624 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



the State, there was the taking of labour. One-fo irth of the 

 working days in the year went to the corvees, due now to the 

 king and now to the feudal lord. Such liberties as were 

 allowed, had to be paid for and again paid for : the municipal 

 privileges of towns being seven times in twenty-eight years 

 withdrawn and re- sold to them. Military services of nobles 

 and people were imperative to whatever extent the king 

 demanded ; and conscripts were drilled under the lash. At 

 the same time that the subjection of the individual to the 

 State was pushed to such an extreme by exactions of money 

 and services that the impoverished people cut the grain while 

 it was green, ate grass, and died of starvation in multitudes, 

 the State did little to guard their persons and homes. Con 

 temporary writers enlarge on the immense numbers of high 

 way robberies, burglaries, assassinations, and torturings of 

 people to discover their hoards. Herds of vagabonds, levying 

 blackmail, roamed about ; and when, as a remedy, penalties 

 were imposed, innocent persons denounced as vagabonds were 

 sent to prison without evidence. No personal security could 

 be had either against the ruler or against powerful enemies. 

 In Paris there were some thirty prisons where untried and 

 unsentenced people might be incarcerated ; and the &quot; brigand 

 age of justice&quot; annually cost suitors forty to sixty millions 

 of francs. While the State, aggressing on citizens to such 

 extremes, thus failed to protect them against one another, it 

 was active in regulating their private lives and labours. 

 Eeligion was dictated to the extent that Protestants were im 

 prisoned, sent to the galleys, or whipped, and their ministers 

 hanged. The quantity of salt (on which there was a heavy 

 tax) to be consumed by each person was prescribed ; as were 

 also the modes of its use. Industry of every kind was super 

 vised. Certain crops were prohibited ; and vines destroyed 

 that were on soils considered unfit. The wheat that might 

 be bought at market was limited to two bushels ; and sales 

 took place in presence of dragoons. Manufacturers were 

 regulated in their processes and products to the extent that 



