Not long after this, another effort was made by the discomfited Nobles to regain their supremacy. After the death of Louis XIII. in 1643-Richelieu having died in 1642-Anne of Austria became Regent during the minority of Louis XIV., and she appointed Cardinal Mazarin her Minister.* Thinking the opportunity favourable, the Nobles rose in insurrection; and in 1648 the struggle known as the War of the Fronde began. For five years the result was uncertain. The Regent was compelled at one time to abandon Paris and make her headquarters at St Germain, where she ordered a siege to be opened against Paris. To conciliate this powerful League, Mazarin retired to Cologne, but discord breaking out among the Chiefs of the Fronde, he was recalled. A bloody combat took place at the gates of Paris between the Royal troops commanded by Turenne, and the forces of the Fronde led by the Prince of Condé, Desperate exertions were made by the Aristocracy to involve all France in this supreme effort to recover their waning power. The beautiful Duchess of Longuevillet and her husband, the Dukes of * Mazarin was an Italian, and the Pope's Legate at Paris. He entered the service of Richelieu, who recommended him as Minister after his death. He had not the genius or firmness of the French Cardinal, but, by subtlety and diplomatic skill, he achieved his ends none the less surely. He left a large fortune to his five nieces, who were all beautiful, and made grand alliances. The young king was greatly enamoured of one of them, but she was sent away from Paris by the cautious Mazarin. Two of these ladies afterwards separated from their husbands, and became noted for their romantic adventures. One of them had a liaison with Charles II. of England, and died in London. This lady, equally celebrated for her beauty and intelligence, was an ardent champion of the Fronde. She induced Marshal Turenne, and afterwards the Duke de La Rochefoucauld, to join it. The latter was greatly enamoured of the lovely Duchess, and commemorated it in the well-known lines "Pour mériter son cœur, pour plaire à ses beaux yeux, Beaufort and La Rochefoucauld, and many other aristocratic leaders, made a tour of the provinces, calling on them to rise against the Throne. As in the days of Richelieu, the rebellious Nobles sought foreign as well as domestic aid-the Prince of Condé having made a secret alliance with Spain. After numerous vicissitudes, Mazarin was again forced to resign his post; but on the arrest of several of the chief leaders of the Fronde, he was able to return to power and put an end to the Rebellion in 1653. With the fall of the Fronde, the Feudal System, which once exercised sovereign sway over the dismembered territory of France, sank into the tomb; and upon it was built the solid foundations of the Monarchy, now left without a rival to dispute its monopoly of power. TRIUMPH OF THE MONARCHY. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. LOUIS XIV. spoke truly when he declared, l'état, c'est moi-" the state, that's me"-for his will was law. Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem. The Clergy who had dominated France during the Dark Ages, and the feudal Nobles who had held sway over it during the Middle Ages, were now both bereft of political influence; and the Monarchy, which had resisted the one and struggled against the other, emerged at last triumphant. The King was now more absolute than ever the Clergy or the Nobles had been, and the abuse of power was just as great. Though the Monarchy was thus omnipotent, the Nobles, however, still retained their estates and many important privileges; amongst others, exemption from taxation. The Feudal System, so far as the authority of the Crown was concerned, was broken down in 1653; but, for all the rest, it remained in force till the Revolution of 1789 blotted it out entirely. "The relations the nobles bore to the throne," says Buckle, "became entirely changed; that which they bore to the people remained almost the same. In England, slavery or villenage quickly diminished, and was extinct by the end of the sixteenth century, but in France it lingered two hundred years later." It is certainly an astonishing fact that up to the French Revolution of 1789 the Lower Class was divided into two categories-those who were free, and those who still remained in a servile condition. Cassagnac, in his work on the Revolution, states that "in 1789 there still existed in France one million and five hundred thousand serfs." It was only a short time before the Revolution that Louis XVI. abolished serfdom in the royal domains. These facts are conclusive proof that the Feudal System was only finally eradicated by the tremendous tornado which covered France with ruins in 1789. The reader has now been presented with the conspicuous features of Feudality during the Middle Ages as they were revealed in France. It prevailed in all the countries of the Continent; but its aspect was everywhere the same, except in England, where its development received a check from causes that will be described. Gradually yielding to the pressure of events, Feudality has everywhere disappeared in Europe, save, as I have said, in Germany, where successive Emperors were not so successful in their struggles with the Barons as were the Kings of France. The consequence is, that up to our day Germany is still split up into a number of small baronial estates, where the heirs of feudal ancestors still retain the title and dignity of Sovereign over their hereditary domains; though the exercise of the old feudal rights has long been controlled by the growth of popular power. In discussing the merits of the Feudal System, we may assert that, while it had little to recommend it, it would be illogical to condemn it as worthless; since it was the natural product of the state of things then existing, and must have had a raison d'être, some purpose to fulfil, some end to accomplish. It certainly tended to diminish the utter disorganization into which society was thrown by the irruption of the barbarians. "The Feudal System," says Buckle, "was a vast scheme of policy, which, clumsy and imperfect as it was, supplied many of the wants of the rude people among whom it arose. The connection between it and the decline of the ecclesiastical spirit is very obvious; for the Feudal System was the first great secular plan that had been seen in Europe since the formation of the Roman civil law; it was the first comprehensive attempt which had been made during more than four hundred years to organise society according to temporal, and not according to spiritual circumstances." From the fifth to the tenth century, Europe was under the domination of the Ecclesiastics of the New Religion. During these Dark Ages their spiritual sway over the masses was unmolested, and even Charlemagne thought it expedient to conciliate the Clergy. Towards the end of the tenth century, however, the Lords of the soil thought themselves strong enough to defy clerical control; and they set up a Government which made them Sovereign each in their own domain, and equally independent of King or Pope. Up to this period the Priests of the young Christian Church enjoyed an undisputed supremacy; but when the Barons stepped into the field with a Government, not only temporal, but based on force, they encountered a rival they were not at first disposed to acknowledge. Hitherto the Clergy had been a privileged class. They were exempted from all the burdens of the State, and not called to do military service. They lost these immunities when Feudalism spread over Europe, and |