Nevertheless much was to be feared should the clergy, the nobility, and the people act unanimously; and in order to prevent such a coalition, neither Marie de Medicis nor her ministers spared any exertion.  As much depended upon the presidents whom they might select, the first care of the Queen-mother was to ensure the election of persons favourable to her own interests; but as great caution was necessary with regard to the agent to whom she could entrust so delicate a mission as that of causing such individuals to be chosen, she hesitated for a time before she came to a decision.  Ultimately, however, she fixed upon the young Comte de Brienne;[181] and so thoroughly did he justify her preference, that he eventually succeeded, without any appearance of undue interposition, in securing the election of three presidents, all of whom were favourable to the Court party.[182]

This important point gained, the Government recovered its confidence; and its next care was to awaken the jealousy of each order against its coadjutors, and thus to paralyze the influence of the Assembly.  In this attempt it was perfectly successful; and the general welfare of the country was overlooked in the anxiety of the several parties to carry out their own individual views.  The clergy demanded the publication of the decrees of the Council of Trent, and their unrestricted admission throughout the kingdom; the nobility asked that the privilege of the paulette should be abolished;[183] and the tiers-etat[184] solicited either the suppression or diminution of the pensions by which the public treasury was involved in debt.

The speaker elected by the clergy was the Archbishop of Lyons; the nobility chose as their spokesman the Baron du Pont Saint-Pierre,[185] while the tiers-etat was presided over by M. Miron.[186] The two first-named orators addressed the King standing and bareheaded; but this privilege was considered too great for a body which could boast of neither hereditary nor ecclesiastical nobility; and the able diplomatist and rhetorician who upon that occasion pleaded before his sovereign the rights and immunities of the class which he had been called upon to represent, was compelled to address that sovereign upon his knees.  Miron had, previous to the meeting of the States, excited the indignation of the more patrician orders by declaring that he regarded the three bodies of which it was composed as one family, of which the nobility and clergy represented the elder, and the tiers-etat the junior branches; while the Queen herself, even while she felt the importance of his support, did not hesitate to treat the deputies of his order with the greatest arrogance and discourtesy, although they distinguished themselves by a loyalty and devotion to the interests of the Crown which met with no response from the haughtier members of the Assembly.  Ably, indeed, through the agency of Miron, did they persist in defending the royal prerogative,