[106] Bailly's Mémoires, t. i., p. 114.—Dumont, Souvenirs, etc., vol. i., p. 59.
[107] "A month lost! One month in open famine. Observe that in this long expectation the rich kept themselves motionless, and postponed every kind of expenditure. Work had ceased. He who had but his hands, his daily labor to supply the day, went to look for work, found none—begged—got nothing—robbed. Starving gangs overran the country."—Michelet, vol. i., p. 93.
[108] The Abbé Sièyes was one of the deputies sent by the Third Estate from Paris, and the only clergyman in their delegation.
[109] Sièyes' motion was to summon the privileged. By vote of the Assembly the word was changed to invite.—France and its Revolutions, by G. Long, Esq., p. 12.
"The Assembly," writes M. Bailly, its president, "deliberating after the verification of its powers, perceives that it is already composed of representatives sent directly by ninety-six hundredths, at least, of the whole nation. Nothing can be more exact than this assertion. The four hundredths that are absent, but duly summoned, can not impede the ninety-six hundredths that are present.
"The Assembly will never lose the hope of uniting in its bosom all the deputies that are now absent; will never cease to call upon them to fulfill the obligation that has been imposed upon them of concurring with the sitting of the States-General. At whatever moment the absent deputies may present themselves in the session about to open, the Assembly declares beforehand that it will hasten to receive them, to share with them, after the verification of their powers, the continuance of the great labors which can not but procure the regeneration of France."
[110] Necker estimated the Third Estate at ninety-eight hundredths of the population.