(pp. 6-7) Letter, Nov. 6, 1789 to the city officials in Bernay [his hometown in Normandy]:
Dear Sirs,
     I asked my brother to forward to you the hastily scrawled notes I sent him last week.
    The Clergy no longer reign in this world; for trying to hold onto too much, they have lost everything. The fate of the bishops is still undecided but it seems certain that their world will be much reduced. The opening performance of Charles IX [Joseph Chénier’s play about France during the Wars of Religion] was postponed again until after the case of the Nation versus the Clergy had been decided. If the performance had been earlier, or if the Clergy had won its case, a reverse Saint-Bartholomew’s Day Massacre was threatened. The monasteries and nunneries have all been closed; if they are opened again, it will be to encourage the monks and nuns to leave. The case of the parlements took far less time than that of the Clergy; no one defended them and they have provisionally been told that they are all on vacation.
     The plan is to divide France into some number of départements; some think there should be 70, others say 80, others want 120, 125, 203, etc. etc. Each department will be an administrative center, with a legal court and even a diocese, and will be the unit of election for the National Assembly. That is, if a rival plan isn’t chosen, which would allow each municipality to send directly its own representative.

(p. 18) Letter, Nov. 23, 1789 to the city officials in Bernay [his hometown in Normandy]:
… At a time when the law will be common for all and when the division of France into departments and districts has not yet been decided, I do not think it necessary to ask for a special decision about the judicial and administrative organization of your town. It still hasn’t been decided how many divisions and sub-divisions there will be in Normandy, nor which cities will be the capitals; it is possible that there will be six separate departments, with nine districts in each (and nine cantons in each of those). Normandy’s large population requires these divisions. To all appearances, it seems that the Perche and the Thimerais, as well as part of French Vexin, will be united with our province…. (p. 22, Nov. 28, 1789)… It is likely that the gabelle [the salt tax] will receive its death blow in a few days. The province of Anjou has hastened its fall. The aides et droits réservés [wine taxes] are on the list of condemned taxes and it seems likely they will not live past April. It would be good if our fellow citizens could pay them patiently until then. The finances are so complicated! So many taxes are not being collected and our expenses have grown so greatly. Every day, the situation gets worse, and local problems make us loose time that we could be spending on the common good. Moreover, these delays yield no fruit: after having discussed some particular case, they decide to postpone it until after a general decision has been reached. . .. (p. 23) The city of Lisieux [in Normandy] has several deputies here, including Monsieur de la Chapelle and Monsieur de Livet, so it really did not need to send special representatives to plead its case, especially since that pleading is unlikely to have any bearing on the outcome. It certainly is possible that Lisieux will be the capital of a department, but it is not very likely. We have not yet decided on whether there will be five divisions in Normandy, or six; this has to be done in good faith and with the needs of the general will carrying more weight than those of individual interest. Bernay has no chance of being the capital of a department, but it certainly will be the capital of a district, perhaps in a department whose capital is Evreux. If there are only five departments in Normandy, we will save the administration costs for a department and its districts; we will save the cost of a judicial court, of a bishopric, and of a chapter [priests attached to a cathedral]. On the other hand, we would lose three deputies in the National Assembly.
(p. 27, letter of Dec. 4, 1789 to the same) Gentlemen: It has been decided in our provincial assembly that Normandy will be divided into five departments. That is all that has been decided. Many different divisions have been suggested. The proposals from Avranches and Vire [two other small cities in Normandy] would be very bad for us. Rouen wants to hold onto all its current advantages; so does Caen. Monsieur de la Chapelle presented a plan the advantage of which was that every Norman could go to the sea without leaving his own department. We did not have time to read a learned dissertation which proved what an advantage this would be.  I am sending you some notes; with those, a map, and a ruler, you can see the plan that I am supporting because I think it the best for Evreux and the least bad for Bernay. I am anxious to get the Rouennais [people from Rouen, the largest city in Normandy] to give up Pont-Audemar and the territory around it, all of which is worth more than the area they will happily yield on the other side.

(p. 38) Letter, Jan. 5, 1790, to his brother, Robert, in Bernay.
My Brother, Everything happens at once and we make no progress. The division in the Assembly is striking: the room is like a battlefield where two opposing armies face off. They have been equal, but the opposition is shrinking. They win small victories but they lose the big battles. For instance, yesterday they got one of theirs, the scheming abbé de Montesquiou, elected president of the Assembly but the same day, after the most raucous debate we have had, we provisionally suspended payment on all pensions worth more than 3000 livres. They will be paid up to that amount, and up to 12,000 livres if the pension holder is over seventy. No pension, salary, or honorarium will be paid to those who have left the country [aux expatriés]. … the division of the kingdom into departments and districts has been very badly done because of the stubbornness and the ignorance of most of those who were responsible for it. Time was wasted and the work, which could take forever, instead will be done quickly and is full of problems…. There are plenty of malcontents who have not given up the hope of preventing our work from succeeding. Constantly gripped by fright and worry, Paris remains calm and peaceful; maybe watchfulness is the only way to maintain tranquility and safety.

(pp. 47-48) Letter, Jan. 10, 1790, to city officials in Bernay
… The enemies of the Constitution are at present simply spectators of our decisions; they discuss but they don’t vote. They say they are groaning under the despotism of the majority. They tried to alarm us about the assignats by claiming that the provinces of Flanders and Artois were ready to revolt if anyone tried to sell the Church’s properties. But the country people will win if those properties are divided and sold in small parcels; those who have not been able to buy anything will find property in proportion to their wealth. Surely this consideration means that many will leave the side of the clergy. The need for an extra 20 million was announced on the same day as this decree [assignats]; that should do much to speed the approval of a decree which it was thought might be vetoed [by the King]. The dispersal of the assignats through the land will not take long and whoever is holding one will become a defender of the Revolution, even in spite of himself. That is one way to be reconciled with your worst enemies. … There is a very good reason to postpone the decision on paying the clergy. If we want to pay the year’s salary for 1790 by quarters and in advance, it is hardly prudent to reach a decision quickly, since we have nothing with which to pay. [letter continued, Jan. 11, 1790] Gentlemen: I did not finish my letter early enough yesterday to put it in the post, so it will only go tomorrow. The partisans of the Old Regime [ancien régime] have done all they can to justify the behavior of the parlement of Rennes. We met until 7:00 yesterday evening and ended with a decree… that the resistance of the parlementaires to the law renders them unfit to exercise any of the functions of an “active citizen” [those who could vote] until the day when they take an oath of loyalty to the Constitution as decreed by the Assembly and sanctioned by the King. [translator’s note: remember that the Assembly at this point has barely started writing the Constitution; it would be another 21 months before it was finished].
     The enemies of public liberty have provoked an uprising in Versailles and they tried to start one in Paris; they hope to still find support in some corners of the countryside where the aristocracy is hidden. They only have a few resources left; maybe not any. What once seemed fanciful could come to pass; I am afraid that the opposition’s brazen insolence may cause some violent storms. It would be terrible if some fanatic tried to kill Lafayette: the Parisians would blame it on everyone they suspect of being an “aristocrat.” In comparing the present state of Paris with what it used to be, one sees that everything is possible. All Parisians think of themselves as heroes and, in truth, it would be impossible to have a better army. You can count on their commitment. If Paris has changed, in terms of its military values and the precision of its discipline—virtues unknown here before this era—it is equally so in terms of its selflessness. Wise views and brave sentiments have become the appendages of a city once thought to be forever plunged into lethargy by luxury, pleasure, and the habit of swallowing all the riches of the kingdom.

(pp. 58-59) Jan. 23, 1790, Letter to city officials in Bernay.
… The news from the colonies becomes more and more disturbing every day. The Assembly rejected the idea of concerning itself now with the liberty of the blacks. Freeing them would require some indispensable first steps: we would have to find another way to cultivate the colonies, or we would lose them. Losing them would be a sacrifice—no matter what some say—and it is hard to be reconciled to it. It would be impossible to have the colonies farmed by whites; their skin—even when covered with the clothes that no one can wear in that climate—cannot stand the sunshine, whereas the sun does nothing to the black and oily skin of the Africans.
      The blacks are not ready for liberty; they would abuse it and the whites would be defenseless, exposed to the vengeance of a multitude furious at having been treated like beasts of burden. They would abuse their liberty and hurt themselves, as well: enemies of work, without any forethought or industry, they would stop working and our colonies—which owe their richness only to the fear of punishment—would be left uncultivated. No doubt, slavery is in the eyes of reason a monstrous aberration, but the same reason tells us that it must be abolished carefully. The child who does not know how to walk must be guided by leading-strings. … This great question has been solemnly debated in England and no doubt will find an answer there. We should be less eager to set a great example and more willing to follow a good one.
     As you have rightly observed and as was said long ago in the National Assembly, we need to settle matters in France before we start worrying about America.
      The question of free and freed people of color is one we will discuss and that is as it should be. It is not the same with the slaves; it is still too early to discuss that question. Nonetheless, some unthinking individuals, malcontents, and fanatics have already raised the matter and our islands are now exposed to the most horrific revolution. It is possible the Assembly will have to deal with this question, even though the best answer would be to postpone discussion until the next session [i.e., the Legislative Assembly].

(pp. 62-63) Feb. 4, 1790, Letter to city officials in Bernay.
Today, a day that will live in the memory of all good citizens, the king wrote to the president in his own handwriting to say that he proposed to come to the Assembly and that he would like to be received without any ceremony…. He stood and read a speech full of sensitivity, in which he described the sufferings of France and the dangers of anarchy. Like a father, he asked those who had lost their privileges to forget their memories of them; he said comforting things to the nobles and the clergy and reminded them that he had sacrifices to make, as well. He spoke of his love for the people and of the people’s love for him and he showed deep sensitivity about attacks on property or personal safety. He committed himself to maintaining the Constitution, which he praised, and he declared that those who tried to destroy it would be his enemies and those of the nation. He pleaded with the parties to come together and he announced that the queen, along with him, was ready to raise the prince loving public liberty and the new Constitution. The king was vigorously applauded when he arrived, during his speech, and when he departed. … I think this is a mortal blow against the aristocracy; it will not be easy for it to get up again after such a blow. The king invited us to leave all differences behind and to give the executive branch back its nerves. This part of the speech was rather skillfully done. In truth, I think the court no longer poses much of a danger but measures must be taken to make sure it does not have another spell of that disease from which one never truly recovers: the desire to abuse power. The best of kings can be tricked. It is true that the nobles and the clergy swore an oath of loyalty on the altar of the fatherland, but since that is a divinity they barely know we have to make sure they keep their word. I think, nonetheless, that they are starting to give up. … As soon as the king’s speech is printed, I will send you copies of it. He says a few words in favor of the so-called property of the nobility and clergy, but there is not much of that.