Unfortunately, the moral influence of this worthy princess died with her. Although the court of France continued to gather around it almost every sort of elegance, and although it continued during the whole of the sixteenth century the most polished of European courts, notwithstanding the great external and civil wars, yet it afforded at the same time a sad example of laxity of morals, which had a most baneful influence on public habits; so much so that vice and corruption descended from class to class, and contaminated all orders of society. If we wished to make investigations into the private life of the lower orders in those times, we should not succeed as we have been able to do with that of the upper classes; for we have scarcely any data to throw light upon their sad and obscure history. Bourgeois and peasants were, as we have already shown, long included together with the miserable class of serfs, a herd of human beings without individuality, without significance, who from their birth to their death, whether isolated or collectively, were the "property" of their masters. What must have been the private life of this degraded multitude, bowed down under the most tyrannical and humiliating dependence, we can scarcely imagine; it was in fact but a purely material existence, which has left scarcely any trace in history.

[Fig. 57.]--Louis de Mallet, Lord of Graville, Admiral of France, 1487, in Costume of War and Tournament, from an Engraving of the Sixteenth Century (National Library of Paris, Cabinet des Estampes).

Many centuries elapsed before the dawn of liberty could penetrate the social strata of this multitude, thus oppressed and denuded of all power of action. The development was slow, painful, and dearly bought, but at last it took place; first of all towns sprang up, and with them, or rather by their influence, the inhabitants became possessed of social life. The agricultural population took its social position many generations later.

As we have already seen, the great movement for the creation of communes and bourgeoisies only dates from the unsettled period ranging from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, and simultaneously we see the bourgeois appear, already rich and luxurious, parading on all occasions their personal opulence. Their private life could only be an imitation of that in the châteaux; by degrees as wealth strengthened and improved their condition, and rendered them independent, we find them trying to procure luxuries equal or analogous to those enjoyed by the upper classes, and which appeared to them the height of material happiness. In all times the small have imitated the great. It was in vain that the great obstinately threatened, by the exercise of their prerogatives, to try and crush this tendency to equality which alarmed them, by issuing pecuniary edicts, summary laws, coercive regulations, and penal ordinances; by the force of circumstances the arbitrary restrictions which the nobility laid upon the lower classes gradually disappeared, and the power of wealth displayed itself in spite of all their efforts to suppress it. In fact, occasions were not wanting in which the bourgeois class was able to refute the charge of unworthiness with which the nobles sought to stamp it. When taking a place in the council of the King, or employed in the administration of the provinces, many of its members distinguished themselves by firmness and wisdom; when called upon to assist in the national defence, they gave their blood and their gold with noble self-denial; and lastly, they did not fail to prove themselves possessed of those high and delicate sentiments of which the nobility alone claimed the hereditary possession.

[Fig. 58.]--Burgess of Ghent and his Wife, in ceremonial Attire, kneeling in Church, from a painted Window belonging to a Chapel in that Town (Fifteenth Century).

"The bourgeois," says Arnaud de Marveil, one of the most famous troubadours of the thirteenth century, "have divers sorts of merits: some distinguish themselves by deeds of honour, others are by nature noble and behave accordingly. There are others thoroughly brave, courteous, frank, and jovial, who, although poor, find means to please by graceful speech, frequenting courts, and making themselves agreeable there; these, well versed in courtesy and politeness, appear in noble attire, and figure conspicuously at the tournaments and military games, proving themselves good judges and good company."

Down to the thirteenth century, however rich their fathers or husbands might be, the women of the bourgeoisie were not permitted, without incurring a fine, to use the ornaments and stuffs exclusively reserved for the nobility. During the reigns of Philip Augustus and Louis IX., although these arbitrary laws were not positively abolished, a heavy blow was inflicted on them by the marks of confidence, esteem, and honour which these monarchs found pleasure in bestowing on the bourgeoisie. We find the first of these kings, when on the point of starting for a crusade, choosing six from amongst the principal members of the parloir aux bourgeois (it was thus that the first Hôtel de Ville, situated in the corner of the Place de la Grève, was named) to be attached to the Council of Regency, to whom he specially confided his will and the royal treasure. His grandson made a point of following his grandsire's example, and Louis IX. showed the same appreciation for the new element which the Parisian bourgeoisie was about to establish in political life by making the bourgeois Etienne Boileau one of his principal ministers of police, and the bourgeois Jean Sarrazin his chamberlain.

Under these circumstances, the whole bourgeoisie gloried in the marks of distinction conferred upon their representatives, and during the following reign, the ladies of this class, proud of their immense fortunes, but above all proud of the municipal powers held by their families, bedecked themselves, regardless of expense, with costly furs and rich stuffs, notwithstanding that they were forbidden by law to do so.

Then came an outcry on the part of the nobles; and we read as follows, in an edict of Philippe le Bel, who inclined less to the bourgeoisie than to the nobles, and who did not spare the former in matters of taxation:--"No bourgeois shall have a chariot nor wear gold, precious stones, or crowns of gold or silver. Bourgeois, not being either prelates nor dignitaries of state, shall not have tapers of wax. A bourgeois possessing two thousand pounds (tournois) or more, may order for himself a dress of twelve sous six deniers, and for his wife one worth sixteen sous at the most." The sou, which was but nominal money, may be reckoned as representing twenty francs, and the denier one franc, but allowance must be made for the enormous difference in the value of silver, which would make twenty francs in the thirteenth century represent upwards of two hundred francs of present currency.

[Fig. 59.]--The new-born Child, from a Miniature in the "Histoire de la Belle Hélaine" (Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, National Library of Paris).