SIXTEENTH LECTURE.

Of the third estate in France-Importance of its history-It has been the most active and decisive element of our civilization-Novelty of this fact; nothing resembling it had hitherto been found in the history of the world-Its nationality; it was in France that the third estate took its whole development-Important distinction between the third estate and the boroughs-The formation of boroughs in the 11th and 12th centuries -Extent and power of this movement-Various systems to explain it— They are narrow and incomplete-Variety of the origins of the bourgeoisie at this epoch-1. Towns in which the Roman municipal system survived-2. Cities and towns in progress, although not erected into boroughs-3. Boroughs, properly so called-Combination of these various elements for the formation of the third estate.

I AT first placed before you feudal society, properly so called, its various elements, their relations and their vicissitudes. We have just seen a power arise and increase, both within and without feudal society, a power foreign to feudal powers, of another origin, another nature, destined to contend with and to abolish them: I mean royalty. We shall now see another society likewise arise and increase, both within and without feudal society, of another origin, an other nature, likewise destined to contend with, and to abolish it; I speak of the commons, the bourgeoisie, the third

estate.

The importance of this part of our history is evident Every one knows the important part which the third estate has played in France; it has been the most active, the most decisive element of French civilization, that which, after all that can be said, has determined its direction and its cha racter. Considered under a social point of view, and in its relation with the various classes which co-existed in our ter

VOL. III.

ritory, what has been called the third estate has progressively extended and elevated itself, and at first powerfully modified, then overcome, and finally absorbed, or nearly absorbed, all the others. If it is seen in a political point of view, if we follow the third estate in its relations with the general government of the country, we first see it united for six centuries with royalty, incessantly labouring for the ruin of the feudal aristocracy, and to establish in its place an unique, central power, pure monarchy, closely neighbouring, in principle at least, upon absolute monarchy. But when it had carried this victory, and accomplished this revolution, the third estate pursues a new one; it encounters this unique, absolute power, which it had so greatly contributed to establish, undertakes to change pure monarchy into constitutional monarchy, and equally succeeds in it.

Accordingly, under whatever aspect it is viewed, whether we study the progressive formation of society, or that of the government in France, the third estate is an immense fact in our history. It is the most powerful of the forces which have presided at our civilization.

This fact is not only immense, it is new, and without example in the history of the world; until modern Europe, until France, nothing resembling the history of the third estate is visible. I will rapidly place before you the principal nations of Asia and ancient Europe: you will see in their destinies almost all the great facts which have agitated our own; you will see there the mixture of various races, the conquest of a nation by a nation, conquerors established over the conquered, profound inequalities between classes, frequent vicissitudes in the forms of government and the extent of power. Nowhere will you encounter a class of society which, setting forth low, weak, contemned, almost imperceptible at its origin, elevates itself by a continued movement and an incessant labour, strengthens itself from epoch to epoch, successively invades and absorbs all which surrounds it, power, wealth, rights, influence, changes the nature of society, the nature of government, and at last becomes so predominant that we may call it the country itself. More than once, in the history of the world, the external appearances of the social state have been the same as those of the epoch which occupies us; but they are mere appearances. I will place

before you the four or five greatest nations of Asia; you will find that they offer nothing resembling the fact which I now point out to you.

In India, for example, foreign invasions, the passage and establishment of various races on the same soil, are frequently repeated. What is the result? The permanence of castes was not affected; society remained divided into distinct and almost immovable classes. There is no invasion of one caste by another; no general abolition of the system of castes by the triumph of one among them. After India, take China. There also history shows many conquests analogous to that of modern Europe by the Germans; more than once barbarous conquerors were established amidst a nation of conquered people. What was the consequence? The conquered almost absorbed the conquering, and immovability was still the predominant character of the country. Look at the Turks and their history in Western Asia; the separation of the conquerors and the conquered remained invincible. It was not in the power of any class of society, of any event of history, to abolish this first effect of conquest. The state of Asia Minor, of the portion of Europe which the Turks invaded, is at present almost what it was at the outset of the invasion. In Persia, analogous events followed one another; various races collected and mingled; they only ended an immense, insurmountable anarchy, which has lasted for centuries, without the social state of the country changing, without there being any movement and progress, without our being able to distinguish any development of civilization.

I only present to you very general, very cursory views; but the great fact I seek is there shown sufficiently; you will not find, in all the history of Asiatic nations, despite the similitude of certain events and of some external appearances, you will not find, I say, anything which resembles what happened in Europe in the history of the third estate.

Let us approach ancient Europe, Greek and Roman Europe; at the first instant you will think you recognise some analogy; do not deceive yourself: it is only external, and the resemblance is not real; there also there is no example of the third estate, and of its destiny in modern Europe. I need not detain you with the history of the Greek republics; they evidently offer no analogous feature. The only

fact which, to intelligent minds, at all resembles the struggle of the burghers against the feudal aristocracy, is that of the plebeians and the patricians of Rome; they have been more than once compared. It is an entirely false comparison; and before I say why it is so, see the following simple and striking proof. The struggle between the Roman plebeians and patricians commenced from the cradle of the republic. It was not, as it was with us in the middle ages, a result of the slow, difficult, incomplete development of a class long far inferior in power, wealth and credit, which gradually extends, elevates itself, and ends by engaging in an actual combat with the superior class. The plebeians struggled against the patricians at once, from the origin of the state. This fact is clear in itself, and the fine researches of Niebuhr have fully explained it. Niebuhr has proved, in his History of Rome, that the struggle of the plebeians against the patricians was not the progressive and laborious enfranchisement of a class for a long time debased and miserable, but a consequence, and, as it were, a prolongation of the war of conquest, the effort of the aristocracy of the cities conquered by Rome to participate in the rights of the conquering aristocracy.

The plebeian families were the principal families of the conquered populations; transplanted to Rome, and placed, by defeat, in an inferior position, they were not the less aristocratic, rich families, surrounded with clients recently powerful in their city, and capable, at once, of disputing for power with their conquerors. Assuredly there is nothing here which resembles that slow, obscure, painful labour, of the modern bourgeoisie, escaping with infinite trouble from the heart of servitude, or from a condition neighbouring upon servitude, and employing centuries, not to dispute the political power, but to conquer its civil existence. Our third estate is, I repeat, a new fact, hitherto without example in the history of the world, and which exclusively belongs to the civilization of modern Europe.

Not only is this a great and a new fact, but for us it has quite a peculiar interest; for, to use an expression which is much abused in the present day, it is an eminently French fact, essentially national. Nowhere has the bourgeoisie, the third estate, received so complete a development, had so vast so fertile a destiny as in France. There have been boroughs

in all Europe, in Italy, in Spain, in Germany, in England, as well as in France, and not only have there been boroughs cverywhere, but the boroughs of France are not those which, as boroughs, under that name, and in the middle ages, have played the greatest part and held the most important place in history. The Italian boroughs gave birth to glorious republics; the German boroughs have become free, sovereign towns, which have had their particular history, and have exercised great influence in the general history of Germany; the boroughs of England were united to a portion of the feudal aristocracy, have formed with them one of the houses of parliament, the preponderating house of the British parliament, and thus early played a powerful part in the history of their country. The French boroughs, in the middle ages and under that name, were far from being elevated to that political importance, that historical rank; and yet it was in France that the population of the boroughs, the bourgeoisie, was the most completely, the most efficaciously developed, and finished by acquiring the most decided preponderance in society. There have been boroughs throughout Europe, there has been a third estate in France only. That third estate which in 1789 brought on the French revolution, is a destiny and power which belongs to our history, and which we should vainly seek elsewhere.

Thus, under every relation, this fact has a right to our most lively interest; it is great, it is new, it is national; no source of importance and attraction is wanting to it. We must therefore give it a particular attention. I cannot in the present course present it to you in its whole extent, nor make you present at the progressive development of the third estate; but I shall endeavour, in the short time which remains, to point out with some precision what were the principal phases of it from the eleventh to the fourteenth century.

For a long time men connected the origin, the first formation of the French boroughs to the twelfth century, and they have attributed that origin to the policy and the intervention of kings. In our time, this system has been disputed, and with advantage; it has been maintained, on the one hand, that the boroughs were much more ancient than has been supposed; that under this name or under analogous names, they ascend far beyond the twelfth century; on the other