THE ABSOLUTE MONARCHY.
Personal The tripartite division of the people into nobles, commoners and serfs was maintained in the Absolute Monarchy as during the feudal period. However, notions of equality made progress and the commoners' class endeavored to establish more and more firmly a regime of common law.
Nobility was no longer dependent upon the ownership of a fief, but was a purely personal quality. Privileges which resulted in a state of private law and its procedure largely disap peared. The noble was nothing more than a subject of the king. He did, however, retain certain privileges, such as fiscal exemptions, sweets of office, immunity, in case of conviction, from flogging or the gallows, etc. Nobility was bestowed by royal favor; it was forfeit if in famous condemnations were incurred, or if certain professions were exercised, such as mechanics arts (except glass making), laborer's work, trade (except on the sea), etc.
As regards serfdom, this became a state more and more exceptional, whereas during the feudal period it constituted the condition of the great majority of the workmen of the towns and the agricultural population. The lords had, in fact, proceeded with enfranchisemcnts on a large scale, either out of a feeling of piety or for remuneration; certain enfranchisements were even collective, as is illustrated by the charters of numerous towns. Furthermore the tribunals searching proof of a state of serfdom with the result that serfs became fewer and fewer. Finally, the customs, by their very nature, brought about the disappearance of serfdom by abolishing those laws that had fallen into desuetude characteristic of the ser vile condition. The old slave had become a serf, now the serf had become a commoner.
Three kinds of feudal tenures existed during the latter centuries of the old regime, i.e., the noble, commoners' and servile tenures. They were maintained despite the fact as regards the latter that serfdom was less and less prevalent. In respect to the feudal tenures these became a form of landed prop erty: the liens between the lord and the vassal were relaxed, the obligation of fealty to which the latter was held in respect to the former being now merely of a platonic character.
Pecuniary taxes — really rather heavy — alone remained, that is, those dues on the fief to the profit of the lord.
Besides these feudal tenures which the Revo lution abolished without indemnity, there existed during the Absolute Monarchy land-owned tenures, consisting either in the detinue of a parcel of land by virtue of a perpetual lease or long term lease, or in the ownership of land from which permanent income was derived. The most common land-owned tenures were the emphyteuses and the income-bearing leased property. Modern French law admits these modalities of ownership and detinue but their economic importance to-day is very small.
We may dismiss the ealleus or freehold tenure which was legally abolished and practi cally inextant on the eve of the Revolution, and add that the feudal form of ownership of land was maintained until 1789 considerably im peding the circulation of property.
Commerce and Commerce and industry, which had played but an unimportant role in the feudal period, developed on a large scale during the latter centuries of the old regime.
In fairly important towns the trades were subject to a strict set of rules, to which the aAssemblee Constituante attributed in 1789 the maximum of libeity. Artisans and merchants were grouped into corporations; each corpora tion had its own exacting rules fixing the con ditions of manufacture, quality, products, etc. In order to become an artisan or merchant quite a long apprenticeship had to be served, a professional examination passed and heavy fees paid. This system resulted in the realiza tion of large profits and high wages by curtail ing competition and guaranteeing the quality of the goods manufactured and sold. But ex aggeration resulted: formalities and regulations succeeded each other to such an extent that various economists, known by the name of Physiocrates, repeatedly demanded liberty in trade and manual arts. In 1776, at the insti gation of Turgot, the king issued an edict by the terms of which corporations were sup pressed, but this met with such disapproval from the Paris parliaments and public opinion that it was repealed.