ity_, composing the
"Second Estate," and the working and trading classes, the "Third
Estate," or _Tiers Etat_.

Out of reverence for their spiritual office, precedence in rank was
given to the clergy. But the actual ruling class was the nobility.
The business of the clergy was to minister to souls. The business of
the nobility was warfare. That of the third estate, the toiling class,
being to _support the other two_. And whatever existed in the form of
property or wealth in feudal times was produced by the _Tiers Etat_.

The lowest stratum of the third estate was composed of "serfs." A serf
belonged absolutely, with all that he possessed, to his lord. He was
attached to his land, as are the trees which are rooted in it. There
was, however, a class of serfs above this whom we should now call
slaves, but who were by French law then designated as _Freemen_.

A freeman might go and come under certain restrictions. But this did
not by any means imply that he was freed from the proprietor to whom he
belonged, to whom he was inevitably bound for military service, or for
such contributions or claims as might be levied upon him.

As was to be expected, it was in the cities that this half-emancipated
class congregated; these cities as naturally becoming the centres of
the various industries required to supply the necessities and luxuries
of the two ruling classes. In this way there were being created
various centres of wealth, which meant power, and which would have to
be reckoned with in the future.

The thin edge of the wedge was inserted when individual freemen offered
money to their hard-pressed feudal lords in exchange for certain
privileges, and then for charters. And as more money was needed by
proprietors for their lavish expenditures, more freedom and more
charters were acquired, until, having purchased immunities and
privileges enough to make them to some extent self-governing, the town
became what was called a _commune_.

It was Louis VI., fifth king in the Capetian line, who completed this
work of emancipation by recognizing the communes as free cities, and
bestowing franchises clearly defining their rights. By this act the
body of the manufacturing class, or _burgesses_, was recognized as a
part of the body politic, and was _enfranchised_.

A free city was a small republic. The entire body of inhabitants must
take the communal oath, and when summoned by the tolling of the bell
must all appear at t