acquired. It had already been admitted in the provincial assemblies.
Brienne, before leaving the ministry, had made an appeal to the writers of
the day, in order to know what would be the most suitable method of
composing and holding the states-general. Among the works favourable to
the people, there appeared the celebrated pamphlet of Sieyes on the Third
Estate, and that of d'Entraigues on the States-general.

Opinion became daily more decided, and Necker wishing, yet fearing, to
satisfy it, and desirous of conciliating all orders, of obtaining general
approbation, convoked a second assembly of notables on the 6th of
November, 1788, to deliberate on the composition of the states-general,
and the election of its members. He thought to induce it to accept the
double representation of the third estate, but it refused, and he was
obliged to decide, in spite of the notables, that which he ought to have
decided without them. Necker was not the man to avoid disputes by removing
all difficulties beforehand. He did not take the initiative as to the
representation of the third estate, any more than at a later period he
took it with regard to the question of voting by orders or by poll. When
the states-general were assembled, the solution of this second question,
on which depended the state of power and that of the people, was abandoned
to force.

Be this as it may, Necker, having been unable to make the notables adopt
the double representation of the third estate, caused it to be adopted by
the council. The royal declaration of the 27th of November decreed that
the deputies in the states-general should amount to at least a thousand,
and that the deputies of the third estate should be equal in number to the
deputies of the nobility and clergy together. Necker moreover obtained the
admission of the cures into the order of the clergy, and of protestants
into that of the third estate. The district assemblies were convoked for