At the very moment when the public were making merry over the Assembly of notables, and were getting irritated at the delay caused by their useless discussions in the convocation of the States-general, the Parliament, in one of those sudden fits of reaction with which they were sometimes seized from their love of popularity, issued a decree explanatory of their decision on the 24th of September.  “The real intentions of the court,” said the decree, “have been distorted in spite of their plainness.  The number of deputies of each order is not determined by any law, by any invariable usage, and it depends upon the king’s wisdom to adjudge what reason, liberty, justice, and the general wish may indicate.”  The Parliament followed up this strange retractation with a series of wise and far-sighted requests touching the totality of the public administration.  Its part was henceforth finished, wisdom in words could not efface the effect of imprudent or weak acts; when the decree was presented to the king, he gave the deputation a cold reception.  “I have no answer to make to the prayers of the Parliament,” he replied; “it is with the States-general that I shall examine into the interests of my people.”

Whilst all the constituted bodies of the third estate, municipalities, corporations, commissions of provincial assemblies, were overwhelming the king with their addresses in favor of the people’s rights, the Prince of Conti, whose character always bore him into reaction against the current of public opinion, had put himself at the head of the opposition of the courtiers.  Already, at one of the committees of the Assembly of notables, he had addressed Monsieur, the most favorable of all the princes to the liberal movement.  “The very existence of the monarchy is threatened,” he said, “its annihilation is desired, and we are close upon that fatal moment.  It is impossible that the king should not at last open his eyes, and that the princes his brothers should not co-operate with him; be pleased, therefore, to represent to the king how important it is for the stability of his throne, for the laws, and for good order, that the new systems be forever put away, and that the constitution and ancient forms be maintained in their integrity.”  Louis XVI. having shown some ill-humor at the Prince of Conti’s remarks, the latter sent him a letter signed by all the princes of the royal family except Monsieur and the Duke of Orleans.  The perils with which the state was threatened were evident and even greater than the prince’s letter made out; the remedies they indicated were as insufficient in substance as they were contemptuous in form.  “Let the third estate,” they said, cease to attack the rights of the two upper orders, rights which, not less ancient than the monarchy, ought to be as unalterable as the constitution; but let it confine itself to asking for diminution of the imposts with which it may be surcharged; then the two upper orders might, in the generosity of their feelings,