adily adopted ideal theories for the improvement of
social conditions. Moreover, there was no national unity, no coherence
of classes such as in former days brought strength to the government.
Monarchy was divided against itself; the lay nobility had no loyalty,
but were disintegrated by internal feuds; the people were divided into
opposing classes; the clergy were rent asunder.

Monarchy, though harsh, arbitrary, and unjust, did not have sufficient
coercive force to give a strong rule. The church had lost its moral
influence--indeed, morality was lacking within its organization. It
could persecute heretics and burn books which it declared to be
obnoxious to its doctrines, but it could not work a moral reform, much
less stem the tide that was carrying away its ancient prerogatives.
The nobility had no power in the government, and the dissension between
the crown, the nobility, and the church was continuous and {406}
destructive of all authority. Continuous and disreputable quarrels,
profligacy, extravagance, and idleness characterized each group.

Worst of all was the condition of the peasantry. The commons of
France, numbering twenty-five millions of people, had, let it be said
in their favor, no part in the iniquitous and oppressive government.
They were never given a thought by the rulers except as a means of
revenue. There had grown up another, a middle class, especially in
towns, who had grown wealthy by honest toil, and were living in ease
and luxury, possessed of some degree of culture. They disliked the
nobles, on the one hand, and the peasants, on the other; hated and
opposed the nobility and ignored the common people. This class did not
represent the sterling middle class of England or of modern life, but
were the product of feudalism.

The condition of the rural peasantry is almost beyond description.
Suffering from rack-rents, excessive taxation, and the abuses of the
nobility, they presented a squalor and wretchedness worse than that of
the lowest vassals of the feudal regime. In the large cities collected
the dangerous classes who hated the rich. Ignorant, superstitious,
half-starved, they were ready at a moment's notice to attack the
wealthy and to destroy property.

The economic and financial conditions of the nation were deplorable,
for the yield of wealth decreased under the poorly organized state.
The laborers received such wages as left them at the verge of
starvation and prepared them