On the 24th January 1789, he prescribes the
procedure and method of the meetings. After the 7th of February
writs of summons are sent out one after the other. Eight days
after, each parish assembly begins to draw up its memorial of
grievances, and becomes excited over the detailed enumeration of all
the miseries which it sets down in writing. -- All these appeals
and all these acts are so many strokes, which reverberate, in the
popular imagination. "It is the desire of His Majesty," says the
order issued, "that every one, from the extremities of his kingdom,
and from the most obscure of its hamlets, should be certain of his
wishes and protests reaching him." Thus, it is all quite true: there
can be no mistake about it, the thing is sure. The people are
invited to speak out, they are summoned, and they are consulted.
There is a disposition to relieve them; henceforth their misery
shall be less; better times are coming. This is all they know about
it. A few month after, in July,[13] the only answer a peasant girl
can make to Arthur Young is, "something was to be done by some great
folks for such poor ones, but she did not know who nor how.
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