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Excerpt from The Revolutionary Period in Europe (1763-1815) In the country there were only two classes, lords and peas ants. A middle class hardly existed except in England. In some parts Of Europe the relations Of lord and peasant were as primitive as on an English or French manor Of the twelfth cen tury. In Hungary the peasant could not even own land. He was in a sense the property Of the noble and his rights were not recognized by law. Within the kingdom of Naples it is said that a thousand kinds of feudal dues might still be levied. Even where, as in France, a new social order had for centuries been displacing the feudal system, feudal survivals were apparent on every side in the structure of rural society. Nor was it a question merely of quitrents and other dues. The possession Of a noble estate usually carried with it some governmental au thority. The lord might be to all intents and purposes a petty sovereign or he might retain merely shreds Of his former pow ers. Absolute rulers did not always interfere with the local sovereignty Of their nobles. The kings Of Prussia, for example, did not venture to curtail the powers which the lords exercised over their peasants. Many Of the nobles in France could hardly be said to belong to the rural population, because they usually resided in Paris or Versailles. They found life far from the sunshine Of royal favor unendurable, and many of them could not pay their ex penses without the aid Of gifts and pensions. The religious wars Of the sixteenth century had uprooted them from the soil, and Louis XIV had sought to increase the splendor Of his Court by insisting upon their presence. He also hoped in this way to cure them of the rebellious mood into which they had fallen during the regency Of Marie de' Medici and during the Fronde. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important hist