direction of affairs under the title of lieutenant of the king and summoned the States-General to meet at Paris on Oct. 15. The clergy appeared in full force and about one hundred deputies from the towns, but so many of the nobility had fallen in the battle that the representation of that order was very light. Each order at first held separate sessions, but they soon chose commissioners from each to sit together. These numbered eighty in all. Charles, who is styled the Dauphin, appointed some of his officers to be present at their meetings, but they refused to proceed in their presence and the officers thereupon withdrew. After a few days they made their demands on Charles "that he should deprive of their offices such of the king's councillors as they should point out, have them arrested, and confiscate all their property." Twenty-two men, including the chancellor, president of parliament, king's steward and some officers of this household, were named. They also demanded that deputies called reformers should traverse the provinces as a check on the royal officials, and that twentyeight delegates chosen from the three orders, four prelates, twelve knights and twelve burgesses should be constantly placed near the king's person "with power to do and order everything in the kingdom just like the king himself, as well for the purpose of appointing and removing public officers as for other matters." The Dauphin asked time to consider and left Paris for Metz. During his absence the populace of Paris under the lead of Stephen Marcial became exasperated at an order for the debasement of the coin and compelled its suspension till the Dauphin's return, when they again rose and forced him to accede to the principal demands made by the States-General, and they were authorized to meet when they pleased. At a subsequent session of the States-General in March, 1357, a grand ordinance in sixty-one articles, enumerating the grievances complained of and prescribing redress for them, was drawn up, and a grand commission of thirty-six was appointed to meet together at Paris for ordering the affairs of the kingdom, whose orders all classes must obey. A period of turbulence followed, during which the populace of Paris took a leading part in public affairs. In February, 1558, under the lead of Marcial they entered the palace and killed the

marshals of Champagne and Normandy in the presence of the Dauphin. Marcial soon became dictator at Paris, and the Dauphin escaped to Senlis. He soon after convoked the States-General to meet at Compiegne. In response to his call the nobles and partisans of the murdered marshals turned out and demanded the execution of the murderers. While matters stood in this attitude there was an uprising of the peasants in Normandy and other provinces. They took and demolished many castles and killed many noblemen and their families. Marcial sent out a body of three hundred burghers to aid in taking the castle of Ermenonville, which was demolished and all the nobility in it put to death. The nobility under the lead of the Dauphin soon made common cause against the peasants, who were overcome and great numbers of them massacred. Marcial, as a last desperate expedient to save himself, called in the aid of the English and admitted a body of them into the city, but a quarrel broke out between them and the Parisians, in which a number of the English were killed. On July 31, 1358, while attempting to open the gates of the city to admit the king of Navarre and the English, Marcial was killed by the Parisians. The crude attempt of Marcial and his coadjutators to curb the tyranny of the king and nobility served only to show the lack of capacity for organization and concerted action on the part of the burghers and peasants. They were utterly wanting in regard for the rights of others and that self-restraint which is so essential to popular government. The authority of kings and feudal despots may be supported and maintained over an ignorant and debased multitude merely by armed force and regardless of mercy or justice, but, as Montesquieu ably points out, popular government can only rest securely on justice to each and to all. Marcial and Callet, the leader of the peasants, started out in a just cause, but soon adopted the methods of the authors of the wrongs of which the people complained. If they could have restrained their own passions and those of their followers, they might have accomplished great good, but the people of that age were not prepared for popular government. After Marcial's death, on the return of the Dauphin, the popular leaders were taken and summarily executed.

In the fall of 1359 Edward invaded France. After roaming about and pillaging the open country without laying seige to any of the strong towns he concluded the treaty Bretigny, May 1360, with the Dauphin, by which Aquitaine with enlarged boundaries was acknowledged as an English province freed from French sovereignty, and a ransom of 3,000,000 crowns was to be paid for King John's release. War over the succession to the throne of Castile was participated in by the French on one side and the English on the other, and in 1369 war was again declared by Charles V of France, which resulted in the recovery by the French of most of the territory ceded by the treaty of Bretigny without any decisive battles. Charles V died in 1380 and was succeeded by his son Charles VI then only twelve years old. In his reign civil discord as well as foreign war harassed and impoverished the country. The Burgundian and Orleans factions, with the foreign and domestic alliances peculiar to that age, kept up constant strife. The Flemish cities, in spite of their wars, grew and preserved much of their local freedom. In 1415 the famous battle of Azincourt was fought, in which the French sustained a crushing defeat and the loss of a great host of the nobility. The invention of gunpowder and changes in the military system, from the armored knights fighting on horseback without order or discipline, all serving for limited periods without pay in accordance with feudal law, was gradually changing into a more orderly system of paid and systematically organized troops. Gunpowder deprived the armored knight of most of his superiority over the unprotected and poorly armed foot soldier. The war between English and French dragged on under Charles VII, a very weak prince. The Burgundians aided the English. French fortunes reached a very low ebb till during the siege of Orleans by the English Joan of Arc appeared and with a magnetic force unique in history roused the spirit of the French and led them to victory. Though Edward III might treat a worthless prince like King John, while a prisoner, with such marked consideration as to make him really enjoy his captivity, when the pure-minded and lofty souled Joan fell into his hands, they burnt her as a witch and

heretic in 1431. With the withdrawal of the Burgundians from the English side the fortunes of the latter declined, and they were forced to withdraw from the interior. The long period of internal discord and English dominion in France drew toward its close. In 1439 the States-General were convened by Charles VII and a start was made toward the organization of a standing army and a regular system of taxation for its support. This aroused the hostility of the nobles, but Charles persisted and organized fifteen companies of one hundred lancers each which he set to work clearing the country of the robbers with which it was infested. In 1453 the English were driven from all their possessions except Calais, Havre and Guines Castle. The long struggle had tended to develop a national sentiment in France, and all the brilliant campaigns of the English were barren of profit.

After the close of the reign of Louis XI France entered on a career of contests and diplomacy with foreign states, with the details of which we are not concerned. Although the administrative system had not reached its full development, the structure of the French monarchy was already settled. The king was the state, and his authority was backed by military power. Under Charles VIII began those Italian wars, based on a claim to Naples and Sicily, which were productive of so much bloodshed and so little advantage. From this time forward the field of military operations widens and France plays a leading part among the nations of Europe. The distinct progress accomplished was the formation of a compact. state, developing an orderly though not a just system of intercourse with and knowledge of the other states of Europe, under which industry increased and knowledge was sought. Not to a changing form or theory of government during this period, but to other causes, must we look for the signs of progress and the growth of those sentiments of liberty and equality which blazed forth in the eighteenth century. The feudal system was the rule of local petty tyrants, who had no respect for, nor sympathy with, any class of laboring or trading people. The stratification of society was into the various feudal orders, with the serfs at the base and the king at the head, a ruler

whom his greatest subjects defied, and the churchmen professing brotherhood, but rigorously ruled by church officials. The enterprises carried on by feudal barons led to no discussion of the principles of social organization. The establishment of the power of the king on a more firm basis and the opening of the era of wars between great states had taken place by the reign of Francis I, 1524 to 1547. Then came that revolution which affected Europe and especially France so profoundly, the religious reformation. For centuries the Pope and catholic clergy had enjoyed not merely the distinction of rank in the religious world, but great temporal power and vast revenues. Fondness of display and love of power had become quite as characteristic of the popes and prelates as of the temporal sovereigns. The creed was tenaciously clung to, but the moral teachings of Christ were often forgotten. The sale of indulgences to do wrong shocked the moral sense of great numbers, in an age when great crimes were common. The state of society in France in the sixteenth century was peculiar. The government was in a stage of transition from the anarchy of feudalism to a kingly despotism. The law was a mixture of the Salic law of the Franks, the feudal principles and the Roman civil law. Religion was no longer the ritual of the church, but a faith for which men and women unhesitatingly gave up all earthly possessions and even life itself. Contemporaneously with the opening of the new world to view and the discovery of a water route to India and the east, there was an awakening to new conceptions of all things. The desire to discover new truths, to look deeper into nature and know more of man and of the moral obligations resting on him, was growing. This desire prompted inquiry, which at the same time produced turmoil and advancement. Though without any system of public schools for the multitude, France then occupied a leading position in its educational institutions. The great University of Paris, which had its beginnings in the twelfth century, had developed into a large institution, where many branches of learning were taught. Other universities had also been established at Montpelier, Toulouse, Orleans, Angers, Avignon, Cahors and Grenoble,