ging 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 chateaux; 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.

[Illustration: 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
mi