icipal freedom outlived the feudal system. Long after the
landlords were no longer the rulers of the country districts, the towns
still retained the right of self-government.

In most instances the government of the towns was vested in two
assemblies. All the great towns were thus governed, and some of the
small ones. The first of these assemblies was composed of municipal
officers, more of less numerous according to the place. These municipal
officers never received any stipend, but they were remunerated by
exemptions from taxation and by privileges.

The second assembly, which was termed the general assembly, elected the
corporation, wherever it was still subject to election, and always
continued to take a part in the principal concerns of the town.

If we turn from the towns to the villages, we meet with different powers
and different forms of government.

In the eighteenth century the number and the name of the parochial
officers varied in the different provinces of France. In most of the
parishes they were, in the eighteenth century, reduced to two
persons--the one named the "collector," the other most commonly named
the "syndic." Generally, these parochial officers were either elected,
or supposed to be so; but they had everywhere become the instruments of
the state rather than the representatives of the community. The
collector levied the _taille_, or common tax, under the direct orders of
the intendant. The syndic, placed under the daily direction of the
sub-delegate of the intendant, represented that personage in all matters
relating to public order or affecting the government. He became the
principal agent of the government in relation to military service, to
the public works of the state, and to the execution of the general laws
of the kingdom.

Down to the revolution the rural parishes of France had preserved in
their government something of that democratic aspect which they had
acquired in the Middle Ages. The democratic assembly of the parish could
express its desires, but it had no more power to execute its will than
the corporate bodies in the towns. It could not speak until its mouth
had been opened, for the meeting could not be held without the express
permission of the intendant, and, to use the expression of those times,
which adapted language to the fact, "_under his good pleasure_."

_III.--The Ruin of the Nobility_

If we carefully examine the state of society in France before the
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