They told us in substance to get adopted, if we could, the proposal to present candidates for the departments, and to admit into the list of candidates none but men whose morality, means, and fair reputation were established, to prevent wrangles, schism between the orders, and to carry, as far as in us lay, the most moderate notions as regarded reforms and innovations.  It was no longer the king speaking, it was the consulting counsel for the crown, asking advice of everybody, and appearing to say to everybody:  ’What’s to be done?  What can I do?  How much do they want to lop from my authority?  How much of it will they leave me?” [Memoires de M. Malouet, t. i. p. 249.] It was a tacit abdication of the kingship at the juncture when its traditional authority, if not its very existence, was brought to book.

The party of honest men, still very numerous and recruited amongst all classes of society, went confidently to the general elections and preparatory assemblies which had to precede them.  “Hardly conscious were they of the dark clouds which had gathered around us; the clouds shrouded a tempest which was not slow to burst.” [Ibidem, p. 260.]

The whole of France was fever-stricken.  The agitation was contradictory and confused, a medley of confidence and fear, joy and rage, everywhere violent and contagious.  This time again Dauphiny showed an example of politic and wise behavior.  The special states of the province had met on the 1st of December, 1788, authorized by the government, according to a new system proposed by the delegates of the three orders.  Certain members of the noblesse and of the clergy had alone protested against the mode of election.  Mounier constantly directed the decisions of the third (estate); he restrained and enlightened young Barnave, advocate in the court, who, for lack of his counsels, was destined to frequently go astray hereafter.  The deliberations were invariably grave, courteous; a majority, as decided as it was tolerant, carried the day on all the votes.  “When I reflect upon all we gained in Dauphiny by the sole force of justice and reason,” wrote Mounier afterwards, in his exile, “I see how I came to believe that Frenchmen deserve to be free.”  M. Mounier published a work on the convocation of the States-general demanding the formation of two chambers.  That was likewise the proposition of M. de La Luzerne, Bishop of Langres, an enlightened, a zealous, and a far-sighted prelate.  “This plan had probably no approbation but mine,” says M. Malouet.  The opposition and the objections were diverse and contradictory, but they were general.  Constitutional notions were as yet novel and full of confusion in all minds.  The most sagacious and most prudent were groping their way towards a future enveloped in mist.