FRANCE. 
money ; they were judges in the laft refort ; their vaffals 
were their have's, whom they bought and fold along with 
their lands ; the inhabitants of cities, although freemen, 
were for ages deprefled and poor, depending for proteftion 
upon fome tyrannical baron in their neighbourhood. At 
length, however, by the progrefs of the arts, the cities 
rofe into more confiderable importance, and their inha¬ 
bitants, with fitch freemen of fome rank as refided in the 
country, were confidered as entitled to a place in the re- 
prefentation ; but the clergy and the nobles formed the 
two firft eftates, while the fovereign was defpotic ; yet 
the nobles retained all their feudal privileges, and the ec- 
clefiaftical hierarchy did the fame. The follow'ing was, 
in a few words, the (fate of that country during the two 
laft centuries. 
The kingdom of France, previous to the revolution, 
was never reduced into one homogeneous mafs. It con- 
lifted of a variety of feparate provinces acquired by dif¬ 
ferent means ; fome by marriage, fome by legacy, and 
others by conqueft. Each province retained its ancient 
law9 and privileges,whether political or civil, as exprefled 
in their capitularies, or conditions by which they were 
originally acquired. In one part of his dominions the 
French monarch was a count, in another he was a duke, 
and in others he was a king ; the only bond which united 
his vaft empire being the ftrong military force by which 
it was overawed. Each province had its barriers; and 
the intercourfe betwixt one province and another was often 
more reftrained by local ufages than the intercourfe of 
either with a foreign country. Some of the provinces, 
fuch as Bretagne and Dauphiny, even retained the right 
of aflembling periodically their provincial ftates; but 
thefe formed no barrier againft: the power of the court. 
The clergy formed the firft eftate of the kingdom in 
point of precedence. They amounted to 130,000. The 
higher orders of them enjoyed immenfe revenues; but 
the cure's , or great body of adiing clergy, (the reflors,) fel- 
dom pollefted more than about twenty-eight pounds fterling 
a-year, and their vicaircs (curates as we ftiould call them) 
about half that fum. A few of their dignified clergy 
were men of great piety, who refided conftantly in their 
diocefes, and attended to the duties of their office ; but 
by far the greater number of them paffied their lives at 
Paris and Verfailles, immerled in all the intrigues and 
diffipations of a gay and corrupted court. They were 
altnoft exclufively feledfed from among the younger 
branches of the families of the moft powerful nobility, 
and accounted it a kind of di(honour to the order of 
bifhops for any perfon of fubordinate rank to be admitted 
into it. The inferior clergy, on the contrary, were per- 
fons of mean birth, and had little chance of preferment ; 
yet we find feveral refpedtable exceptions to this rule. 
The clergy, as a body, independent of the tithes, poftefted 
a revenue arifing from their property in land, amounting 
to four or five millions fterling annually ; at the fame time 
they were exempt from taxation ; but they prefented to 
the court a free gift of a fum of fomewhat ffiort of a mil¬ 
lion fterling every five years. 
The nobility was nominally the fecond order of the 
date, though it was in reality the firft. The nobles 
amounted to no lefs than 200,000 in number. The title 
and rank defeended to all the children of the family, but 
the property to the eldeft alone: lienee vaft multitudes 
of them were dependent upon the bounty of the court. 
They regarded the ufeful and commercial arts as dilho- 
nouruble, and even the liberal profeffions as in a great 
rneafure beneath their dignity, difdaining to intermarry 
with the families of any fuch profeflors. The feudal 
fyftem in its purity was extremely favourable to the pro¬ 
duction of refpedtable qualities in the minds of tliofe who 
belonged to the order of the nobles ; but the introduction 
of commerce has fince rendered it equally unfavourable 
to that clafs of men. Inftead of the ancient patriarchal 
attachment between the feudal chieftain and iiis valfals 
Vol. VII. No.466. 
?fi5 
the nobility had become greedy landlords in the pro¬ 
vinces, that they might appear in Iplendour at court and 
in the capital. There, loft in intrigue, fenfuality, and 
vanity, their characters became frivolous and contempti¬ 
ble. Such of the French noblelle, however, as remained 
in the provinces, regarded with indignation this degrada¬ 
tion of their order, and ftill retained a proud fenfe of 
honour and of courage, which has always rendered them 
refpeftable. The order of the nobles was exempted from 
the payment of taxes, although the property of fome of 
them was immenfe. The eftates of the prince of Conde, 
for example, were worth 200,000k a year, and thofe of 
the duke of Orleans nearly twice as much. The crown 
had indeed impofed fome trifling taxes upon the noblefte, 
which, however, they in a great rneafure contrived to elude. 
The parliaments generally confifted of large bodies of 
men, in different provinces, appointed as courts of law for 
the adminiftration of juftice. In confequence of the cor¬ 
ruption of the officers of ftate, the members purchafed 
their places, which they held for life ; but the fon was 
ufually preferred when he offered to purchafe his father’s 
place. In confequence of this circumftance, the praCtifing 
lawyers had little chance of ever becoming judges. Courts 
thus conftituted confifted of a motley mixture of old and 
young, learned and ignorant, men. Juftice was ill admi- 
niftered. The judges allowed their votes in depending 
caufes to be openly folicited by the parties or their 
friends. No wife man ever entered into a litigation againfi 
a member of one of thefe parliaments ; no lawyer would 
undertake to plead his cauie ; it never came to a luccefs- 
ful iflue, and ufually never came to any iffue at all. After 
the ftates-general had fallen into difufe, the parliaments, 
as we have feen, acquired a large degree of political con¬ 
fequence, and formed the only check upon the abfolute 
power of (he crown. The laws, or royal edidts, before 
being put in force, were always fent to be registered in 
the books of the parliaments. If they objected to regifter 
any edidt, it was cloneuniler a kindof legal fidtion : forthey 
pretended, that the obnoxious edidt, being injurious to the 
public happinefs, could not be the will of the king, but 
muft either be a forgery, or an impofition by the minifters. 
Thefe objections were got the better of, either by a po- 
fitive order from the king, or by his coming in perfon and 
ordering the edidt to be regiftered. 
The tiers ctat, or commons, formed the loweft order of 
the ftate in France, and they were depreffed and miferable 
in the extreme. To form a conception of their lituation, 
it is neceftary tooblerve that they bore the whole pecu¬ 
niary burdens of the ftate : they alone were liable to 
taxation. An expenfive and ambitious court ; an army 
of 200,000 men in time of peace, and of twice that num¬ 
ber in war; a contiderable marine eftabliftiment, public 
roads and works; were all fupported exclufively by the 
loiveft of the people. To add to the evil, the revenues were 
ill colledted. They were let out to farmers-genera! at a 
certain turn, over and above which they not only ac¬ 
quired immenfe fortunes to themfelves, but were enabled 
to advance enormous prefents to thofe favourites or mif- 
trefles of the king or the minifter by means of whom they 
procured their places. To raife all this«money from the 
people, they were guilty of the moft cruel oppreflion, 
having it in their power to obtain whatever revenue laws 
they pleafed, and executing them in the fevereft manner. 
For this purpofe they kept in pay an army of clerks, fcouts, 
and fpies, amounting to eighty thoufandmen. Thefe were 
indeed detefted by the king, whom they deceived and 
kept in poverty; by tlie people, whom they opprelfed ; 
and by the ancient nobility, as purfe-proud upitarts- 
But the court of France could never contrive to manage 
without them. The peafants could be called out by the 
intendants of the provinces in what they called corvees, to 
work upon the high roads for a certain number of days 
in the year, which was a lource of fevere oppreffion, a& 
the intendant had the choice of the time and place of'their 
9 I employ- 
