This country advances with a steady pace towards the
establishment of a constitution, whereby the people will resume the
great mass of those powers, so fatally lodged in the hands of the King.
During the session of the _Notables_, and after their votes against the
rights of the people, the Parliament of Paris took up the subject, and
passed a vote in opposition to theirs, (which I send you.) This was not
their genuine sentiment: it was a manoeuvre of the young members, who are
truly well disposed, taking advantage of the accidental absence of many
old members, and bringing others over by the clause, which, while it
admits the negative of the States General in legislation, reserves still
to the parliament the right of enregistering, that is to say, another
negative. The _Notables_ persevered in their opinion. The Princes of the
blood (Monsieur and the Duke d'Orleans excepted) presented and published
a memoire, threatening a scission. The parliament were proposing to
approve of that memoire (by way of rescinding their former vote), and
were prevented from it by the threat of a young member, to impeach
(_denoncer_) the memoire and the Princes who signed it.
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