s; and whilst one was within an ace of drying up, the
others remained abundant and fruitful. Independently of the commune
properly so called and invested with the right of self-government, many
towns had privileges, serviceable though limited franchises, and under
the administration of the king's officers they grew in population and
wealth. These towns did not share, towards the end of the thirteenth
century, in the decay of the once warlike and victorious communes. Local
political liberty was to seek in them; the spirit of independence and
resistance did not prevail in them; but we see growing up in them another
spirit which has played a grand part in French history, a spirit of
little or no ambition, of little or no enterprise, timid even and
scarcely dreaming of actual resistance, but honorable, inclined to order,
persevering, attached to its traditional franchises, and quite able to
make them respected, sooner or later. It was especially in the towns
administered in the king's name and by his provosts that there was a
development of this spirit, which has long been the predominant
characteristic of French burgherdom. It must not be supposed that, in
the absence of real communal independence, these towns lacked all
internal security. The kingship was ever fearful lest its local officers
should render themselves independent, and remembered what had become in
the ninth century of the crown's offices, the duchies and the countships,
and of the difficulty it had at that time to recover the scattered
remnants of the old imperial authority. And so the Capetian kings with
any intelligence, such as Louis VI., Philip Augustus, St. Louis, and
Philip the Handsome, were careful to keep a hand over their provosts,
sergeants, and officers of all kinds, in order that their power should
not grow so great as to become formidable. At this time, besides,
Parliament and the whole judicial system was beginning to take form; and
many questions relating to the administration of the towns, many disputes
between the provosts and burghers, were carried before the Parliament of
Paris, and there decided with more independence and equity than they
would have been by any other power. A certain measure of impartiality is
inherent in judicial power; the habit of delivering judgment according to
written texts, of applying laws to facts, produces a natural and almost
instinctive respect for old-acquired rights. In Parliament the towns
often o