Opening of States General -- King's distrust -- People not represented -- "Third Estate" -- Establishment of National Assembly -- Oath in Tennis Court -- King annuls resolutions of Assembly -- Speech of Mirabeau -- People threaten force On May 4, 1789, the twelve hundred deputies of the States-General assembled at Versailles, repaired to the church of Saint Louis to hear Mass in connection with the opening ceremony, and the next day the King opened the session in the presence of a crowd of spectators. And already from this opening meeting the tragic inevitability of the Revolution began to unfold itself. The King felt nothing but distrust towards the representatives of the nation whom he had convoked. He had at last resigned himself to convoking them, but he complained before the deputies themselves of "the restlessness of spirit," the general ferment throughout the country, as if such restlessness was in itself fact...
"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John viii. 32). I have but little time left to live, and I should like before my death to tell you, working people, what I have been thinking about your oppressed condition and about those means which will help you to free yourselves from it. Maybe something of what I have been thinking (and I have been thinking much about it) will do you some good. I naturally turn to the Russian laborers, among whom I live and whom I know better than the laborers of any other country, but I hope that my remarks may not be useless to the laborers of other countries as well. Every one who has eyes and a heart sees that you, working men, are obliged to pass your lives in want and in hard labor... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of GovernmentPreface. The following letter served as a preface to the first edition of this memoir: — “To the Members of the Academy of Besançon. “PARIS, June 30, 1840. “GENTLEMEN, — In the course of your debate of the 9th of May, 1833, in regard to the triennial pension established by Madame Suard, you expressed the following wish: — “ ‘The Academy requests the titulary to present it annually, during the first fortnight in July, with a succinct and logical statement of the various studies which he has pursued during the year which has just expired.’ “I now propose, gentlemen, to discharge this duty. “When I solicited your votes, I boldly avowed my intention to bend my efforts to the discovery of some means of ameliorating the physical, moral, and intellectual condition of the mere numerous and poorer classes. This idea, foreign as it m...