CHAPTER I.

THE STATES GENERAL.

The Frankish conquerors of Gaul founded about a thousand years before the date of this narrative the first dynasty that reigned in the land. Clovis, the first of the kings, established and his successor followed the custom of almost yearly convoking their leudes, or chiefs of bands, to gatherings that they named Fields of May. At these assemblies, from which the Celtic or conquered people were wholly excluded and to which only the warrior ruler class was admitted, the Frankish chiefs or feudal lords deliberated with their supreme sovereign, the king, in their own or Germanic tongue upon new martial enterprises; or upon new imposts to be laid upon the subjected race. It was at these Fields of May that later, during the usurpatory dominion of the stewards of the palace, the do-nothing kings, those last scions of Clovis, unnerved 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 succeeded that of the Carlovingians in 987, continued the practice of the Fields of May, but under a different name. At irregular intervals they held in their domains Courts or Parliaments--assemblies composed of seigneurs and prelates, but from which the newly shaping class of bourgeois or townsmen was excluded, along with the artisans and serfs, essentially as was the case under the previous dynasties. These assemblies represented exclusively the interests of the ruling class and its accomplices.

Towards the close of 1290, the legists or lawyers, a new class of plebeian origin, began to enter the parliaments. The royal power, that had reared its head upon the ruins of the independence of the feudal lords, grew ever more oppressive and absolute, and the functions of the parliaments were by degrees restricted to servilely registering and promulgating the royal ordinances, instead of remaining what they originally were, free gatherings where kings, seigneurs and prelates deliberated as peers upon the affairs of the State--that is to say, their own private interests, to the exclusion of those of the people. In course of time, despite these registrations, neither 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 remained unable to fetch the money to the royal treasury. At that juncture Enguerrand de Marigny, an able minister, who was later hanged, said to Philip the Fair: "Fair Sire, you are not the strongest; therefore, instead of ordering, request, pray, entreat, if necessary. To that end convoke a national assembly, States General, composed of prelates, seigneurs and bourgeois or townsmen, jointly deputed. In our days, fair Sire, we must reckon with the townsmen, that bourgeois class that has succeeded in emancipating itself. To that national assembly submit gently, mildly and frankly the needs that press you. If you do, there is a good chance of your wishes being met."

The advice was wise. Philip the Fair followed it. Thus it came about that for the first time since nine centuries, and thanks to the communal insurrections, the bourgeois--those plebeians who represented the subjugated class--took their seats in the national assembly beside the seigneurs, who represented the oppressors, and the bishops, their accomplices. Before these States General, that thus came into existence, the king now appeared in humble posture, affecting poverty 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 refuse, as they did, the levies of men and moneys that seemed to them unjust. Their refusal was annulled, and the method of annulment was this: The States General consisted of three estates--the nobility, the clergy and the bourgeoisie--each being represented by an equal number of deputies. Accordingly, the bourgeoisie was out-voted by the combined estates of the nobility and the clergy, both of which were ever found anxious to meet the royal wishes on the head of taxation.

The reason was plain. The prelates and seigneurs, being exempt of taxation in virtue of the privileges of the nobility of the one and the alleged sanctity of the other, and sharing, thanks to the prodigalities of the kings, in the taxes levied on the bourgeoisie, granted with gladsome hearts all the levies for money that the crown ever requested.

Thus stood things at the beginning of the reign of John II. Though the position of the people continued to be grievous, yet marked progress had been made.