and not only manual labor, but anything done with the object of producing wealth was a d

, called the "First Estate"; the Nobility, composing the "Second Estate,

he business of the clergy was to minister to souls. The business of the nobility was warfare. That of the third estate, the toiling clas

sessed, to his lord. He was attached to his land, as are the trees which are rooted in it. There was, however, a

ly that he was freed from the proprietor to whom he belonged, to whom he was inevitably b

the centres of the various industries required to supply the necessities and luxuries of the two ruling classes. In this way

es, and then for charters. And as more money was needed by proprietors for their lavish expenditures, more freedom and more charters were acquire

he communes as free cities, and bestowing franchises clearly defining their rights. By this act the body of

the bell must all appear at the meeting of the General Assembly for the purpose of choosing their magistrates. This done, the asse

tion, with a furious spirit of democracy, and a superior class, more

ople groping toward freedom, and experimen

ill far off. Another accession to the kingly power came in the succeeding reign when Louis VII. married Eleanor, daughter of the Duke of Aquitaine; and her great inheritance, the largest of the feudal states, was thereby an

appening that great event, the

II. Led by Peter the Hermit, a vast undisciplined host, without preparation, rushed indiscriminately toward Asia Minor, perishing by famine, disease, and the sword before they reached their goal. Undismayed by this, another Crusade was immediately

ire body of nobility would have rushed if it could to the Holy Land. Poor barons sold or mortgaged their lands and their castles, and the Third Estate grew rich, and the free cities still freer, upon the necessities of the hour. But all classes, from king to serf, were for the first time moved by a common sentiment; and not alone France, but the choicest and best of Europe was poured in one great volume

who consented to the divorce he desired. This proved simply an exchange of thrones for the fascinating Eleanor. Henry II. of England, already the possessor of immense estates in France, inherited from his father, realized that wit

the feudal barons overshadowed by the fight for her very life wit

. Then he turned to England. Queen Eleanor and her sons were conspiring against Henry II. So he made friends with them. The palace on the island in the Seine was an asylum where John and Richard might plot against their father. And when a third Crusade was planned, 1189, it had a

e knew the foibles of the romantic and picturesque Richard; and he also knew that John, corrupt to the core,

Philip Augustus, was to be rewarded by the gift of Normandy! With this in view, Philip returned to France. It was an ingenious plot, but all was spoiled by Richard's safe return

l claimant to the English throne. And when that ill-fated Prince was murdered, as is believed by the orders of his uncle, for t

r at Philip's court, by feudal law the King of France

ons. In the war which ensued, all north of the Loire was seized by Ph

be held, not by dukes and counts, as before, but by the king, as a part of the royal domain. And ki

nsion into foreign lands, but solidity and firmness of outline to France itself. We have seen how and why

ontrolled several ports on the Mediterranean, while France had none at all, it might not have been discovered that this home of the "gay science," and of minstrelsy, and of al

dered a Crusade, and John de Montfort not only opened up the Mediterranean ports for Philip, but brought Toulouse, the greatest of the remaining feudal states, into subjection to the King of France; at the same time forever silencing the voice of the heretic, of the minstrel, and

the people drew closer together, resolved to defend themselves from a vicious king, and this determined effort to curtail the royal prerogative produced the Magna Charta, which forever secured the liberties of Englishmen (1

anent growth in a nation. He may have been false of tongue and unprincipled in deed, but he took the free cities under his personal protection, opened up trade with foreign lands, beautified Paris and France. He may, under the cloak of religion, have permitted unjustifiable cruelties against the most