IN the many works which have been written on the French Revolution, one of the conceptions which the historical student most frequently meets is that the whole movement was the result of an intense feeling of bitterness existing between the noble and peasant classes, due to the exemptions and privileges which the former enjoyed. It has been asserted that it was this hatred of the nobility which made the whole Third Estate stand as a unit for the meeting of the States-General in a single assembly, while the privileged orders were as strenuous in their insistence upon the preservation of the old forms, and that it was not until one of these sentiments obtained a distinct victory that there was any opportunity for settling parliamentary institutions. I shall endeavor to show by a somewhat careful analysis of the cahiers of the periods that the assumed unity of the several orders was by no means a fact, that from the beginning there was a strong feeling among the clergy and nobility favorable to compromise forms and that the peasantry were not unanimously against such a solution.' Disregarding for the moment the customary grouping into nobility, clergy and Third Estate, the cahiers seem to justify a division of their authors into four classes: the reactionists, for whom the old methods of absolutism were sufficiently profitable; the mere complainants against the results of that system, who had nothing to offer as a substitute; the advocates of the radical school of democracy; and finally a section who wished reform in administration and were willing to attain it either by grafting new features upon the old regime or by abolishing it in its entirety, if only they could be persuaded that the proposed substitute would be both practical and permanent. It must also be remembered that the cahiers were not primarily voicings of the ideas on government prevalent in France at the time, but rather expressions of discontent with existing conditions. Thus the presence of a willingness to compromise is shown not so much by the proposals for new forms of government as by concessions to existing forms. Those cahiers which distinctly advocate views presumably opposed to the interests of