IV. of France an ardent supporter of his wishes for her prosperity, had
altered and systematized taxes, and introduced a multitude of reforms in
general administration; and later, Colbert did even more notable work.
The Italian Republics had made their noble code of commercial rules and
maxims. The Dutch had given to the world one of the most wonderful
examples of what man may accomplish by sheer pluck and persistent hard
work, and commercial institutions founded on a principle of liberty; and
neither the terror of the Spanish rule nor the jealousy of England had
destroyed her power. Credit, banking, all modern forms of exchange were
coming into use; and agriculture, which the feudal system had kept in a
state of torpor, awakened and became a productive power.

Side by side with this were gigantic speculations, like that of John Law
and the East India Company, with the helpless ruin of its collapse. The
time was ripe for the formulation of some system of economic laws; and
two men who had long pondered them, De Gournay and Quesnay, made the
first attempt to explain the meaning of wealth and its distribution.
After Quesnay and his system, still holding honorable place, came
Turgot; after Turgot, Adam Smith; and thenceforward halt is impossible,
and economic science marches on with giant strides.

In all this progress woman had shared many of the material benefits, but
her industrial position had altered but slightly. Driven from the
trades, she had passed into the ranks of agricultural laborers; and
Thorold Rogers, in his "Work and Wages," records her early work in this
direction. France held the most enlightened view, and even then women
took active part in business, and had a position unknown in any other
country; but they had no place in any system of the economists, nor did
their labor count as a force to be enumerated. Slowly machinery was
making its way, feared and hated by the lower order of workers, eyed