sinecures held by nobles, the forbidding to leading
nobles of unauthorized levies of soldiery, some stipulations regarding
the working clergy and the non-residence of bishops; and in the midst of
all these demands, as a golden grain amid husks, they placed a demand
for the emancipation of the serfs.

But these demands were sneered at. The idea of the natural equality in
rights of all men,--the idea of the personal worth of every man,--the
idea that rough-clad workers have prerogatives which can be whipped out
by no smooth-clad idlers,--these ideas were as far beyond serf-owners
of those days as they are beyond slave-owners of these days. Nothing was
done. Augustin Thierry is authority for the statement that the clergy
were willing to yield something. The nobles would yield nothing. The
different orders quarrelled until one March morning in 1615, when, on
going to their hall, they were barred out and told that the workmen were
fitting the place for a Court ball. And so the deputies separated,--to
all appearance no new work done, no new ideas enforced, no strong men
set loose.

So it was in seeming,--so it was not in reality. Something had been
done. That assembly planted ideas in the French mind which struck more
and more deeply, and spread more and more widely, until, after a century
and a half, the Third Estate met again and refused to present petitions
kneeling,--and when king and nobles put on their hats, the commons put
on theirs,--and when that old brilliant stroke was again made, and the
hall was closed and filled with busy carpenters and upholsterers, the
deputies of the people swore that great tennis-court oath which blasted
French tyranny.

But something great was done _immediately_; to that suffering nation a
great man was revealed. For, when the clergy pressed their requests,
they chose as their orator a young man only twenty-nine years of age,
the Bishop of Lucon, ARMAND JEAN DU PLESSIS DE RICHELIEU.

He spoke well. His thoughts were clear, his words pointed, his bearing
firm. He had been bred a soldier, and so had strengthened his will;
afterwards he had been made a scholar, and so had strengthened his mind.
He grappled with the problems given him in that stormy assembly with
such force that he seemed about to _do_ something; but just then came
that day of the Court ball, and Richelieu turned away like the rest.

But men had seen him and heard him. Forget him they could not. From that
tremendous farce,