The Ancient Regime. Taine Hippolyte

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СКАЧАТЬ in the time of Charlemagne as at the present day.]

      1107 (return) [ Taine's definition would also fit contemporary (1999) drugs and video entertainment which also provide mankind with both hope, pleasure and entertainment. (SR.)]

      1108 (return) [ There are twenty-five thousand lives of the saints, between the sixth and the tenth centuries, collected by the Bollandists.—The last that are truly inspired are those of St. Francis of Assisi and his companions at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The same vivid sentiment extends down to the end of the fifteenth century in the works of Fra Angelico and Hans Memling.—The Sainte Chapelle in Paris, the upper church at Assisi, Dante's Paradise, and the Fioretti, furnish an idea of these visions. As regards modern literature, the state of a believer's soul in the middle ages is perfectly described in the "Pélerinage à Kevlaar," by Henri Heine, and in "Les Reliques vivantes," by Tourgueneff.]

      1109 (return) [ As, for example, Tertulle, founder of the Platagenet family, Rollo, Duke of Normandy, Hugues, Abbot of St. Martin of Tours and of St. Denis.]

      1110 (return) [ See the "Cantilenes" of the tenth century in which the "Chansons de Geste" are foreshadowed.]

      1111 (return) [ Laws governing the feudal system (1372) where the feudal lord is unable to transmit his property by testament but has to leave them to the next holder of the title. The "mainmortables" were serfs who belonged to the property. (SR.)]

      1112 (return) [ See in the "Voyages du Caillaud," in Nubia and Abyssinia, the raids for slaves made by the Pacha's armies; Europe presented about the same spectacle between the years 800 and 900.]

      1113 (return) [ See the zeal of subjects for their lords in the historians of the middle ages; Gaston Phoebus, Comte de Foix, and Guy, Comte de Flandres in Froissart; Raymond de Béziers and Raymond de Toulouse, in the chronicle of Toulouse. This profound sentiment of small local patrimonics is apparent at each provincial assembly in Normandy, Brittany, Franche-Comté, etc.]

      1114 (return) [ Suger, Life of Louis VI.]

      1115 (return) [ "Les Grand Jours d'Auvergne," by Fléchier, ed. Chéruel. The last feudal brigand, the Baron of Plumartin, in Poitou, was taken, tried, and beheaded under Louis XV in 1756.]

      1116 (return) [ As late as Louis XV a procès verbal is made of a number of cures of the King's evil.]

      1117 (return) [ "Mémoires of Madame Campan," I. 89; II. 215.]

      1118 (return) [ In 1785 an Englishman visiting France boasts of the political liberty enjoyed in his country. As an offset to this the French reproach the English for having decapitated Charles I., and "glory in having always maintained an inviolable attachment to their own king; a fidelity, a respect which no excess or severity on his part has ever shaken." ("A Comparative View of the French and of the English Nation," by John Andrews, p.257.)]

      1119 (return) [ Memoirs of D'Augeard, private secretary of the Queen, and a former farmer-general.]

      1120 (return) [ The following is the reply of Louis XV. to the Parliament of Paris, March 3, 1766, in a lit de justice: "The sovereign authority is vested in my person … The legislative power, without dependence and without division, exists in myself alone. Public security emanates wholly from myself; I am its supreme custodian. My people are one only with me; national rights and interests, of which an attempt is made to form a body separate from those of the monarch, are necessarily combined with my own, and rests only in my hands."]

CHAPTER II. THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES.

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I. Number of the Privileged Classes.

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The privileged classes number about 270,000 persons, comprising of the nobility, 140,000 and of the clergy 130,000.1201 This makes from 25,000 to 30,000 noble families; 23,000 monks in 2,500 monasteries, and 37,000 nuns in 1,500 convents, and 60,000 curates and vicars in as many churches and chapels. Should the reader desire a more distinct impression of them, he may imagine on each square league of territory1202, and to each thousand of inhabitants, one noble family in its weathercock mansion. In each village there is a curate and his church, and, every six or seven leagues, a community of men or of women. We have here the ancient chieftains and founders of France; thus entitled, they still enjoy many possessions and many rights.

II. Their Possessions, Capital, and Revenue.

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Let us always keep in mind what they were, in order to comprehend what they are. Great as their advantages may be, these are merely the remains of still greater advantages. This or that bishop or abbot, this or that count or duke, whose successors make their bows at Versailles, was formerly the equals of the Carlovingians and the first Capets. A Sire de Montlhéry held King Philippe I in check.1203 The abbey of St. Germain des Prés possessed 430,000 hectares of land (about 900,000 acres), almost the extent of an entire department. We need not be surprised that they remained powerful, and, especially, rich; no stability is greater than that of an associative body. After eight hundred years, СКАЧАТЬ