Louis le Gros, in whose orders the style or title of bourgeois first appears (1134), is generally looked upon as the founder of the franchise of communities in France; but it is proved that a certain number of communities or corporations were already formally constituted, before his accession to the throne.

The title of bourgeois was not, however, given exclusively to inhabitants of cities.  It often happened that the nobles, with the intention of improving and enriching their domains, opened a kind of asylum, under the attractive title of Free Towns, or New Towns, where they offered, to all wishing to establish themselves, lands, houses, and a more or less extended share of privileges, rights, and liberties.  These congregations, or families, soon became boroughs, and the inhabitants, though agriculturists, took the name of bourgeois.

[Illustration:  Fig. 21.—­Costume of a Vilain or Peasant, Fifteenth Century, from a Miniature of “La Danse Macabre,” Manuscript 7310 of the National Library of Paris.]

There was also a third kind of bourgeois, whose influence on the extension of royal power was not less than that of the others.  There were free men who, under the title of bourgeois of the King (bourgeois du Roy), kept their liberty by virtue of letters of protection given them by the King, although they were established on lands of nobles whose inhabitants were deprived of liberty.  Further, when a vilain—­that is to say, the serf, of a noble—­bought a lease of land in a royal borough, it was an established custom that after having lived there a year and a day without being reclaimed by his lord and master, he became a bourgeois of the King and a free man.  In consequence of this the serfs and vilains (Fig. 21) emigrated from all parts, in order to profit by these advantages, to such a degree, that the lands of the nobles became deserted by all the serfs of different degrees, and were in danger of remaining uncultivated.  The nobility, in the interests of their properties, and to arrest this increasing emigration, devoted themselves to improving the condition of persons placed under their dependence, and attempted to create on their domains boroughs analogous to those of royalty.  But however liberal these ameliorations might appear to be, it was difficult for the nobles not only to concede privileges equal to those emanating from the throne, but also to ensure equal protection to those they thus enfranchised.  In spite of this, however, the result was that a double current of enfranchisement was established, which resulted in the daily diminution of the miserable order of serfs, and which, whilst it emancipated the lower orders, had the immediate result of giving increased weight and power to royalty, both in its own domains and in those of the nobility and their vassals.

These social revolutions did not, of course, operate suddenly, nor did they at once abolish former institutions, for we still find, that after the establishment of communities and corporations, several orders of servitude remained.