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CHAPTER XI · L'Ange for the tiers état.

It now devolved upon the deputies to prepare a statement of their grievances, and for this purpose the "noblesse" retired to the Dominican, the clergy to the Franciscan, and the "tiers" to the Carmelite convents. The Cardinal of Lorraine had had the effrontery to solicit, through his creatures, the honor of representing the three orders collectively; but the proposition had been rejected with undissembled derision. Loud voices were heard from among the deputies of the people, crying, "We do not choose to select him to speak for us of whom we intend to offer our complaints!" Three orators were deputed to speak for the three orders. The Sieur de Rochefort, in behalf of the nobles, declared their approval of the government of Catharine, but insisted at some length upon the necessity of conciliating their good will by a studious regard for their privileges. He likened the king to the sun and the "noblesse" to the moon. Any conflict between the two would produce an eclipse that would darken the entire earth. He denounced the chicanery of the ecclesiastical courts and the non-residence of the priests; and he closed by presenting a petition, which was read aloud by one of the secretaries of state, demanding the grant of churches for the use of those nobles who preferred the purer worship. The Bordalese lawyer, Jean L'Ange, in the name of the people, dwelt chiefly on the three capital vices of the clergy—ignorance, avarice, and luxury, and portrayed very effectively the general disorders, the intolerable tyranny of the Guises, the exhausted state of the public treasury, and the means of restoring the Church to purity of faith and regularity of discipline.