Amongst the two parties which unequally divided the nation, between those who defended the past in its entirety, its abuses as well as its grandeurs, and those who were marching on bewildered towards a reform of which they did not foresee the scope, the struggle underwent certain moments of stoppage and of abrupt reaction towards the old state of things.

In 1781, the day after M.Necker's fall, an ordinance of the minister of war, published against the will of that minister himself, had restored to the verified and qualified noblesse (who could show four quarterings) the exclusive privilege of military grades.

Without any ordinance, the same regulation had been applied to the clergy.

In 1787, the Assembly of notables and its opposition to the king's projects presented by M.de Calonne were the last triumph of the enthusiastic partisans of the past.

The privileged classes had still too much influence to be attacked with success by M.de Calonne, who appeared to be in himself an assemblage of all the abuses whereof he desired to be the reformer.