The Bureau replies, that the paving is a duty thrown upon him by the nature of his office.
The question in this case is not decided by the king in council; the parliament gives judgment, as the principal matter in dispute is the interest of the capital devoted to the purchase of the office. The administrative question becomes a civil action.
Note (XLIV.)—Page [96], line 23.
ANALYSIS OF THE INSTRUCTIONS OF THE ORDER OF NOBILITY IN 1789.
The French Revolution is, I believe, the only one, at the beginning of which the different classes were able separately to bear authentic witness to the ideas they had conceived, and to display the sentiments by which they were moved before the Revolution had altered and defaced these ideas and feelings. This authentic testimony was recorded, as we all know, in the cahiers drawn up by the three Orders in 1789. These cahiers, or Instructions, were drawn up under circumstances of complete freedom and publicity, by each of the Orders concerned; they underwent a long discussion from those interested, and were carefully considered by their authors; for the Government of that period did not, whenever it addressed the nation, undertake both to put the question and to give the answer. At the time when the Instructions were drawn up, the most important parts of them were collected in three printed volumes, which are to be found in every library. The originals are deposited in the national archives, and with them the procès-verbaux of the assemblies by which they were drawn up, together with a part of the correspondence which passed between M. Necker and his agents on the subject of these assemblies. This collection forms a long series of folio volumes. It is the most precious document that remains to us from ancient France, and one which should be constantly consulted by those who wish to know the state of feeling amongst our forefathers at the time when the Revolution broke out.
I at first imagined that the abridgment printed in three volumes, which I mentioned above, might perhaps be the work of one party, and not a true representation of the character of this immense inquiry; but on comparing one with the other, I found the strongest resemblance between the large original picture and the reduced copy.
The extract from the cahiers of the nobility, which I am about to give, contains a true picture of the sentiments of the great majority of that Order. It clearly shows how many of their ancient privileges they were obstinately determined to maintain, how many they were not disinclined to give up, and how many they offered to renounce of their own accord. Above all, we see in full the spirit which animated them with regard to political liberty. The picture is a strange and sad one!
Individual Rights.—The nobles demand, first of all, that an explicit declaration should be made of the rights which belong to all men, and that this declaration should confirm their liberties and secure their safety.
Liberty of the Person.—They desire that the servitude to the glebe should be abolished wherever it still exists, and that means should be formed to destroy the slave trade and to emancipate the negroes; that every man should be free to travel or to reside wherever he may please, whether within or without the limits of the kingdom, without being liable to arbitrary arrest; that the abuses of police regulations shall be reformed, and that henceforth the police shall be under the control of the judges, even in cases of revolt; that no one shall be liable to be arrested or tried except by his natural judges; that, consequently, the state prisons and other illegal places of detention shall be suppressed. Some of them require the demolition of the Bastille. The nobility of Paris is especially urgent upon this point.