On 13 June 1789, he had led the first curés (there were two others) to the hall of the Menus-Plaisirs to join the Third Estate.
Jallet put much more of himself in his journal, noting with satisfaction that the head of the small Third Estate deputation addressed the gathered members of the First Estate as Messieurs; even though there were a number of aristocratic bishops present, he never once said Messeigneurs. It was May 1789 and some of the bishops were hoping for good relations with the two other Estates. The trouble began with those efforts to unite the clergy and noble Estates as an intermediary between the king and the Third Estate. This would have considerably strengthened the control of the aristocratic bishops over the commoner priests: “We easily saw the real goal of this writing. If the plan were adopted, the clergy of the second order [priests], overcome by the higher clergy and the nobles, would have not the least force, even for resistance, in the chamber.”31 The bishops were also unwilling to renounce their tax privileges; to Jallet they seemed to oppose the Third Estate and protect the old union of throne and altar. It was then that Jallet undertook to show the Assembly that “all the cahiers insisted on the preservation of the throne and of religion, but they insisted on the reform of abuses, of the intolerable and scandalous luxury of the bishops; on the amassing of benefices, nonresidency, the exclusion of commoners from the episcopate; it made clear that the clergy themselves should take on the honors of planning the reforms, but those who live off the abuses endeavor to defend them.”32
And it got rough at times, such as when a canon from Marseilles told the bishop of Langres, “I’ve forgotten more about this than you know now” (in fact, the canon was an aristocrat and conservative, whereas the bishop was open to change). This all took place in the confusing time between the first invitations to join the Third Estate and the dramatic unification of the First and Second Estates to the Third Estate; the memorable day was 19 May 1789. The indefatigably conservative abbé Maury, urging caution, “calumniated” (Jallet’s word) the intentions of the Third Estate. But Grégoire said that delays had already jeopardized the reform, and Lubersac of Chartres promoted a careful but rapid restructuring. The continued fussing of Maury and powerful logic of Lubersac took center stage until a weepy curé from Bordeaux drew some snickers as he warned of the dangers religion was facing.33 Jallet believed that the bishops were stonewalling the curés’ efforts to “reconcile” the First and Third Estates. He reported that “an episcopal curé was bold enough to treat the Assembly of the Third Estate as seditious; a bishop had said the previous day that it was a cave of robbers.”34 The radical curés won out, with the final vote 148 for union with the Third Estate and 136 against; “the bishops exited quickly before the news of the defeat could be reported.”35 The crowd did not know what had transpired, but they were still looking for a fight with the abbé Maury: he “could not get away from the boos of the crowd; he made a threat and they were ready to attack him; some spoke out saying that it would be better not to dirty one’s hands by touching such a despicable person.”36 But at least the forces for change had won the day: “Then the joy and the applause were universal; the archbishop of Vienne [Le Franc de Pompignon], that of Bordeaux [Champion de Cicé], and the bishop of Chartres [de Lubersac] we put at the head of the winners.”37 The aristocratic bishops who lost went to the king to protest that the vote had not been legal, but the archbishops of Vienne and Bordeaux and the bishop of Chartres held fast in their defense of the change.
The curés were anxious to finish the union project, and the bishop of Chartres suggested that all repair to the church of Saint-Louis for the official ceremony. And so it was, to Jallet’s clear joy: “The union of the clergy with the Third Estate will bring life and action to the National Assembly; and it is noteworthy that this union has been accomplished in a church that is under the patronage of good Saint Louis; a situation that no one has noticed, as far as we know.”38 The king then tried to stop the proceedings, ordering the three Estates to return to separate assemblies the next day. The Third Estate and a large number of clergy in favor of union remained. There was a profound silence for several minutes. The marquis de Brézé entered at the king’s behest and declared with the accord of the president that the will of his Majesty was that the different orders separate. The president answered that the session could not be closed except with the consent of the National Assembly. One of the deputies rose and said, “Only bayonets could get us out of here.”39
The business of getting the final union worked out was a drawn-out affair, a tug of war between curé eagerness and episcopal reserve. But on 25 May forty-seven nobles (“among whom figure the names of the first families of the kingdom,” wrote Jallet) reinforced the clergy for Estate unification.40 In the final discussion, Cardinal de La Rochefoucauld protested against the elimination of his right to meet separately with his Estate (his fellow bishops), and Mirabeau rose to say that no one had the right to protest his own will, or even cite the king’s will to the Assembly. The archbishop of Aix wanted to refute Mirabeau, but in his melodrama drew some laughter. Other bishops decided against continuing the contest, but Jallet referred to it all as an episcopal final attempt, a “swing of a club” to prevent the union of the Estates.41
And when the secretaries for the united National Assembly were chosen for the first period on 8 June, the short list comprised two nobles, two members of the Third Estate (Le Chapelier, a founder of the Jacobin Club, was one), and...the abbés Sieyès and Grégoire! These were troubled times, nevertheless. In the first days of July plans were made to call in more than thirty thousand troops to maintain the peace. Mirabeau, believing that the order would arouse the people, demanded its cancellation, Grégoire wanted to know who could have given the king such pernicious advice, and Sieyès wondered how the Assembly could have free and open discussion when surrounded by bayonets.42 Then came the storming of the Bastille, consternation at Versailles, and the deliberations as to what to do, with the coming and going of the king. Jallet combines reports of the people’s and delegates’ esteem and expressed enthusiasm for the king, with the subtle insertion of reserve and antagonism—primitive reverence and primitive rebellion in a unique alloy only two days after the storming of the Bastille. A delegation was sent from the Assembly to Paris with an archbishop at its head: “It had been received with lively joy; taken down to the Place Louis XV, they were conducted by an honor guard of the Paris militia, to the acclamations of an immense crowd demanding the return of Necker, to the Hôtel-de-Ville, where the archbishop of Paris announced the dispatching of troops.”43
The next delegation had the king at the center, but the clergy who were committed to reform were squeezed out of membership, Jallet himself finding that his name had been proposed but then arbitrarily removed.44 After a full presentation of the precautions taken against insurrection and violence in Paris, and a comment on the popularity of the duc d’Orléans, Philippe Egalité, Jallet posts his negative assessment of the king’s behavior: “The king revealed himself to the Assembly, not with the dignity of a monarch who considers it an honor to surround himself with the counsels of a noble nation, not with the goodness of a father who has just taken his place, but with the weakness of a despot, humbled by the evil success of his unjust and violent enterprises, and who has just humbled himself before those he cannot destroy, or rather with the faintheartedness of a weak king, without character, whom the counsels of those around him can make proud or craven, alternately, according to circumstances.”45
Records show, then, that the priests’ discussions were sometimes reform-oriented and sometimes intimidated by the aristocratic bishops. Only a minority felt comfortable making common cause with the Third Estate, and few, apart from reflexively fearful conservatives, fully realized the magnitude of the changes they were bringing about. One of the outspoken curés, Jean-Louis Gouttes, author of Considérations sur l’injustice des prétentions du Clergé et de la Noblesse, changed his mind within ten days, from no to yes, on the question of joining the Third Estate.46
What
