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From the very first day it can be heard toned down in Robespierre's address to the Third-Estate of Arras; the last day it is spoken aloud in his great speech in the Convention; during the interval, it crops out and shines through all his compositions, harangues, or reports, in exordiums, parentheses and perorations, permeating every sentence like the drone of a bag-pipe.
The two words inscribed at the head of this chapter, the Communes and the Third-Estate, are verbal expressions for the two great facts at that time revealing that the French nation was in labor of formation.
For, personal services counted, even among the upper nobility; and all the more among the lower class, in the Third-Estate, and among the people.
Thus guided and free, the instincts of vanity and generosity, the essence of French character, took the ascendant; the councilor or comptroller, the King's agent, regarded himself as a man above the common run, as a noble of the Third-Estate; he thought less of making money than of gaining esteem; his chief desire was to be honored and honorable; "he passed life comfortably and was looked up to,... in the discharge of his duty,... with no other ambition than to transmit to his children.... along with their inheritance an unsullied reputation."
Formerly, among all classes and in all the provinces, there were a large number of families that had taken root on the spot, living there a hundred years and more. Not only among the nobles, but among the bourgeoisie and the Third-Estate, the heir of any enterprise was expected to continue his calling.
Composed of Feuillants or Monarchists, possessing such types of men as Huez of Troyes or Dietrich of Strasbourg, and for representatives such leaders as Lafayette and Bailly, it comprised the superior intelligence and most substantial integrity of the Third-Estate.
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