Beaufort and La Rochefoucauld, and many other aristocratic leaders, made a tour of the provinces, calling on them to rise against the Throne. As in the days of Richelieu, the rebellious Nobles sought foreign as well as domestic aid-the Prince of Condé having made a secret alliance with Spain.

After numerous vicissitudes, Mazarin was again forced to resign his post; but on the arrest of several of the chief leaders of the Fronde, he was able to return to power and put an end to the Rebellion in 1653. With the fall of the Fronde, the Feudal System, which once exercised sovereign sway over the dismembered territory of France, sank into the tomb; and upon it was built the solid foundations of the Monarchy, now left without a rival to dispute its monopoly of power.

TRIUMPH OF THE MONARCHY.

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

LOUIS XIV. spoke truly when he declared, l'état, c'est moi-" the state, that's me "-for his will was law. Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem. The Clergy who had dominated France during the Dark Ages, and the feudal Nobles who had held sway over it. during the Middle Ages, were now both bereft of political influence; and the Monarchy, which had resisted the one and struggled against the other, emerged at last triumphant. The King was now more absolute than ever the Clergy or the Nobles had been, and the abuse of power was just as great. Though the Monarchy was thus omnipotent, the Nobles, however, still retained their estates and many important privileges; amongst others, exemption from taxation. The Feudal System, so far as the authority of the Crown was concerned, was broken down in 1653; but, for all the rest, it remained in force till the Revolution of 1789 blotted it out entirely. "The relations. the nobles bore to the throne," says Buckle, "became entirely changed; that which they bore to the people remained almost the same. In England, slavery or villenage quickly diminished, and was extinct by the end of the sixteenth century, but in France it lingered two hundred years later."

It is certainly an astonishing fact that up to the

French Revolution of 1789 the Lower Class was divided into two categories-those who were free, and those who still remained in a servile condition. Cassagnac, in his work on the Revolution, states that "in 1789 there still existed in France one million and five hundred thousand serfs." It was

only a short time before the Revolution that Louis XVI. abolished serfdom in the royal domains. These facts are conclusive proof that the Feudal System was only finally eradicated by the tremendous tornado which covered France with ruins in 1789.

The reader has now been presented with the conspicuous features of Feudality during the Middle Ages as they were revealed in France. It prevailed in all the countries of the Continent; but its aspect was everywhere the same, except in England, where its development received a check from causes that will be described. Gradually yielding to the pressure of events, Feudality has everywhere disappeared in Europe, save, as I have said, in Germany, where successive Emperors were not so successful in their struggles with the Barons as were the Kings of France. The consequence is, that up to our day Germany is still split up into a number of small baronial estates, where the heirs of feudal ancestors still retain the title and dignity of Sovereign over their hereditary domains; though the exercise of the old feudal rights has long been controlled by the growth of popular power.

In discussing the merits of the Feudal System, we may assert that, while it had little to recommend it, it would be illogical to condemn it as worthless; since it was the natural product of the state of things then existing, and must have had a raison d'être, some purpose to fulfil, some end to accomplish. It certainly

tended to diminish the utter disorganization into which society was thrown by the irruption of the barbarians.

"The Feudal System," says Buckle, "was a vast scheme of policy, which, clumsy and imperfect as it was, supplied many of the wants of the rude people among whom it arose. The connection between it and the decline of the ecclesiastical spirit is very obvious; for the Feudal System was the first great secular plan that had been seen in Europe since the formation of the Roman civil law; it was the first comprehensive attempt which had been made during more than four hundred years to organise society according to temporal, and not according to spiritual circumstances." From the fifth to the tenth century, Europe was under the domination of the Ecclesiastics of the New Religion. During these Dark Ages their spiritual sway over the masses was unmolested, and even Charlemagne thought it expedient to conciliate the Clergy. Towards the end of the tenth century, however, the Lords of the soil thought themselves strong enough to defy clerical control; and they set up a Government which made them Sovereign each in their own domain, and equally independent of King or Pope. Up to this period the Priests of the young Christian Church enjoyed an undisputed supremacy; but when the Barons stepped into the field with a Government, not only temporal, but based on force, they encountered a rival they were not at first disposed to acknowledge. Hitherto the Clergy had been a privileged class. They were exempted from all the burdens of the State, and not called to do military service. They lost these immunities when Feudalism spread over Europe, and

they ceased to be the sole controlling class. Instead of men looking up to the Church as hitherto, they began now to look up to the Nobles. It was natural enough the Clergy should chafe under this change of position. They discerned plainly that Feudalism was a Secular, Government, and that, if it endured, Theocracy was at an end. They foresaw they should be forced to divide the power they had for several centuries monopolized. A struggle ensued between Feudality and the Church, which ended ere long in their reconciliation. The Church found itself weaker and the Barons stronger than was supposed. In fact the power of the Church was declining, because the masses were becoming less ignorant and superstitious.

The Feudal System, and the Birth of the Middle Class, were the two prominent features in France of the epoch known as the Middle Ages. The first I have treated perhaps too copiously; but I have little to relate of the latter, for the reason that their rise as an influential body met with a check which effectually stopped their political development.

It has been already mentioned that Louis VI., 1108, seeing that the inhabitants of the numerous Communes which were springing up all over France might be of service to the Monarchy in its duel with Feudality, purchased their support by the concession of Municipal rights. This policy, as I showed, was followed up by many of his Successors. When, however, the French Kings found that, with the aid of standing armies, they were strong enough to fight the feudal Nobles, and that they could dispense with the Militia hitherto supplied by the Communes, they lost no time in abrogating, one after another, all the privileges they