eat of their castles. During the reign of Francis the First, and
still more during the reign of his immediate successors, costly palaces
for the accommodation of princely and ducal families were reared in the
neighborhood of the Louvre.[11] It was currently reported that more than
one fortune had been squandered in the hazardous experiment of
maintaining a pomp befitting the courtier. Ultimately the poorer
grandees were driven to the adoption of the wise precaution of spending
only a quarter of the year in the enticing but dangerous vicinity of the
throne.[12]

[Sidenote: The cities.]

The cities, also, whose extensive privileges had constituted one of the
most striking features of the political system of mediaeval Europe, had
been shorn of their exorbitant claims founded upon royal charters or
prescriptive usage. The kings of France, in particular, had favored the
growth of the municipalities, in order to secure their assistance in the
reduction of refractory vassals. Flourishing trading communities had
sprung up on the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea and of the ocean, and
on the banks of the navigable rivers emptying into them. These
corporations had secured a degree of independence proportioned, for the
most part, to the weakness of their neighbors. The policy of the crown
had been, while generously conferring privileges of great importance
upon the cities lying within the royal domain, to make still more lavish
concessions in favor of the municipalities upon or contiguous to the
lands of the great feudatories.[13]

[Sidenote: The capital.]

No sooner, however, did the humiliation of the landed nobility render it
superfluous to conciliate the good-will of the proud and opulent
citizens, than the readiest means were sought for reducing them to the
level of ordinary subjects. Paris especially, once almost a republic,
had of late learned submission and docility.[14] By the change, however,
the capital had lost neither wealth nor inhabitants, being described as
very rich and populous, covering a vast area, and wholly given up to
trade.[15] In the absence of an accurate census, the number of its
inhabitants was variously stated at from 300,000 souls to nearly thrice
as many; but all accounts agreed in placing Paris among the foremost
cities of the civilized world.[16]

[Sidenote: Military resources.]

With the military resources at his command, the king had the means of
rendering himself formidable abroad and secur