assessment themselves. Such were the trifling liberties of France, and
even these all turned to the benefit of the privileged classes, and to the
detriment of the people.

And this France, so enslaved, was moreover miserably organized; the
excesses of power were still less endurable than their unjust
distribution. The nation, divided into three orders, themselves subdivided
into several classes, was a prey to all the attacks of despotism, and all
the evils of inequality. The nobility were subdivided: into courtiers,
living on the favours of the prince, that is to say, on the labour of the
people, and whose aim was governorships of provinces, or elevated ranks in
the army; ennobled parvenus, who conducted the interior administration,
and whose object was to obtain comptrollerships, and to make the most of
their place while they held it, by jobbing of every description; legists
who administered justice, and were alone competent to perform its
functions; and landed proprietors who oppressed the country by the
exercise of those feudal rights which still survived. The clergy were
divided into two classes: the one destined for the bishoprics and abbeys,
and their rich revenues; the other for the apostolic function and its
poverty. The third estate, ground down by the court, humiliated by the
nobility, was itself divided into corporations, which, in their turn,
exercised upon each other the evil and the contempt they received from the
higher classes. It possessed scarcely a third part of the land, and this
was burdened with the feudal rents due to the lords of the manor, tithes
to the clergy, and taxes to the king. In compensation for all these
sacrifices it enjoyed no political right, had no share in the
administration, and was admitted to no public employment.

Louis XIV. wore out the main-spring of absolute monarchy by too protracted
tension and too violent use. Fond of sway, rendered irritable by the