ed.

The noblesse and the clergy conducted their elections by means of small
meetings and chose their delegates from among themselves. The Tiers
Etat elected as its representatives men of the upper middle class and
professional class; the lower classes, ignorant and politically
untutored, were unrepresented and accepted tutelage with more or less
alacrity--more in the provinces, less in Paris. But in addition, a
{50} small number of men belonging to the privileged orders sought and
obtained mandates from the lower. Sieyes and a few other priests,
Mirabeau and a few other nobles, were elected to the States-General by
the Third Estate.

Sieyes, of powerful mind, a student of constitutionalism, terse and
logical in expression, had made a mark during the electoral period with
his pamphlet, _Qu'est-ce que le Tiers Etat?_ What is the Third Estate?
His reply was: It is everything; it has been nothing; it should be
something. This was a reasonable and forceful exposition of the views
of the twenty-five millions. Mirabeau, of volcanic temperament and
morals, with the instinct of a statesman and the conscience of an
outlaw, greedy of power as of money, with thundering voice, ready
rhetoric, and keen perception, turned from his own order to the people
for his mandate. He saw clearly enough from the beginning that reform
could not stop at financial changes, but must throw open the government
of France to the large class of intelligent citizens with which her
developed civilization had endowed her.

The outstanding fact brought out by this infiltration of the noblesse
and clergy into the {51} Third Estate, was clear: the deputies to the
States-General, whichever order they belonged to, were nearly all
members of the educated middle and upper class of France. Part of the
deputies of the noblesse stood for class privilege, and so did a
somewhat larger part of those of the clergy. But a great number in
both these orders were of the same sentiment as the deputies of the
Third Estate. They were intelligent and patriotic Frenchmen, full of
the teaching of Voltaire, and Rousseau, and Montesquieu, convinced by
their eyes as well as by their intellect that Bourbonism must be
reformed for its own sake, for the sake of France, and for the sake of
humanity.

{52}

CHAPTER V

FRANCE COMES TO VERSAILLES

At the beginning of May, twelve hundred and fourteen representatives of
France reached Versailles. Of these, six hund