an the verification of powers. The other orders resolved
at once that each should examine its own returns. But this vote, which
the nobles carried by a majority of 141, obtained in the clergy a
majority of only 19. It was evident at once that the party of
privilege was going asunder, and that the priests were nearly as well
inclined to the Commons as to the _noblesse_. It became advisable to
give them time, to discard violence until the arts of conciliation
were exhausted and the cause of united action had been pleaded in
vain. The policy of moderation was advocated by Malouet, a man of
practical insight and experience, who had grown grey in the service of
the State. It was said that he defended the slave trade; he attempted
to exclude the public from the debates; he even offered, in
unauthorised terms, to secure the claims, both real and formal, of the
upper classes. He soon lost the ear of the House. But he was a man of
great good sense, as free from ancient prejudice as from modern
theory, and he never lost sight of the public interest in favour of a
class. The most generous proposals on behalf of the poor afterwards
emanated from him, and parliamentary life in France began with his
motion for negotiation with the other orders.

He was supported by Mounier, one of the deepest minds of that day, and
the most popular of the deputies. He was a magistrate of Grenoble, and
had conducted the Estates of Dauphine with such consummate art and
wisdom that all ranks and all parties had worked in harmony. They had
demanded equal representation and the vote in common; they gave to
their deputies full powers instead of written instructions, only
requiring that they should obtain a free government to the best of
their ability; they resolved that the chartered rights of their
province should not be put in competition with the new and theoretic
rights of the nation. Under Mounier's controlling hand the prelate and
the noble united to declare that the essential liberties of men are
ensured to them by nature, and not by perishable title-deeds.
Travellers had initiated him in the working of English institutions,
and he represented the school of Montesquieu; but he was an
emancipated disciple and a discriminate admirer. He held Montesquieu
to be radically illiberal, and believed the famous theory which
divides powers without isolating them to be an old and a common
discovery. He thought that nations differ less in their character than
i