ABSTRACT
Considerable attention has been devoted in the past to Jean Bodin's theory of sovereignty. Very little has been written, however, concerning his association with the estates-general which assembled at Blois in 1576, the same year in which the Republic first made its appearance. On December 31, M. de Nicolai, first president of the chambre des comptes, presented a report describing the poor state of finances, which he attributed to the debts of the king's predecessors. The king was anxious for the estates to complete the drawing-up of the cahiers and for the third estate to vote the subsidies with which he could pay his most pressing debts, but every day seemed to retard rather than to advance the work of the deputies. The president of the third estate of the gouvernement of Bordeaux replied that religious unity did not necessarily mean religious war and that the problem should be settled "through councils and through the reform of abuses.".
