But when projects that hold out this pleasing prospect lead to real and aggravated injustices, and even imperil the constitution and the tranquility of the state, it is our faithful duty, without seeking to place obstacles in the way of your beneficence, to set the barrier of the law against the imprudent efforts being made to pledge Your Majesty to a course of action the dangers and stumbling-blocks of which have been concealed from you. ...

Your parlement was aware that the edict substituting a universal, indefinite, and perpetual land tax for the corvée, under the guise of apparent relief of the people, could at first glance have seemed a beneficent act inspired by love of humanity. But at the same time, Sire, your parlement did not doubt that a more careful examination of the edict would reveal to Your Majesty that it represents a policy burdensome even for those whom you wish to help, and contrary to the sentiments of justice that animate you.

The first rule of justice is to preserve for every man what belongs to him. This is the fundamental rule of natural law, of the law of nations and of civil government, a rule that consists not only in maintaining the rights of property, but also in preserving the rights attached to the person and those which derive from the prerogatives of birth and Estate.

It follows from this rule of law and equity that any system tending under the guise of humanity and benevolence to establish any equality of duties between men, and to destroy those distinctions necessary in a well-ordered monarchy, would soon lead to disorder (the inevitable result of absolute equality). The result would be the overthrow of civil society, the harmony of which is maintained only by the hierarchy of powers, authorities, preeminences, and distinctions which keeps each man in his place and protects all Estates from confusion.

This social order is not only essential to the practice of every sound government: it has its origin in divine law. The infinite and immutable wisdom in the plan of the universe established an unequal distribution of strength and character, necessarily resulting in inequality in the conditions of men within the civil order. Despite the efforts of the human mind, this law of the universe is maintained in every empire, upholding in its turn the order that preserves it.

What dangers will arise, then, from a plan stemming from an unacceptable system of equality, the first effect of which is to mix all the orders of the state together by subjecting them to the uniform yoke of a land tax? ...

By its constitution, the French monarchy is composed of several distinct and separate Estates. This differentiation of conditions and of persons is as old as the nation; it was born with out manners; it is the precious chain that links the sovereign with his subjects. “If persons were not distinguished according to Estate, there would be nothing but disorder and confusion,” says one of our most enlightened authors. “Because we cannot live together in equality of condition, it is necessary that some command and others obey. ... Sovereign lords command all within their state, addressing their commands to the great; the great to the middling, the middling to the small, and the small to the people.”

In the assemblage formed by these different orders, all the people of your kingdom are your subjects, all must contribute to the needs of the state. But the general order and harmony are upheld, even in the manner in which the various orders make their contribution. The personal service of the clergy is to fulfill all the functions relating to education and religious observance and to contribute to the relief of the unfortunate through its alms. The noble dedicates his blood to the defense of the state and assists the sovereign with his counsel. The last class of the nation, which cannot render such distinguished service to the state, fulfills its obligation through taxes, industry and physical labor.

Such, Sire, is the ancient rule of the duties and obligations of your subjects. Though all are equally faithful and obedient, their diverse conditions have never been confused and the nature of their service is based on their Estate. “The service of the nobles is noble, as they are; a noble is not required to pay the taille, nor to perform the vile corvée;, but must serve in war and do other noble acts.”

These institutions were not formed by chance, and time cannot change them. To abolish them, the whole French constitution would have to be overturned. ...

In freeing from the corvée the least class of citizens, which has been subject to it until now, the edict transfers the burden to the two orders of the state who have never had to pay it. There is no longer any difference between your subjects; the noble and the ecclesiastic become subject to the corvée, or, what is the same thing, they must all pay the tax that replaces the corvée.

This is not, Sire, a struggle between rich and poor, as some have tried to convince you. It is a question of Estate, and a most important one, since it is a matter of knowing whether all your subjects can and must be treated indiscriminately, whether differences in conditions, ranks, titles and preeminence must cease to be acknowledged among them. To subject nobles to a tax to redeem the corvée, contrary to the principle that only those who pay the “taille” must perform the “corvée,” is to declare nobles subject to the corvée like commoners; and once this principle is established, nobles could be constrained to perform the personal corvée as soon as it were reestablished.

Thus noblemen, the descendants of those ancient knights who placed or preserved the crown on the head of Your Majesty’s forefathers, those poor and virtuous lineages who have squandered their blood for so many centuries for the defense and extension of the monarchy, or who, with another kind of magnanimity, have neglected the care of their own fortune, often expending it entirely in their total dedication to the public good; those pure-blooded nobles whose revenues are limited to the modest yield of the lands inherited from their fathers, which they cultivate with their own hands and often without the help of any servants other than their children: these could be exposed to the humiliation of seeing themselves dragged off to the corvée;!

Who could even assure the nobles that after being made subject to the corvée; they would not subsequently lose their exemption from the taille? Would it be any less difficult to abolish the immense gulf that separates their condition from that of former serfs, than to eliminate the one that separates nobles from those who are free citizens even though they are commoners? Certainly not.

Once the first barrier is broken, the second would be much easier to overthrow. Indeed, how could the nobility not foresee with fear this new attack on its rights, when it is already being announced and developed as a sequel to the first attack in the pamphlets now being circulated with so much fanfare?

We are fully convinced, Sire, that the ill-considered implications of these unjust projects have not been presented to Your Majesty in their full extent; for your wisdom and fairness would never have accepted them. But only by degrees, seeking to induce the government to take first steps that will imperceptibly commit it to a path whose destination they hide. In this way, a monarch devoted to the laws is led father than he realizes or wishes--a monarch who has just sworn before the altar in a most solemn ceremony to be the support and protector of the laws, and who has declared his wish to reign only according to them. ...