The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
FRANCE / REVOLUTION
The Noblesse, and especially the Noblesse of Auvergne, will always
prefer men who will do their dirty work for them. You are not made for
that. They will, therefore, soon drop you, and the people, in that
case, will perhaps not take you up. Suppose a scission should take
place. The Priests and Nobles will secede, the nation will remain in
place, and, with the King, will do its own business. If violence
should be attempted, where will you be? You cannot then take side with
the people in opposition to your own vote, that very vote which will
have helped to produce the scission. Still less can you array yourself
against the people. That is impossible. Your instructions are, indeed,
a difficulty. But to state this at its worst it is only a single
difficulty, which a single effort surmounts. Your instructions can
never embarrass you a second time, whereas an acquiescence under them
will reproduce greater difficulties every day, and without end.
Besides, a thousand circumstances offer as many justifications of your
departure from Your instructions. Will it be impossible to persuade
all parties that (as for good legislation two Houses are necessary)
the placing the privileged classes together in one House, and the
unprivileged in another, would be better for both than a scission? I
own, I think it would. People can never agree without some sacrifices;
and it appears but a moderate sacrifice in each party, to meet on this
middle ground. The attempt to bring this about might satisfy your
instructions, and a failure in it would justify your siding with the
people, even to those who think instructions are laws of conduct.
to Marquis de Lafayette, 6 May 1789
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