the tyranny of the great was reduced, and servitude
decreased. During the following centuries, the establishment of civic
bodies and the springing up of the middle classes (Fig. 20) made the
acquisition of liberty more easy and more general. Nevertheless, this
liberty was rather theoretical than practical; for if the nobles granted
it nominally, they gave it at the cost of excessive fines, and the
community, which purchased at a high price the right of
self-administration, did not get rid of any of the feudal charges imposed
upon it.

[Illustration: Fig. 20.--Bourgeois at the End of Thirteenth
Century.--Fac-simile of Miniature in Manuscript No. 6820, in the National
Library of Paris.]

Fortunately for the progress of liberty, the civic bodies, as if they had
been providentially warned of the future in store for them, never
hesitated to accept from their lords, civil or ecclesiastical, conditions,
onerous though they were, which enabled them to exist in the interior of
the cities to which they belonged. They formed a sort of small state,
almost independent for private affairs, subject to the absolute power of
the King, and more or less tied by their customs or agreements with the
local nobles. They held public assemblies and elected magistrates, whose
powers embraced both the administration of civil and criminal justice,
police, finance, and the militia. They generally had fixed and written
laws. Protected by ramparts, each possessed a town-hall (_hotel de
ville_), a seal, a treasury, and a watch-tower, and it could arm a certain
number of men, either for its own defence or for the service of the noble
or sovereign under whom it held its rights.

In no case could a community such as this exist without the sanction of
the King, who placed it under the safeguard of the Crown. At first the
kings, blinded by a covetous policy, only seemed to see in the issue of
these charters an excellent pretext for extorting money. If they consented
to recognise them, and even to help them against their lords, it was on
account of the enormous sacrifices made by the towns. Later on, however,
they affected, on the contrary, the greatest generosity towards the
vassals who wished to incorporate themselves, when they had understood
that these institutions might become powerful auxiliaries against the
great titulary feudalists; but from the reign of Louis XI., when the power
of the nobles was much diminished, and no longer inspired any terror