merous, and many of which had greatly
decayed in wealth and influence; and an inferior class whose nobility was
derived from their possession of office under the crown in any part of the
kingdom. Even tax-gatherers and surveyors, if appointed by royal warrant,
could claim the rank; and new offices were continually being created and
sold which conferred the same title. Those so ennobled were not reckoned
the equals of the higher class. They could not even be received at court
until their patents were four hundred years old, but they had a right to
vote as nobles at elections to any representative body. Those whose
patents were twenty-four years old could be elected as representatives;
and from the moment of their creation they all enjoyed great exemptions;
so that, as the lowest estimate reckoned their numbers at a hundred
thousand, it is a matter for some wonder how the taxes to which they did
not contribute produced any thing worth collecting. It was, of course,
manifest that the exemptions enormously increased the burden to be borne
by the classes which did not enjoy such privileges.

But, heavy as the grievance of these exemptions was, it was as nothing
when compared with the feudal rights claimed by the greater nobles. The
peasants on their estates were forced to grind their corn at the lord's
mill, to press their grapes at his wine-press, paying for such act
whatever price he might think fit to exact, and often having their crops
wholly wasted or spoiled by the delays which such a system engendered. The
game-laws forbade them to weed their fields lest they should disturb the
young partridges or leverets; to manure the soil with any thing which
might injure their flavor; or even to mow or reap till the grass or corn
was no longer required as shelter for the young coveys. Some of the rights
of seigniory, as it was called, were such as can hardly be mentioned in
this more decorous age; some were so ridiculous that it is inconceivable
how their very absurdity had not led to their abolition. In the marshy
districts of Brittany, one right enjoyed by the great nobles was "the
silence of the frogs,[14]" which, whenever the lady was confined, bound
the peasants to spend their days and nights in beating the swamps with
long poles to save her from being disturbed by their inharmonious
croaking. And if this or any other feudal right was dispensed with, it was
only commuted for a money payment, which was little less burdensome.