chieved the French kingship. We have
traced its character and progressive development from the eleventh to the
fourteenth century, through the reigns of Louis the Fat, of Philip
Augustus, of St. Louis, and of Philip the Handsome, princes very diverse
and very unequal in merit, but all of them able and energetic. This
period was likewise the cradle of the French nation. That was the time
when it began to exhibit itself in its different elements, and to arise
under monarchical rule from the midst of the feudal system. Its earliest
features and its earliest efforts in the long and laborious work of its
development are now to be set before the reader's eyes.

The two words inscribed at the head of this chapter, the Communes and the
Third-Estate, are verbal expressions for the two great facts at that time
revealing that the French nation was in labor of formation. Closely
connected one with the other and tending towards the same end, these two
facts are, nevertheless, very diverse, and even when they have not been
confounded, they have not been with sufficient clearness distinguished
and characterized, each of them apart. They are diverse both in their
chronological date and their social importance. The Communes are the
first to appear in history. They appear there as local facts, isolated
one from another, often very different in point of origin, though
analogous in their aim, and in every case neither assuming nor pretending
to assume any place in the government of the state. Local interests and
rights, the special affairs of certain populations agglomerated in
certain spots, are the only objects, the only province of the communes.
With this purely municipal and individual character they come to their
birth, their confirmation, and their development from the eleventh to the
fourteenth century; and at the end of two centuries they enter upon their
decline, they occupy far less room and make far less noise in history.
It is exactly then that the Third Estate comes to the front, and uplifts
itself as a general fact, a national element, a political power. It is
the successor, not the contemporary, of the Communes; they contributed
much towards, but did not suffice for its formation; it drew upon other
resources, and was developed under other influences than those which gave
existence to the communes. It has subsisted, it has gone on growing
throughout the whole course of French history; and at the end of five
centuri