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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A37246	The history of the civil wars of France written in Italian, by H.C. Davila ; translated out of the original.; Historia delle guerre civili di Francia. English	Davila, Arrigo Caterino, 1576-1631.; Aylesbury, William, 1615-1656.; Cotterell, Charles, Sir, d. 1701.; L'Estrange, Roger, Sir, 1616-1704.	1678 (1678)	Wing D414; ESTC R1652	1,343,394	762

enable himself to move towards the Loire and meet the German Army To him were joined the Prince of Conde the Viscount de Turenne the Duke de la Tremouille the Count de Montgomery and the Marquess de Gallerande the Baron de Salignac and a good number of Horse and Foot under many Gentlemen of note and old experienced Commanders so that his Army was not so numerous as resolute and valiant About this time by the means of his ordinary Confidents he had sollicited Charles Count of Soissons and Francis Prince of Conty Brother to the Prince of Conde who till then had persevered in the Catholick Faith and continued near the Kings person in the Court urging to them that the business now in hand did no longer concern Religion but the defence of their Family and the inheritance and succession of the Crown to which not only He was called but successively the whole House of Bourbon and that it was therefore fit in that common cause and reciprocal interest they should all unite themselves to make the greater resistance against those who went about to exclude and ruine them and that they should take example by their Enemies among which the Duke of Mercaeur and his Brothers though they were the Kings brothers-in-Brothers-in-law and had from him received so much honour and so many benefits yet because they were of the House of Lorain kept united with the Duke of Guise and the rest of their Family and stood out against their own Sister and Brother in-in-law That if it were lawful for them to do so for the execution of new unjust designs much more was it lawful for them of the House of B●urbon to unite themselves all together for the defence of their most just ancient Prerogatives which were due unto them by the legal universal consent of the French Nation That they need not fear they should suffer any violence in their Consciences for he that laboured for the liberty of others would never take it away from those that were so near himself but that they should take example by so many Catholick Lords and Gentlemen which followed the fortune of his party By which reasons these two Princes being moved as also because they saw themselves kept under and little valued at the Court resolved to go over to his party and determined that the Prince of Co●ty should join with the Army of the Reiters as soon as they were come into France and that the Count de Soissons should go to the Hugonot Camp in Xaintonge which that he might securely do the King of Navarre gave order to the Sieurs de Colombiere and Sanc●e Marye du Mont who had raised some Forces in Normandy in favour of his party that they should conduct him to the passage of the Loyre whither he had sent the Viscount of Turenne with eight hundred Horse to meet him and it fell out so luckily that the Count and the Norman Forces went close by the Duke of Ioyeuse his Army without receiving any damage at all and united themselves with very great joy to the Army of the King of Navarre who highly incensed at the inhumanity used to his two Regiments which were cut in pieces in Poictou being wary yet resolved to take revenge advanced still forward while the Duke of Ioyeuse as it were assured of the Victory came on carelesly to meet him In the mean time the German Army was upon the point of marching towards Lorain for the Protestant Princes-Ambassadors being returned home with the angry answer of the King of France the King of Denmark Christian Duke of Saxony the Marquess of Brandenbourgh Prince Casimir the Protestant Cantons of Swisserland with other Lords of the same Religion at the importunity of the King of Navarre's Agents but much more at the exhortations of Theodore Beza gave resolute order for the raising of that Army toward which besides the money gathered publickly in the Protestant Churches and put into the hands of Prince Casimir there were also sixty thousand Ducats added by the Queen of England With this money and the consent and endeavour of all the Protestant Lords in Germany it was easie to raise an Army in that populous warlike Nation so that in the beginning of Iuly there met in Alsatia under the conduct of Prince Casimir upon whom that charge had been conferred by the rest twelve thousand Reiters four thousand German Foot and sixteen thousand Swisses for the other four thousand went into Dauphine apart Fabian Baron d' Onaw born in Prussia commanded as Prince Casimir's Lieutenant-General a man of private condition but risen to high esteem by the favour of the King of Denmark and of the Count Palatine and accounted a man of very great boldness and courage but of neither wisdom nor experience proportionable to an employment of so great weight and though in the beginning of August Guilliaume de la Marke Duke of Bouillon came up with two thousand Foot and three hundred French Horse and by Commission from the King of Navarre was to have been General of that Army and though at his arrival he displayed the white Cornet a mark due to the Supreme Commander yet retaining only the name he left the command wholly to the Baron d' Onaw both for his age and because he was of the Nation as also out of respect to Prince Casimir With the Duke of Bouillon were Robert Count de la Mark his Brother the Sieurs de Guitry de Monluet de la Nocle and many other French Gentlemen to whom the Sieurs de Mouy and Cormons with many other of their Adherents came from Geneva with two hundred Horse and eight hundred Foot and every day the Army increased with the number of those who ran thither from Dauphine and the other Confines of France so that before it moved out of Alsatia it amounted to the number of Forty thousand fighting men Before this Army marched there came an Edict from the Emperour Rodolphus Secundus sent to the Baron d' Onaw which contained That he having without his License and without the Letters Patents of the Empire caused that Army to be raised to invade the Kingdom of France should presently disband it and desist from the Enterprise under pain of banishment out of the Empire both to himself and those that should follow him To which threatning the Baron d' Onaw answered in writing That the Enterprise being neither his nor against the Empire nor against the Kingdom of France but for the relief of the oppressed Confederates of the Protestant Princes and the German Nation having ever had that liberty to enter themselves into pay under whom they pleased so that it were not against the Emperour nor his Jurisdiction he neither thought himself obliged to desist nor to disband the Army but that without offence to the Emperour he would continue the business begun by Commission from his Princes Thus the Emperour making no reply nor proceeding to any other

THE HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WARS OF FRANCE Written in ITALIAN By H. C. D'AVILA Translated out of the ORIGINAL The Second Impression whereunto is Added a TABLE In the SAVOY Printed by T. N. for Henry Herringman at the Blew Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange M.DC.LXXVIII TO THE READER THIS AUTHOR is so Generally Esteemed in all Countries that those who understand not the Italian are glad to Converse with him by an Interpreter and even in France after so many Histories as be there of the same Times several Impressions of this in their Language have been bought off whereby we may judge they think Him to be Impartial and as worthy of Credit as the best of their own Nor hath He wanted a due value here for our late King of ever Glorious Memory by whose Command at Oxford this Translation was Continued and Finished though not begun read it there with such eagerness that no Diligence could Write it out faire so fast as he daily called for it wishing he had had it some years sooner out of a Beliefe that being forewarned thereby He might have prevented many of those Mischiefs we then groaned under and which the Grand Contrivers of them had drawn from this Original as Spiders do Poison from the most wholsome Plants The Truth is their Swords had already Transcribed it in English Blood before this Pen had done it in English Inke and it were not hard to name the very Persons by whom many of the same Parts were Acted over again in the Civil Wars of England the Faction of our Presbyterians in that Long-Parliament outvying those of the Hugonots and of the Holy League put together Yet when they had followed the steps of them both as exactly as they could they were out-vied themselves by the Independents who far transcended them all in an unexampled Conclusion by the Horrid Murther of our Royal Martyr and by enslaving the Kingdom under several Tyranies till His Son 's Miraculous Restauration to His Iust Rights Restored His Subjects also to their Much-wish'd-for Liberties But I am not to Write a Preface and therefore all I shall add is That finding this BOOK still much sought for since the former Impression hath been Sold off I obtain'd the Right of the Copy from Sir Charles Cottrell whose WORK it was all but some Pieces here and there in the First Four Books with his Leave to Reprint it as I have now done so carefully that I think it hath not many gross Faults and for those less considerable I doubt not but the observation of the Ingenious Reader will easily find his care Correct and I hope his Candor pardon them LICENSED Nov. 24. 1678. ROGER L'ESTRANGE THE HISTORY OF THE Civil Wars of France By HENRICO CATERINO DAVILA. The FIRST BOOK The ARGUMENT IN this First Book is set down the Original of the French Nation The Election of their first King Pharamond The Institution of the Salique Law The Rights and Prerogatives of the Princes of the Blood The Succession of their Kings to Lewis the IX surnamed The Saint The Division of the Royal Family into two distinct branches one called Valois the other Bourbon The Iealousies between them and in time the suppression of the House of Bourbon The original and raising to greatness of place in the rooms of the Princes of the Blood the Families of Guise and Momorancy The Emulations and Occurrences between them in which the Guises prevail King Henry the Second is killed by accident in a Tournament Francis his Son a Youth of weak Constitution succeeds to the Crown He gives the Government to his Mother Queen Caterine and the Guises The Princes of Bourbon are offended thereat The King of Navarre chief of the Family upon that occasion goes to Court prevails little goes from thence and retires into Bearn The Prince of Conde his Brother resolves to remove from the Government of the Queen-Mother and the Guises He is counselled to make use of the Hugonots Their Beginnings and Doctrine La Renaudie makes himself chief of a Conspiracy and the Hugonots resolve to follow him The Conspiracy is discovered The King chuseth the Duke of Guise for his Lieutenant-General who without much difficulty doth break take and chastise the Conspirators THe Civil Wars in which for the space of forty years together the Kingdom of France was miserably involved though on the one side they contain great Actions and famous Enterprizes that may serve for excellent Lessons to those that maturely consider them yet on the other side they are so confused and intangled in their own revolutions that the reasons of many businesses do not appear the counsels of many determinations are not rightly comprehended and an infinite number of things not at all understood through the partiality of private Interests which under divers pretences hath obscured the truth of them True it is that many excellent Wits have endeavoured to make of these a perfect Story by bringing to light such things as they have gathered together with great diligence and commendable industry Notwithstanding the difficulties are so many and the impediments prove to be of such consequence that in a multitude of accidents all great and considerable but hidden and buried in the vast ruines of civil dissentions his pains will not be less profitable to posterity who labours to digest them into an orderly method than the endeavours of others formerly have been Wherefore being in my infancy by Fate that destined me to a restless life transported into the inmost Provinces of that Kingdom where during a long space of time which I lived there I had the opportunity to observe and be an eye-witness of the most secret and notable circumstances of so remarkable passages I could not chuse a more worthy matter nor a more useful Study wherein to imploy my present Age now come to maturity than to write from the very beginning all the progress and order of those troubles And although the first taking up of Arms which hapned in the year 1560. was indeed before my time so that I could not be present at the beginning of those Civil Wars nevertheless I have diligently informed my self by those very persons who then governed the affairs of State so that with the perfect and particular knowledge of all the following events it hath not been hard for me to penetrate to the first root of the most ancient and remote causes of them This Story will contain the whole course of the Civil Wars which brake forth upon a sudden after the death of King Henry the Second and varying in their progress by strange and unthought-of accidents ended finally after the death of three Kings in the Reign of King Henry the Fourth But to form the Body of this Narration perfectly it will be convenient for me to look back some few periods into the Original of the French Monarchy for the seeds of those matters which are now to be related taking their beginnings from times

consent to his demands to propose things necessary for the good of their order to oblige the common people to new taxes and to give and receive new Laws and Constitutions but when the King is in minority or otherwise uncapable they have authority when it falls into controversie to chuse the Regents of the Kingdom to dispose of the principal Offices and to appoint who shall be admitted to the Council and when the Kings line fails or a descendant of the Royal Family they have power according to the Salique Laws to chuse a new Lord. But besides these supreme Priviledges the Kings have always used in any urgent weighty occasions to assemble the States and to determine of matters of difficulty with their advice and consent thinking not only by a publick consent to make the Princes resolutions more valid but that it was also necessary in a lawful Government and truly Royal that all great businesses should be communicated to the whole body of the Kingdom Now at that time it plainly appearing that through the dissentions among the Princes and differences in Religion all things were full of disorder and had need of speedy remedy the Deputies elected by the Provinces and instantly called upon with reiterated Orders from the Court met together with great diligence at Orleans at the beginning of October where the King himself being also arrived with a great company of the principal Lords and Officers of the Crown he now expected nothing but the coming of the discontented Princes The Constable with his sons stayed in the wonted place at Chantillii the King of Navarre and the Prince his Brother were retired into Bearn and being summoned by the Kings Letters to come to the Assembly of the States they did not plainly refuse it but with divers excuses and many delays put off the time of their appearance This kind of proceeding held the King and all his Ministers in great dispense doubting not without reason that the Princes either suspecting something of themselves or advertised by some Confident by refusing to appear at the Assembly would frustrate all their great designs and preparations which were founded only upon their coming And the Prince of Conde who ruled his actions by the guiltiness of his Conscience it appearing to him a thing impossible but that by the prisoners at Ambois Saga's confession and the Conspirators taken at Lions there was enough discovered to lay open his intents was grown so extreamly jealous that no reasons could perswade him to put himself again into the Kings power or his Ministers the chief of which he knew were all his mortal enemies But the King of Navarre either being less guilty or of a more credulous nature than his brother thought that by going to the States they should easily obtain a reformation in the Government which was the thing they had so much laboured for and that by refusing to go thither they should condemn themselves and leave the field free to the avarice and persecution of the Guises Nor could he possibly believe that in the face of a General Assembly of the whole Kingdom the King yet as it were a Pupil an Italian woman and two strangers would venture to lay violent hands upon the Princes of the Blood against whom the most masculine Kings and most revengeful had ever proceeded with great regard as against persons not to be violated and in a manner Sacro-sancti Wherefore he was of opinion whatsoever came of it to go to the Assembly and to take the Prince with him not meaning to give them that advantage to condemn him in absence without any kind of defence as he was sure they would if he stayed so far off whereas if he were there to sollicite the Deputies himself he hoped his cause if it were not approved of by the rigour of justice yet the equity of his reasons would at least make it be born with and at the last if no better in consideration of his quality and pre-eminence of Blood pardoned All their Counsellours and Friends concurred in this opinion except the Prince's Wife and his Mother-in-law both which constantly opposed it esteeming all other loss inferiour to the danger which they thought evident of leaving their lives there Whilst they were in this debate there arrived on a sudden first the Count of Cursol and afterwards the Mareschal of Saint Andre whom the King had dispatched one after the other to perswade the Princes to come They represented to them that this grave venerable Assembly was called with much expence to the King and great incommodity to the whole Kingdom only in consideration of the Princes of the Blood and to satisfie their instances and complaints That they were obliged to deliver their opinions in regulating the Government and decision of points controverted in Religion businesses of such weight as without the assistance of the chief Princes of the Blood could not be determined That the King had great cause to think himself mocked and the States that they were slighted by the Princes of Bourbon since having so often desired a Reformation in the Government and to have the Hugonots cause examined now that the time was come and the States assembled for that purpose they took not any care of going thither as it were contemning the Majesty of that Assembly which was the representative Body of the whole Kingdom that hereafter they ought not to blame any body but themselves if they were worthily excluded from any part or charge in the Government since they would not vouchsafe to come to receive that portion which the King with the approbation of the States thought good to assign them and shewing themselves thus manifestly averse to the Kings service and good of the Crown they ought not to wonder if quick resolutions were taken to suppress and extirpate those roots of discord and apparent designs of innovation That the King was resolved as he meant to gratifie such who shewed themselves respectful and obedient to him so he would bind those to a necessary and forced obedience that had any intents to separate themselves from his Councils or to stir any commotions in the Cities and Provinces of the Kingdom Of which delinquency he would think the Princes of Bourbon guilty if they took no care at all to shew their innocence but with their absence and contumacy should confirm the reports of fame which being never believed either by the King or his Council yet his Majesty desired for the honour of the Blood-Royal that with true demonstrations of duty and loyalty and a real union for the publick good they would testifie as much to all France which with wonderful expectation had turned her eyes upon the actions of the present times This Message was delivered from the King to the Princes of Bourbon which had little moved the Prince of Conde resolved not to venture his person in a place where his enemies were the stronger if necessity had not forced him to break that resolution

not only by descent being of the same Blood which that people were used for many Ages past to obey but in vertue also being singularly valiant and most deeply wise in the Government of affairs consenting that to his posterity should descend the same power and the same name until a legitimate descendent of his failing the right should return to the people of chusing a new Lord. But because Authority without limitation commonly converts it self into destructive licentiousness at the same time that they elected their King they would establish certain Laws which were to remain perpetual and immutable in all times and in which should be comprehended in brief the general consent as well in the succession of the Kings as in every other part of the future Government These Laws proposed by their Priests which were anciently denominated Salii and decreed of in the fields which from the river Sala take the same name were called Saliq●e Laws and after the establishment of the Kingdom original and fundamental Constitutions After this principal foundation all other things resolved on that were necessary for the present Government and advantageous to the design in hand having passed the Rhine under the conduct of their first King Pharamond they betook themselves to the conquest of the Gallia's about the year of our Salvation Four hundred and nineteen leaving the Dominion of Franconia to the old Prince Marcomir The Gallia's were as yet possessed by the Roman Emperours but much declined from their first strength and greatness partly through Civil dissentions partly through the incursions of divers barbarous Nations by whose fury they had been long time much wasted and spoiled which was the cause that the Franks Army found much less difficulty in their conquest than the Romans did formerly Nevertheless they were not subdued without great resistance and much time spent For the Roman Legions appointed to guard that Province being joined for their own defence with the Gauls themselves held the first King Pharamond at a bay till his end drawing near he left the care of the whole enterprize and of the people to his son Clodian This man of a fierce courage in the first flower of his age having many times fought with the inhabitants of the Country and having overcome and driven out the Roman forces began to master that part of Gallia which lying nearest to the Rhine is by common consent of Writers called Belgica To him succeeded Meroue whether brother or son to Clodian is not certain but out of doubt nearest to him and of the same race conformable to the Salique Law He with happy success advancing into Gallia-Celtica propagated the Empire of the Franks as far as to the City of Paris And now thinking he had gotten enough to main●ain his people and to form a compleat moderate Empire stayed the course of his Conquests and having conceived thoughts of peace joined both Nations under the same name and with moderate Laws and a peaceful kind of rule founded and established in the Gallia's the Kingdom of the French This was the first original and foundation-stone of that Monarchy in which as the descent of their Kings hath ever constantly remained in the same Progeny so in all Ages the first rules of Government have been most religiously observed neither power of Command nor authority of Laws losing any thing through time of their first observation and ancient splendor Those Laws ordained in the beginning by the universal consent of all the people exclude the Female Sex from the Royal Succession and admit only to the inheritance of the Crown the nearest Males by which means the Empire of that Nation by a continued and uninterrupted Succession always remaineth in the same Blood From the disposition of this Law the Princes of the Blood derive their name and priviledges for being all capable through default of the next heir in their order to succeed to the Crown they have in that consideration great interest in the State and the priviledges of their families preserved with great reverence from the people no time nor distance of degrees prejudicing the conservation of that order which Nature prescribes them to the Succession of the Kingdom For which cause though in the course of time divers families through sundry accidents have changed their names as some have taken the sirname of Valois others of Bourbon others of Orleans others of Angolesme others of Vendosme others of Alanson and others of Montpensier yet for all that they have not lost the trace of their Royal Consanguinity nor the right of succeeding to the Crown but the pre-eminencies of their Blood and the same priviledges are ever from time to time preserved to all And because it is evident how much they are all concerned in the custody and preservation of so great an inheritance of which they are all successively capable it hath therefore ever been a custom that the next of Blood should be Guardian to the Pupils and Governour of the Kingdom during the minority or absence of the lawful King Reason willing that the Government should not be committed to strangers or those altogether Aliens who might endeavour to destroy and dismember the Union of so noble a Body but to such who born of the same stock ought in reason to attend the preservation of the Crown as their own birth-right Nor is this Prerogative a custom only but the States-General of the Kingdom which Assembly hath the power of the whole Nation having often confirmed it with their consent and ordered it to be so it is since become as a decreed Law and a firm established Constitution The Royal House then enjoys two Pre-eminencies the one in matter of Inheritanee the other of Administration that when any King dies without male-children this when the absence or minority of the Prince requires some other person for the Government and management of the State These two Priviledges that are always inherent in those of the Royal Line have been a cause that the Princes of the Blood have ever held a great authority with the people and had a great part in the Government of the Kingdom For they themselves have ever been very vigilant in the administration of the Empire which they esteemed reasonably enough as their own and the people conceiving the Government might at some time or other fall into their hands have ever had them in great veneration and so much the rather because it hath often been found by experience that the eldest Line failing the Crown hath been devolved upon the younger family So the Regal Authority having an orderly succession in the race of Mero●es afterwards in the family of Carolins and lastly in that of the Capetts after many Ages Lewis the Ninth of that name possessed the Kingdom He who for innocency of life and integrity of manners was after his death deservedly written in the Kalendar of Saints Of him were born two sons Philip the

diligence they at Court made their provisions where continuing still their wonted dissimulation they studied all manner of pretences and colours to draw near to the Kings person or else remove out of the suspected Provinces all such who being united with the Princes of the Blood had received Commissions to trouble or molest them For this cause the Duke of Estampes being sent for under pretence that he should be imployed as Governour of the Kingdom of Scotland was entertained with artificial delays and Senarpont being declared Lieutenant to the Mareshal of Brissac coming to receive new Instructions in order to his Government was by the same arts hindred from raising any commotion in Picardy and so all the rest with sundry delays and excuses were in like manner entertained and suspended But the remedies were not sufficient for the wound already festered The Hugonots having taken courage from the first Councils of the Insurrection at Ambois and the open profession of the Admiral began to raise commotions in all parts of the Kingdom and laying aside all obedience and respect not only made open resistance against the Magistrates but in many places had directly taken Arms endeavouring to raise the Countries and get strong places into their hands whither they might retire with safety which was grown to such a pass that from all parts came complaints against them to the Court and news of their deportments But one thing more important and more grievous than all the rest made them hasten their former resolutions For the Prince of Conde moved by his old inclinations and urged by the sting of Conscience not being able to quiet his mind or moderate his thoughts resolved to make himself Master of a strong place in some part of the Kingdom which might serve him afterwards for a retreat or standing quarter if he were forced to make preparations for the War Amongst many others in which he kept secret intelligence none pleased him so well as Lions being a populous rich City placed upon two Navigable Rivers not far from Geneva the principal seat of the Hugonots and placed so near upon the Confines that he might easily receive speedy succours from the Protestant Princes of Germany and the united Cantons of Switzers and from whence upon any accident or necessity he might soon retire into some free open place out of the Kingdom Wherefore using the assistance of two Brothers the Maligni's his old servants he found a means to treat with divers principal men of the City which by reason of the Traffick is always inhabited by many strangers of all Nations and through the neighbourhood of Geneva was then though covertly replenished with people averse to the Catholick Religion and inclined to Calvins Doctrine These when they thought they had got a party strong enough in the City to make insurrection endeavoured to bring in privately Souldiers unarmed and others of their faction with which being afterwards furnished with arms they might on a sudden possess themselves of the Bridges and Town-house and at length reduce the Town wholly into their power The Mareschal of S. Andre was then Governour of Lions who being sent for upon the present occasions to Court left there in his place with the same authority his Nephew the Abbot of Achon He by means of Catholick Merchants jealous to preserve their own estates and enemies to those Counsels that might disturb the peace of the City having perfectly discovered the practices of the Hugonots and the time that they determined to rise the night before the fifth of September appointed Pro with the chief Deputy of the Citizens with three hundred Fire-locks to place a guard upon the Bridges over the Rhone and the Soane and besiege that part of the City which is placed between the two Rivers where he knew the Conspirators were to assemble The Maligni's perceiving the Catholicks design not willing to stay to be besieged and assaulted where they could not defend themselves holpen by the darkness of the night prevented the Governours men and hasting with great courage possessed themselves of the Bridge over the Soane where they lay watching with great silence in hope that the Catholicks terrified with a sudden encounter would be easily disordered whereby the passage would be free for them to the other part of the Bridge and to make themselves Masters of the great place and of the chiefest strong parts in the Town But it fell out otherwise For the Catholicks enduring the first shock without being troubled or disordered and afterwards continual fresh supplies of men being sent by the Governour the Conspirators could no longer resist The rest of their complices seeing the beginning so difficult durst neither stir not appear any longer Wherefore the Maligni's having fought all night and being wearied out as the day began to break perceiving the Gate behind them was open which the Governour on purpose to facilitate their flight had commanded not to be shut lest by an obstinate perseverance all might be indangered they fled away and many of their faction with them and others hid themselves by which means the City was freed from those great commotions Then the Governour calling in those Troops that lay about the Town and having made diligent search for the Conspirators to terrifie the Hugonots with the severity of their punishment condemned many of them to be hanged and preserving the rest alive sent them presently to Court who served afterwards to confirm the depositions of the prisoners against the discontented Princes The news of this attempt being come to Court the King resolving to use no longer delays nor give more time for new experiments departed from Fountain-bleau with those thousand Lances that used to attend him and two old Regiments of Foot that were newly come out of Piedmont and Scotland and taking the way of Orleans sollicited the Deputies of the Provinces to appear The whole French Nation is distinguished into three orders which they call States The first consists of Ecclesiasticks the second of the Nobility and the third of the common people These being divided into thirty Precincts or Jurisdictions which they call Baillages or Seneschausees when a general Assembly of the Kingdom is to be held go all to their chief City and dividing themselves into three several Chambers every one chuses a Deputy who in the name of that Body is to assist at the general Assembly wherein are proposed and discussed all matters concerning the several Orders or Government of the State In this manner three Deputies are sent by every Baillage one for the Ecclesiasticks one for the Nobility and one for the People which by a more honourable term are called the third Estate Being all met together in presence of the King the Princes of the Blood and Officers of the Crown they form the Body of the States-General and represent the Authority Name and Power of the whole Nation When the King is capable to govern and present they have power to