distributed forms; 1st, men living on income from their properties, real or personal, land or capital, without seeking to increase them by their own personal and assiduous labor; 2d, men devoted to working up and increasing, by their own personal and assiduous labor, the real or personal properties, land or capital they possess; 3d, men living by their daily labor, without land or capital to give them an income. And these differences, these inequalities in the social position of men, are not matters of accident or violence, or peculiar to such and such a time, or such and such a country; they are matters of universal application, produced spontaneously in every human society by virtue of the primitive and general laws of human nature, in the midst of events and under the influence of social systems utterly different.
These matters exist now and in France as they did of old and elsewhere. Whether you do or do not use the name of classes, the new French social fabric contains, and will not cease to contain, social positions widely different and unequal. What constitutes its blessing and its glory is, that privilege and fixity no longer cling to this difference of positions; that there are no more special rights and advantages legally assigned to some and inaccessible to others; that all roads are free and open to all to rise to everything; that personal merit and toil have an infinitely greater share than was ever formerly allowed to them in the fortunes of men. The third estate of the old regimen exists no more; it disappeared in its victory over privilege and absolute power; it has for heirs the middle classes, as they are now called; but these classes, whilst inheriting the conquests of the old third estate, hold them on new conditions also, as legitimate as binding. To secure their own interests, as well as to discharge their public duty, they are bound to be at once conservative and liberal; they must, on the one hand, enlist and rally beneath their flag the old, once privileged superioritics, which have survived the fall of the old regimen, and, on the other hand, fully recognize the continual upward movement which is fermenting in the whole body of the nation. That, in its relations with the aristocratic classes, the third estate of the old regimen should have been and for a long time remained uneasy, disposed to take umbrage, jealous and even envious, is no more than natural; it had its rights to urge and its conquests to gain; nowadays its conquests have been won, the rights are recognized, proclaimed, and exercised; the middle classes have no longer any legitimate ground for uneasiness or envy; they can rest with full confidence in their own dignity and their own strength; they have undergone all the necessary trials, and passed all the necessary tests. In respect of the lower orders, and the democracy properly so called, the position of the middle classes is no less favorable; they have no fixed line of separation; for who can say where the middle classes begin and where they end? In the name of the principles of common rights and general liberty they were formed; and by the working of the same principles they are being constantly recruited, and are incessantly drawing new vigor from the sources whence they sprang. To maintain common rights and free movement upwards against the retrograde tendencies of privilege and absolute power, on the one hand, and on the other against the insensate and destructive pretensions of levellers and anarchists, is now the double business of the middle classes; and it is at the same time, for themselves, the sure way of preserving preponderance in the state, in the name of general interests, of which those classes are the most real and most efficient representatives.
On reaching, in our history, the period at which Philip the Handsome, by giving admission amongst the states-general to the “burghers of the good towns,” substituted the third estate for the communes, and the united action of the three great classes of Frenchmen for their local struggles, we did well to halt a while, in order clearly to mark the position and part of the new actor in the great drama of national life. We will now return to the real business of the drama, that is, to the history of France, which became, in the fourteenth century, more complex, more tragic, and more grand than it had ever yet been.
CHAPTER XX.
THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR.—PHILIP VI. AND JOHN II.
We have just been spectators at the labor of formation of the French kingship and the French nation. We have seen monarchical unity and national unity rising, little by little, out of and above the feudal system, which had been the first result of barbarians settling upon the ruins of the Roman empire. In the fourteenth century, a new and a vital question arose: Will the French dominion preserve its nationality? Will the kingship remain French, or pass to the foreigner? This question brought ravages upon France, and kept her fortunes in suspense for a hundred years of war with England, from the reign of Philip of Valois to that of Charles VII.; and a young girl of Lorraine, called Joan of Arc, had the glory of communicating to France that decisive impulse which brought to a triumphant issue the independence of the French nation and kingship.
As we have seen in the preceding chapter, the elevation of Philip of Valois to the throne, as representative of the male line amongst the descendants of Hugh Capet, took place by virtue, not of any old written law, but of a traditional right, recognized and confirmed by two recent resolutions taken at the death of the two eldest sons of Philip the Handsome. The right thus promulgated became at once a fact accepted by the whole of France; Philip of Valois had for rival none but a foreign prince, and “there was no mind in France,” say contemporary chroniclers, “to be subjects of the King of England.” Some weeks after his accession, on the 29th of May, 1328, Philip was crowned at Rheims, in presence of a brilliant assemblage of princes and lords, French and foreign; and next year, on the 6th of June, Edward III., King of England, being summoned to fulfil a vassal’s duties by doing homage to the King of France for the duchy of Aquitaine, which he held, appeared in the cathedral of Amiens, with his crown on his head, his sword at his side, and his gilded spurs on his heels. When he drew near to the throne, the Viscount de Melun, king’s chamberlain, invited him to lay aside his crown, his sword, and his spurs, and go down on his knees before Philip. Not without a murmur, Edward obeyed; but when the chamberlain said to him, “Sir, you, as Duke of Aquitaine, became liegeman of my lord the king who is here, and do promise to keep towards him faith and loyalty,” Edward protested, saying that he owed only simple homage, and not liege-homage—a closer bond, imposing on the vassal more stringent obligations [to serve and defend his suzerain against every enemy whatsoever]. “Cousin,” said Philip to him, “we would not deceive you, and what you have now done contenteth us well until you have returned to your own country, and seen from the acts of your predecessors what you ought to do.”
“Gramercy, dear sir,” answered the King of England; and with the reservation he had just made, and which was added to the formula of homage, he placed his hands between the hands of the King of France, who kissed him on the mouth, and accepted his homage, confiding in Edward’s promise to certify himself by reference to the archives of England of the extent to which his ancestors had been bound. The certification took place, and on the 30th of March, 1331, about two years after his visit to Amiens, Edward III. recognized, by letters express, “that the said homage which we did at Amiens to the King of France in general terms, is and must be understood as liege; and that we are bound, as Duke of Aquitaine and peer of France, to show him faith and loyalty.”
The relations between the two kings were not destined to be for long so courteous and so pacific. Even before the question of the succession to the throne of France arose between them they had adopted contrary policies. When Philip was crowned at Rheims, Louis de Nevers, Count of Flanders, repaired thither with a following of eighty-six knights, and he it was to whom the right belonged of carrying the sword of the kingdom. The heralds-at-arms repeated three times, “Count of Flanders, if you are here, come and do your duty.” He made no answer. The king was astounded, and bade him explain himself. “My lord,” answered the count, “may it please you not to be astounded; they called the Count of Flanders, and not Louis de Nevers.” “What then!” replied the king; “are you not the Count of Flanders?” “It is true, sir,”
