DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

tried to dissuade him from summoning the States General, as she foresaw the peril, in times of such profound excitement, of assembling a great and powerful body of chiefly ill-affected persons. Equally fruitless were her entreaties that the States General should meet, not at Versailles, but at some other place farther away from the capital. It has been asserted that had her advice in this respect been adopted, the Revolution might have been averted. But in such case, the first act of the States General undoubtedly would have been, to proclaim that they should meet in Paris, which was not only the capital, but the intellectual and political centre of the country. On the 15th May, 1789, the States General were opened by the king, with great pomp, at Versailles. They numbered 1183 members—291 representing the clergy, 270 the nobility, and 622 the Commons or Tiers Etat, as they were called. It was a fatal error to give so largely preponderating an influence to the advanced section, as its voting strength would enable it to swamp the conservative element. It had been the practice of the States General to vote by orders—that is to say, the clergy, nobility, and commons, each voted separately. The very first act of the States General was to declare itself a National Assembly, thus breaking down the distinction b-- tween the three orders, converting itself into a