des. Gradually a
strong concourse of civic powers was established, which succeeded in
electing a municipal council, composed of a provost of merchants, four
aldermen, and twenty-six councillors of the town. This council afterwards
succeeded in overstepping the royal influence at difficult times, and was
destined to play a prominent part in history.

There also sprang up a lower order of towns or boroughs than these
bourgeois cities, which were especially under the Crown. Not having
sufficient strength to claim a great amount of liberty, they were obliged
to be satisfied with a few privileges, conceded to them by the nobles, for
the most part with a political end. These were the Free Towns or New Towns
which we have already named.

However it came about, it is certain that although during the tenth
century feudal power was almost supreme in Europe, as early as the twelfth
century the municipal system had gained great weight, and was constantly
progressing until the policy of the kingdom became developed on a more and
more extended basis, so that it was then necessary for it to give up its
primitive nature, and to participate in the great movement of
consolidisation and national unity. In this way the position of the large
towns in the state relatively lost their individual position, and became
somewhat analogous, as compared with the kingdom at large, to that
formerly held by bourgeois in the cities. Friendly ties arose between
provinces; and distinct and rival interests were effaced by the general
aspiration towards common objects. The towns were admitted to the states
general, and the citizens of various regions mixed as representatives of
the _Tiers Etat_. Three orders thus met, who were destined to struggle for
predominance in the future.

We must call attention to the fact that, as M. Henri Martin says, by an
apparent contradiction, the fall of the Communes declared itself in
inverse ratio to the progress of the _Tiers Etat_. By degrees, as the
government became more settled from the great fiefs being absorbed by the
Crown, and as parliament and other courts of appeal which emanated from
the middle class extended their high judiciary and military authority, so
the central power, organized under monarchical form, must necessarily have
been less disposed to tolerate the local independence of the Communes. The
State replaced the Commune for everything concerning justice, war, and
administration. No doubt some valuabl