The king
received his advisers with pompous ceremony and a colorless speech, but
it was soon obvious that he and the court intended that their business
should be purely financial and that their organization should be in
accordance with ancient usage; the three estates would thus vote "by
order," that is, as three distinct bodies, so that the doubled
membership of the Third Estate would have but one vote to the
privileged orders' two. With this view the great majority of the nobles
and a large part of the clergy, especially the higher clergy, were in
full sympathy. On their side the commoners began to argue that the
Estates-General should organize itself as a single body, in which each
member should have one vote, such voting "by head" marking the
establishment of true representation in France, and that the assembly
should forthwith concern itself with a general reformation of the
entire government. With the commoners' argument a few of the liberal
nobles, headed by Lafayette, and a considerable group of the clergy,
particularly the curates, agreed; and it was backed up by the undoubted
sentiment of the nation.
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