In my letter of the 4th, I stated to you the symptoms which indicated that government had some great stroke of authority in contemplation.  That night they sent guards to seize Monsieur d’Epremenil and Monsieur Goiskind, two members of parliament, in their houses.  They escaped, and took sanctuary in the Palais (or parliament house).  The parliament assembled itself extraordinarily, summoned the Dukes and Peers specially, and came to the resolution of the 5th, which they sent to Versailles by deputies, determined not to leave the palace till they received an answer.  In the course of that night a battalion of guards surrounded the house.  The two members were taken by the officers from among their fellows, and sent off to prison, the one to Lyons, the other (d’Epremenil), the most obnoxious, to an island in the Mediterranean.  The parliament then separated.  On the 8th, a bed of justice was held at Versailles, wherein were enregistered the six ordinances which had been passed in Council on the 1st of May, and which I now send you.  They were in like manner enregistered in beds of justice, on the same day, in nearly all the parliaments of the kingdom.  By these ordinances, 1.  The criminal law is reformed, by abolishing examination on the sellette, which, like our holding up the hand at the bar, remained a stigma on the party, though innocent; by substituting an oath, instead of torture, on the question prealable, which is used after condemnation, to make the prisoner discover his accomplices; (the torture, abolished in 1780, was on the question preparatoire, previous to judgment, in order to make the prisoner accuse himself;) by allowing counsel to the prisoner for his defence; obliging the judges to specify in their judgments the offence for which he is condemned; and respiting execution a month, except in the case of sedition.  This reformation is unquestionably good, and within the ordinary legislative powers of the crown.  That it should remain to be made at this day, proves that the monarch is the last person in his kingdom who yields to the progress of philanthropy and civilization. 2.  The organization of the whole judiciary department is changed, by the institution of subordinate jurisdictions, the taking from the parliaments the cognizance of all causes of less value than twenty thousand livres, reducing their numbers to about a fourth, and suppressing a number of special courts.  Even this would be a great improvement, if it did not imply that the King is the only person in this nation, who has any rights or any power. 3.  The right of registering the laws is taken from the parliaments, and transferred to a Plenary court, created by the King.  This last is the measure most obnoxious to all persons.  Though the members are to be for life, yet a great proportion of them are from descriptions of men always candidates for the royal favor in other lines.  As yet, the general consternation has not sufficiently passed over, to say whether the matter will end here.