CHAP. into general use by Louis the Fat, to serve as a counterpoise to the power of the nobles. Rouen and Falaise, the first incorporated boroughs of Normandy, enjoyed their privileges by a charter from Philip Augustus, granted in the year 1267. Prior to that time the states of the duchy were composed entirely of nobles and clergy. The kings, however, early sensible of the importance of these communities as a bulwark against the encroachments of the nobles, procured a law by which, if a slave escaped from his master, and bought a house in a borough, and lived there a year without being reclaimed, he gained his freedom-a custom which seems to have prevailed equally in France, Scotland, and England. From this cause, joined to the natural influence of mutual protection and extended intercourse, boroughs every where became the cradles of freedom: although the nobles still looked upon them with such contempt, that, by the feudal law, the Hume, ii. superior was debarred from marrying his female ward to burgess or villain. But, notwithstanding their growing Ducange importance, the boroughs were, for many ages, incapable of offering any effectual resistance to the power of the Houard, nobles, from the want of skill of their inhabitants in the Français, use of arms, to which their superiors were habituated-a ii. 301. distinction of incalculable importance in an age when vio- i. 367. lence was universal, and nothing but the military profession held in any esteem.1 1 111, 112. a Holling shed, iii. 15. voce Commune. Loix des 238. Tytler, M'Pherson, 48. datories. The two circumstances which had mainly fostered the spirit of freedom in England, were the extraordinary power Great feuof the sovereign, and the independent spirit of the commoners, both immediate consequences of the Norman Conquest. In France, the reverse of both these peculiarities took place. The dignity of the throne was lost in the ascendency of the nobles, and the spirit of the people extinguished by the inordinate privileges which these enjoyed. For a series of ages the monarchy of France was held together by the feeblest tenure: the Dukes of Normandy, the Counts of Toulouse, the Dukes of Burgundy and I. CHAP. Bretagne, resembled rather independent sovereigns than feudal vassals; and the real dominion of the throne, before the time of Louis VI., seldom extended beyond the capital, and twenty miles around it. It was a mere chance at that time that these great feudatories did not become formally, as well as practically, independent, and the duchies. of France split asunder the monarchy of Clovis, in the same manner as the electorates of Germany broke up the empire of Otho. In moments of danger, when the vassals assembled their retainers, the king of France could still muster a mighty host: but with the transitory alarm the forces of the monarchy melted away; the military vassals retired after the period of their service was expired; and the late leader of a hundred thousand men was frequently baffled, after a campaign of a few weeks, by the garrison of an insignificant fortress.1 1 Sism. vii. 112. Bar. Introd. 42. 49. yeomanry. But the circumstance of all others the most prejudicial Fatal effects to the liberty of France, was the exclusive use of arms by of want of the higher orders, and the total absence of that middle class in the armies, who constituted not less the strength of the English forces than the support of the English monarchy. Before the time of Charles VI., the jealousy of the nobles had never allowed the peasants to be instructed in the use of arms-in consequence of which they had no archers, or disciplined infantry, to oppose to their enemies, and were obliged to seek in the mountains of Genoa for crossbowmen, to withstand the terrible yeomanry of England. The defeats of Cressy and Poictiers, of Morat and Granson, were the result of this inferiority. Not that the natives of France were inferior in natural bravery to the English or the Swiss; but that their armies, being composed entirely of the military tenants, had no force to oppose to the steady and experienced infantry, which in every age has formed the peculiar strength of a free people. Warned by these disasters, the French government, by an ordinance in 1394, ordered the peasantry throughout the whole country to be instructed in the use I. of the bow, and the pernicious practice of games of CHAP. hazard to be exchanged for matches at archery. They made rapid progress in the new exercises, and would soon have rivalled the English bowmen; but the jealousy of the nobles took the alarm at the increasing energy of the lower orders. Martial exercises were prohibited, games of hazard re-established, the people lost their courage from want of confidence in themselves, and the defeat of Azincour was the consequence.1 1 Sism. xii. 79; ii. 217. 51. Bar. i. 50. arising from wars, and t The circumstances which first awakened the genuine democratic spirit in France were, the misery and anarchy Misery arising from the English wars. During these disastrous the English contests, in which the French armies were so frequently worsted, and military license, with all its horrors, for above a century wasted the heart of the country, the power of the nobles was for a time destroyed, and the extremities of distress roused the courage of the peasantry. Abandoned by their natural protectors, pillaged by bands of licentious soldiers, driven to desperation by suffering, and excited by the prospect of general plunder, the populace every where flew to arms, and the insurrection of the Jacquerie anticipated the horrors of the French Revolution. The effect of the despotic government of preceding ages became then conspicuous. Unlike the moderate reformers among the English barons, who themselves contended for freedom, and headed the advance of the commons, the French peasantry, abandoned entirely to the guidance of their own chiefs, fell at once into the horrors of popular licentiousness. The features, the wellknown features, of servile war appeared. The gentry, hated for their tyranny, were every where exposed to the violence of popular rage; and instead of meeting with the regard due to their past dignity, became on that account only the object of more wanton insult to the peasantry. They were hunted like wild beasts, and put to the sword without mercy, their castles consumed by fire, their wives and daughters ravished or murdered; I. CHAP. and the savages proceeded so far as, in many instances, to impale their enemies, and roast them alive over a slow fire. But these efforts were in the end as unavailing as they were ferocious. The nobles, roused by necessity, at length combined for their common defence; the peasantry, unacquainted with arms, and destitute of discipline, could not withstand the shock of the feudal cavalry; and the licentiousness of the people was repressed, after one-half of the population of France had fallen a prey to the sword, or the pestilence which followed the wars of Edward the Third. The misery occasioned by these contests, however, excited a spirit which long survived the disasters in which it originated. Nations, like individuals, are frequently improved in the school of adversity; and if the causes of the greatest advances in our social condition are accurately investigated, they may often be traced back to those long periods of difficulty, when energy has risen out of the extremity of disaster. Before the death of Edward the Third, the soldiers of France, from constant practice, had become superior to those of England; and the courage of the nation, debased by centuries of Roman servitude, was restored amidst the agonies of 1 Froissart, internal warfare. The spirit of freedom was communiviii. 124, c. cated to the boroughs, the only refuge from insult, which had greatly swelled in importance during the devastation 549. Bar. of the country; and its lofty aspirations, emanating from the opulent cities of Flanders, threatened the aristocracy both of France and England with destruction.1 182, 184. Sism. x. 543, 548, i. 74. Hume, ii. 463. 51. democratic spirit in France. The liberty of France and Flanders, to use a military Rise of the expression, advanced with an oblique front; the wealthy cities of the Netherlands took the lead; Paris, Rouen, and Lyons, were next brought into action; and all the boroughs of the south of France were ready, at the first success, to join the bands of the confederates. The firmness of Ghent, and the victory of Bruges, roused the democratic spirit through all the adjoining kingdoms; the nobility of all Europe took the alarm, and the inva CHAP. sion of Flanders by the chivalry of France was conducted on the same principles, and for the same object, as the inroad into France by the Allies in 1793. But the period had not yet arrived when the citizens of towns could successfully contend with the forces of the aristocracy. In vain the Flemish burghers routed their own barons, and with a force of sixty thousand men besieged the nobles of their territory in Oudenarde. The steel-clad squadrons of the French gendarmerie pierced their serried bands, and the victory of Resebecque crushed the liberties of France, as well as those of Flanders, for four centuries. The French municipal bodies, among whom the ferment had already begun, lost all hope when the burghers of Flanders were overthrown, and resigned themselves, without a struggle, to a fate which, in the circumstances of the world, appeared inevitable. Twenty thousand armed citizens awaited the return of the victorious monarch into Paris; but the display of the burgher force came too late to protect public freedom-their 1 Bar. i. 74, leaders were imprisoned and executed; and the erection 295. Sism. xi. 397, 400, of the Bastile, in 1369, marked the commencement of a 407. long period of servitude, which its destruction in 1789 was expected to terminate.1 52. the French contests The struggles of the people in France, in the reign of Charles VI., like the Revolution four centuries after, were Contrast of totally distinct, both in character and object, from the and English efforts of the English in support of their liberties. The for freedom. Norman barons extorted the great charter at Runnymede the French peasantry formed the insurrection of the Jacquerie; the French boroughs alone supported the confederacy of Ghent. In the one case the barons marched at the head of the popular class, and stipulated for themselves and their inferiors the privileges of freedom; in the other the nobles generally joined the throne, and combined to suppress a spirit which threatened their exclusive privileges. Moderation and humanity distinguished the former; cruelty and exasperation disgraced the |