As a result, Louis issued the following “Order in Council,”[*] demanding the regularization of the forms. What is most extraordinary about this document is the Court's recognition that – unless the issues of who would sit and how they would vote were predetermined – chaos was likely to ensue. In the event, after months of struggling over just this issues, the Estates would meet and then divide over the very problems Louis had identified here.

Is it therefore possible that, in being too scrupulous Louis created the very problem he hoped to prevent? Did he, in other words, invite dissent? Moreover, given the intricacy of these attempts at gathering information, what can we say about the relative strength (or weakness) of the royal bureaucracy?
 
 

          The King having declared, in the month November last,[1] his intention to convoke the Estates General of the realm, His Majesty forthwith ordered whatever researches might be necessary to render such convocation correct and useful to his people.
          To date, the result of the investigations show His Majesty that the official records of former Estates,[2] although adequate in connection with their administration, sessions, and functions, are deficient concerning the observances that precede and accompany their convocation; . . . they supply no specific data with regard to the method of election, or the number or qualifications of voters and candidates.
          Meanwhile, His Majesty has decided that if such preliminaries are not established prior to the convocation of the Estates General, the choice of deputies may be subject to dispute, their number may be disproportionate to the wealth and population of the provinces, the rights of certain provinces and cities may be compromised, the influence of the several orders may not be sufficiently equalized, finally, the number of deputies may be too great or too small, and, consequently, may occasion trouble and confusion or preclude satisfactory national representation.
          His Majesty always will endeavor to approximate earlier practices; but when these cannot be determined, he wishes to offset the deficiency of previous records by ascertaining . . . the will of his subjects….
          Accordingly, the King has decided to command that all possible researches concerning the aforementioned matter be made in all the depositories of each and every province; that the results of such investigations be transmitted to the provincial Estates and the provincial and district assemblies of each and every province, which, in turn, shall apprise His Majesty of their wishes by means of reports or statements directed to him.
           . . .
          The King hopes thus to achieve for the nation the most correct and suitable meeting of the Estates, to prevent disputes which might needlessly prolong the duration thereof, to establish essential proportion and harmony in the confidence of the people according to whose will it has been constituted, finally, to render it what it must be – the assembly of a great family headed by a common father. Wishing to provide for which, . . . the King, in Council, has ordered and does order as follows.
          1.  All municipal officials of those cities and communities of the realm where elections to the Estate General may have taken place shall be required to examine immediately, in record offices of the said cities and communities, all official records and documents concerning the convocation of the Estates and the elections made in accordance therewith, and to send the said official records and documents, without delay, to wit: in provinces where there is no assembly subordinate to the provincial Estates or provincial assemblies, to the syndics of the said provincial Estates and provincial assemblies; and in those where there are subordinate assemblies, to the syndics of such assemblies, or to their intermediate commissions. 
          2.  The provincial officials shall be required  to conduct similar investigations in the record offices of their jurisdictions, and to send the results thereof to the Keeper of the Seals, whom His Majesty has charged with communicating the said results to the aforementioned syndics and intermediate commissions.
          3.  His Majesty invites, in each and every province of his kingdom, all who posses knowledge of the aforementioned official records and documents, or information relative to the aforementioned convocation, to transmit them likewise to the aforementioned syndics.
          4.  His Majesty intends that, on their part, the aforementioned syndics and intermediate commission shall conduct the necessary researches in this connection, and that the results thereof shall be presented to the  aforementioned Estates and assemblies, in order that they may draft a common petition and direct a report concerning the matters contained in the results of the said researches, which shall be sent by the said syndics to the Keeper of the Seals.
          5.  In provinces where there are subordinate assemblies, the petition of such assemblies, with all the documents appended thereto, shall be forwarded to the superior assembly, which, likewise, shall transmit its petition, and shall send it, as stated, to the Keeper of the Seals, with the petition, the reports, and the documents forwarded to it by the subordinate assemblies.
          6.  In case the results of all the investigations have not reached the aforementioned syndics before the next session of the Estates and assemblies, His Majesty, desiring that the information which he seeks may reach him within the first months of the next year at the latest, intends that the said assemblies, subordinate as well as superior, shall not dispense with drafting a petition and a report on matters relative to the present decree because of a lack of documents and information; and that, after the adjournment of the said assemblies, the syndics and intermediate commissions shall forward whatever new and interesting documents may reach them.
          7.  If there be diversity of opinion in some of the aforementioned assemblies, His Majesty intends that such divers opinion shall be stated with substantiating reasons; His Majesty even authorizes every deputy to the said assemblies to append to the general report of the assembly all special memoirs in favor of the opinion he has espoused.
          8.  At the same time His Majesty invites all the scholars and educated persons of his kingdom, particularly those constituting the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Letters of his good city of Paris,[3] to direct to the Keeper of the Seals all information and memoirs connected with matters contained in the present decree.
          9.  As soon as the aforementioned reports, information, and elucidations have reached the Keeper of the Seals, His Majesty will study them, and will endeavor to determine exactly the observances for the next convocation of the Estates General, in order that it may be as national[4] and as correct as it should be.
 
 

[*] This excerpt from the “Order in Council” appears in John Hal Stewart's Documentary Survey of the French Revolution (New York: Macmillan, 1951), 26-29. [Transcription by John Dzerkacz]

[1] This, of course, was largely a fiction. In the fall of 1787 Louis had indeed called together the notables, but only in a special “royal session” of Parlement, where he had abandoned his tax reforms and called instead for new loans and a further prolongation of the existing two vingtièmes. In the midst of a discussion of the proposals (itself somewhat unprecedented), the opportunist duc d’Orleans protested that Louis’ methods were illegal, and the king simply replied: “I don’t care.... It is legal because I wish it.”

[2] In the end the most important “forms” would be those of the 1614 Assembly.

[3] Stewart's note: “This Academy was the national historical society, founded in 1663 by [Jean-Baptiste] Colbert.”

[4] This is not as curious a term as it might seem. Given that the French Revolution gave birth to nationalism, Louis almost certainly meant that the body was intended to be representative.