nasty that reigned in the land. Clovis, the first of the kings, established and his successor followed the cu

nnerved and degenerate beings, appeared once a year with artificial beards as the grotesque and hollow effigies of royalty. These assemblies were continued under the reign of Charles the Great and the Carlovingian kings-the dynasty that in 752 succeeded that of Clovis. The bishops, accomplices of the conquerors, joined in these assemblies, where, accordingly, only the nobility, that is, the conquerors, and the clergy had seats. Under Hugh Capet and his descendants, the dynasty of the Capets, which

r law nor ordinance was carried out, and the government became wholly autocratic. Then came a turn. The spirit of liberty breathed over Gaul, and a species of general insurrection broke out against the crown. The townsmen, entrenched in their towns, the seigneurs in their castles, the bishops in their dioceses, reused to pay the imposts decreed at the royal pleasure. Thus Philip the Fair, in the early part of the eleventh century, was unable to enforce the ordinance that levied a fifth of all incomes. Although the decree was registered by parliament, the officers of the King were met with swords, sticks and showers of stones in Paris, Orleans and other places, and

erty and good will, and obtained the levies of men and subsidies that he needed. After Philip the Fair, his descendants, greedy, prodigal and needy, convoked a national assembly whenever they required a new levy of taxes or of men. The bourgeois deputies ever appeared at these assemblies in a defiant mood. They never were convoked except to exact gold and the blood of their race from them. To exact is the correct term. Vain it was for the bourgeois deputies to refus

ty of the one and the alleged sanctity of the other, and sharing, thanks to the prodigalities of the kings, in the t

John II. Though the position of the people continue