As early as the commencement of the third royal dynasty we find in the rural districts, as well as in the towns, a great number of free men:  and as the charters concerning the condition of lands and persons became more and more extended, the tyranny of the great was reduced, and servitude decreased.  During the following centuries, the establishment of civic bodies and the springing up of the middle classes (Fig. 20) made the acquisition of liberty more easy and more general.  Nevertheless, this liberty was rather theoretical than practical; for if the nobles granted it nominally, they gave it at the cost of excessive fines, and the community, which purchased at a high price the right of self-administration, did not get rid of any of the feudal charges imposed upon it.

[Illustration:  Fig. 20.—­Bourgeois at the End of Thirteenth Century.—­Fac-simile of Miniature in Manuscript No. 6820, in the National Library of Paris.]

Fortunately for the progress of liberty, the civic bodies, as if they had been providentially warned of the future in store for them, never hesitated to accept from their lords, civil or ecclesiastical, conditions, onerous though they were, which enabled them to exist in the interior of the cities to which they belonged.  They formed a sort of small state, almost independent for private affairs, subject to the absolute power of the King, and more or less tied by their customs or agreements with the local nobles.  They held public assemblies and elected magistrates, whose powers embraced both the administration of civil and criminal justice, police, finance, and the militia.  They generally had fixed and written laws.  Protected by ramparts, each possessed a town-hall (hotel de ville), a seal, a treasury, and a watch-tower, and it could arm a certain number of men, either for its own defence or for the service of the noble or sovereign under whom it held its rights.

In no case could a community such as this exist without the sanction of the King, who placed it under the safeguard of the Crown.  At first the kings, blinded by a covetous policy, only seemed to see in the issue of these charters an excellent pretext for extorting money.  If they consented to recognise them, and even to help them against their lords, it was on account of the enormous sacrifices made by the towns.  Later on, however, they affected, on the contrary, the greatest generosity towards the vassals who wished to incorporate themselves, when they had understood that these institutions might become powerful auxiliaries against the great titulary feudalists; but from the reign of Louis XI., when the power of the nobles was much diminished, and no longer inspired any terror to royalty, the kings turned against their former allies, the middle classes, and deprived them successively of all the prerogatives which could prejudice the rights of the Crown.

The middle classes, it is true, acquired considerable influence afterwards by participation in the general and provincial councils.  After having victoriously struggled against the clergy and nobility, in the assemblies of the three states or orders, they ended by defeating royalty itself.