De Tocqueville does not concur in Napoleon's opinion.
'Cahiers,' published 1789, contain the whole body of instructions
supplied to their respective delegates by the _trois etats (clerge,
noblesse, et Tiers Etat_), on assembling in convocation. Of this entire
and voluminous collection (which is deposited in the archives of France)
three volumes of extracts are to be bought which were a kind of _redige_
of the larger body of documents. In these three volumes De Tocqueville
mentioned, one may trace the course of the public sentiment with perfect
clearness. Each class demanded a large instalment of constitutional
securities; the nobles perhaps demanded the largest amount of all the
three. Nothing could be more thoroughgoing than the requisitions which
the body of the _noblesse_ charged their delegates to enforce in the
Assembly of the Etats-generaux--'egalisations des charges (taxation),
responsabilite des ministres, independance des tribunaux, liberte de la
personne, garantie de la propriete contre la couronne,' a balance-sheet
annually of the public expenses and public revenue, and, in fact, all the
salient privileges necessary in order to enfranchise a community weary of
despotism.
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