One might, instead, suspect the nobility of wanting to bathe the Third
Estate in illusions, of wanting, by making a gesture of equity in advance,
to offer a quid pro quo for its current demands and distract it from its need
to be something at the Estates-General. It seems to be saying to the Third
Estate: “What do you want? That we pay like you. Which is just; so we’ll
pay. But leave the old state of affairs—where you were nothing, and we
were everything, and it was so easy for us to pay no more than what we
wanted—as it was.” It would be so useful, merely by paying the price of a
forced renunciation, for the privileged classes to maintain all the abuses
and still hope to be able to add a few more! If to strike so excellent a bargain,
all that was needed was to excite a little enthusiasm among the people,
would it be so hard to find a way to move it and even arouse its
tenderness by talk of relieving its suffering and by filling its ears with the
sonorous words of equality, honor, fraternity and the like?