It confirmed him, had he needed confirmation, in his conviction that
just as the philosophies upon which this new movement was based had
their source in thinkers extracted from the bourgeoisie, so the need
to adopt those philosophies to the practical purposes of life was
most acutely felt at present by those bourgeois who found themselves
debarred by Privilege from the expansion their wealth permitted them.
If it might be said of Andre-Louis that he had that day lighted the
torch of the Revolution in Nantes, it might with even greater truth
be said that the torch itself was supplied by the opulent bourgeoisie.
I need not dwell at any length upon the sequel. It is a matter of
history how that oath which Omnes Omnibus administered to the
citizens of Nantes formed the backbone of the formal protest which
they drew up and signed in their thousands. Nor were the results of
that powerful protest - which, after all, might already be said to
harmonize with the expressed will of the sovereign himself - long
delayed. Who shall say how far it may have strengthened the hand of
Necker, when on the 27th of that same month of November he compelled
the Council to adopt the most significant and comprehensive of all
those measures to which clergy and nobility had refused their consent?
On that date was published the royal decree ordaining that the
deputies to be elected to the States General should number at least
one thousand, and that the deputies of the Third Estate should be
fully representative by numbering as many as the deputies of clergy
and nobility together.
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