ported their lord's expenditure at court; and, thirdly, the tithes
and fees of the clergy. Besides which, they were called off from the
cultivation of their own fields for a certain number of days to work at
the roads; their horses might be used by royal messengers; their lord's
crops had to be got in by their labour gratis, while their own were
spoiling; and, in short, the only wonder is how they existed at all.
Their hovels and their food were wretched, and any attempt to amend
their condition on the part of their lord would have been looked on as
betokening dangerous designs, and probably have landed him in the
Bastille. The peasants of Brittany--where the old constitution had been
less entirely ruined--and those of Anjou were in a less oppressed
condition, and in the cities trade flourished. Colbert, the
comptroller-general of the finances, was so excellent a manager that the
pressure of taxation was endurable in his time, and he promoted new
manufactures, such as glass at Cherbourg, cloth at Abbeville, silk at
Lyons; he also tried to promote commerce and colonization, and to create
a navy. There was a great appearance of prosperity, and in every
department there was wonderful ability. The Reformation had led to a
considerable revival among the Roman Catholics themselves. The
theological colleges established in the last reign had much improved the
tone of the clergy. Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, was one of the most noted
preachers who ever existed, and Fenelon, Archbishop of Cambrai, one of
the best of men. A reform of discipline, begun in the convent of Port
Royal, ended by attracting and gathering together some of the most
excellent and able persons in France--among them Blaise Pascal, a man of
marvellous genius and depth of thought, and Racine, the chief French
dramatic poet. Their chief director, the Abbot of St. Cyran, was
however, a pupil of Jansen, a Dutch ecclesiastic, whose views on
abstruse questions of grace were condemned by the Jesuits; and as the
Port-Royalists would not disown the doctrines attributed to him, they
were discouraged and persecuted throughout Louis's reign, more because
he was jealous of what would not bend to his will than for any real want
of conformity. Pascal's famous "Provincial Letters" were put forth
during this controversy; and in fact, the literature of France reached
its Augustan age during this reign, and the language acquired its
standard perfection.

7. War in the Low Countri