reserve, ready in case
of vacancy to take his place. It was on this peculiar device of
eventual representatives that the Commons relied, if their numbers had
not been doubled. They would have called up their substitutes. The
rights and charters of the several provinces were superseded, and all
were placed on the same level.

A more sincere and genuine election has never been held. And on the
whole it was orderly. The clergy were uneasy, and the nobles more
openly alarmed. But the country in general had confidence in what was
coming; and some of the most liberal and advanced and outspoken
manifestations proceeded from aristocratic and ecclesiastical
constituencies. On February 9 the Venetian envoy reports that the
clergy and nobles are ready to accept the principle of equality in
taxation. The elections were going on for more than two months, from
February to the beginning of May.

In accordance with ancient custom, when a deputy was a plenipotentiary
more than a representative, it was ordained that the preliminary of
every election was the drawing up of instructions. Every corner of
France was swept and searched for its ideas. The village gave them to
its elector, and they were compared and consolidated by the electors
in the process of choosing their member. These instructions, the
characteristic bequest to its successors of a society at the point of
death, were often the work of conspicuous public men, such as Malouet,
Lanjuinais, Dupont, the friend of Turgot and originator of the
commercial treaty of 1786; and one paper, drawn up by Sieyes, was
circulated all over France by the duke of Orleans.

In this way, by the lead which was taken by eminent and experienced
men, there is an appearance of unanimity. All France desired the
essential institutions of limited monarchy, in the shape of
representation and the division of power, and foreshadowed th