he country around Clermont, the gamekeepers of Prince de Conde in the
springtime took litters of wolves and raised them in the dry moats of
the chateau. They were freed in the beginning of the winter, and the
wolf hunting team would then hunt them later. But they ate the sheep,
and, here and there, a child.]

[Footnote 1356: The estates of the king encompassed in forest one
million acres, not counting forests in the appanages set aside for his
eldest son or for factories or salt works.]

[Footnote 1357: De Montlosier, "Memoires," I. 175.]

CHAPTER IV. PUBLIC SERVICES DUE BY THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES.

I. England compared to France.

An English example.--The Privileged class renders no service
in France.--The influence and rights which remain to them.--
They use it only for themselves.

Useless in the canton, they might have been useful at the Center of the
State, and, without taking part in the local government, they might have
served in the general government. Thus does a lord, a baronet, a
squire act in England, even when not a "justice" of his county or a
committee-man in his parish. Elected a member of the Lower House, a
hereditary member of the upper house, he holds the strings of the public
purse and prevents the sovereign from spending too freely. Such is the
regime in countries where the feudal seigniors, instead of allowing
the sovereign to ally himself with the people against them, allied
themselves with the people against the sovereign. To protect their own
interests better they secured protection for the interests of others,
and, after having served as the representatives of their compeers they
became the representatives of the nation. Nothing of this kind takes
place in France. The States-General are fallen into desuetude, and
the king may with truth declare himself the sole representative of the
country. Like trees rendered lifeless under the shadow of a gigantic
oak, other public powers perish through his growth; whatever still
remains of these encumbers the ground, and forms around him a circle of
clambering briers or of decaying trunks. One of them, the Parliament,
an offshoot simply of the great oak, sometimes imagined itself
in possession of a root of its own; but its sap was too evidently
derivative for it to stand by itself and provide the people with an
independent shelter. Other bodies, surviving, although stunted, the
assembly of the clergy and the provincial assembl