Jean P. H. E. A. Esmein and Walter A. Phillips

“ Subsequently the deputies belonging to the same gouvernement formed a group or bureau for deliberating and voting purposes. Certain questions, however, were discussed and decided in full assembly; sometimes, too, the estates nominated commissaries in equal numbers for each order. But in the ancient States-General there was never any personal vote. The unit represented for each of the three orders was the bailliage or sénéchaussee and each bailliage had one vote, the majority of the deputies of the bailliage deciding in what way this vote should be given. ”

“ To a certain extent there were sometimes more than two degrees in the suffrage; the delegates nominated by the country communities would gather together with the electors chosen by the neighbouring little town, and appoint with them new delegates to represent them at the electoral assembly of the bailliage. This ultimately became the system. For the clergy and nobles the suffrage remained direct; but as a rule only such ecclesiastics were admitted to the assembly of the bailliage as possessed a benefice, and only such lords as had a fief. ”

“ The deputies of each order in every bailliage also brought with them a cahier des doléances, which was arrived at, for the third estate, by a combination of the statements drawn up by the primary or secondary electors. On the assembly of the estates the cahiers of the bailliages were incorporated into a cahier for each gouvernement, and these again into a cahier général or general statement, which was presented to the king, and which he answered in his council. ”

“ In the first half of the reign of Charles VII. they had been summoned almost every year and had patriotically voted subsidies. And when the struggle was over they renounced, through weariness and a longing for peace, their most precious right, the power of the purse. ”