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Updated: May 14, 2025
But it is a crown of glory to have felt that honest and patriotic ambition which animated Masselin and his friends at their exodus from the corrupt and corrupting despotism of Louis XI. Who would dare to say that their attempt, vain as it was for them, was so also for generations separated from them by centuries?
Masselin, being called upon to give the king "in his privy chamber, before the Dukes of Orleans and Lorraine and a numerous company of nobles," an exact account of the estates' first deliberations, held in his turn language more reserved than, but similar to, that of Lord Philip de la Roche, whose views he shared and whose proud openness he admired.
Side by side with the question of the king's council was ranged that of the imposts; and here it was no easier to effect an understanding: the crown asked more than the estates thought they ought or were able to vote; and, after a long and obscure controversy about expenses and receipts, Masselin was again commissioned to set-before the king's council the views of the assembly and its ultimate resolution.
Come, then, most illustrious lords, have great confidence in yourselves, have great hopes, have great manly virtue, and let not this liberty of the estates, that your ancestors were so zealous in defending, be imperilled by reason of your soft-heartedness." "This speech," says Masselin, "was listened to by the whole assembly very attentively and very favorably."
And having thus left our commissioners at Tours and put matters to rights, we went away well content; and we pray God that our labors and all that has been done may be useful for the people's welfare." Neither Masselin nor his descendants for more than three centuries were destined to see the labors of the states-general of 1484 obtain substantial and durable results.
"But a much larger number," says Masselin, "were afraid of remaining too long, and many of our colleagues, in spite of the zeal which they had once shown, had a burning desire to depart, according to the princes' good pleasure and orders.
We have the journal of these states-general drawn up with precision and detail by one of the chief actors, John Masselin, canon of and deputy for Rouen, "an eminent speaker," says a contemporary Norman chronicle, "who delivered on behalf of the common weal, in the presence of kings and princes, speeches full of elegance."
"The theologian burned with a desire to continue," adds Masselin; "but though he had not wandered far from the truth, many deputies chid him and constrained him to be silent. . . . Already lethargy had fallen upon the most notable amongst us; glutted with favors and promises, they no longer possessed that ardor of will which had animated them at first; when we were prosecuting our business, they remained motionless at home; when we spoke before them, they held their peace or added but a few feeble words.
"Strange words," says Masselin, "unworthy of utterance from the mouth of a man so eminent; but in his soul, as in that of all old men, covetousness had increased with age, and he appeared to fear a diminution of his pension."
One and the same idea, one and the same desire, animated the three orders; to such a degree that, as has been well pointed out by M. Picot, "in the majority of the towns they proceeded in common to the choice of deputies: the clergy, nobles, and commons who arrived at Tours were not the representatives exclusively of the clergy, the nobles, or the third estate: they combined in their persons a triple commission;" and when, after having examined together their different memorials, by the agency of a committee of thirty-six members taken in equal numbers from the three orders, they came to a conclusion to bring their grievances and their wishes before the government of Charles VIII., they decided that a single spokesman should be commissioned to sum up, in a speech delivered in solemn session, the report of the committee of Thirty-six; and it was the canon, Master John Masselin, who received the commission to speak in the name of all.
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