Connecticut western news., 1880-03-10
In The OIden Time.

Ouf1ng S1x6y years or the el&nCoenGn century the king of France was Louis XV.-one of the meanest and basest of human creatures. It was the belief of this unworthy person that France was his, and that she and her twenty five million of people were of no value, otherwise than as they ministered to his enjoyment. No one about him ever, in all his long life, suggested another view of the subject. The great nobles went daily to sec him dressed and un- dressed d-regaling him the while with the obscene gossip which he loved so we'll to hear. The king chad not an hour in the day for attention to im- portant matters" He wasted the resources of France upon his filthy pleasures. His mistresses made him sign drafts on the treasury for such amounts as they desired. Even to this most debased of men it became evident that change was near. Voltaire and the others, he said, were ruining the monarchy; but it was consolation enough to believe that 1t would last out his time. Under Louis XV. France ripened apace for her doom.
 Next to the throne stood the noble families, numbering one hundred and fifty thousand persons. All positio ns of dignity were held by members of these families. The superior clergy were nobles; the officers of the army, the judges, the ambassadors-all were noble. They enjoyed exemption from most of the taxation which pressed so heavily upon their interiors. They possessed strange powers to oppress, which they mercilessly exercised. For the most part they were poor-ages of extravagance having wasted their sub- stance; and they were known to the people only by the unsparing severity of their exactions. With revolution about to burst forth, that was not 8 desirable introduction. They lived in utter idleness. "They absolutely did nothing," said Edmund Burke. "Their very look wearied me. They could only die of war or Of ennui.
 Beyond the nobles were the French people. A gulf impossible separated them from the awful splendors of the aristocracy. They might grow rich, but they could not rise out of the orig inal degradation of their origin they could never cease to be despised.
 Three-fourths of the French people lived in the country, and earned their living y lowly peasant toll. Their lot was hard-harder than we In this hap pier time are able fully to understand. The laws had not been made with ally thoughts of their interests. The laws were made and administered by men who regarded the people of France as born for the use of the higher class.
 The tax-gatherer wss everywhere, and among the simple peasantry he could work his cruel will without fear of de- tection or rebuke. The great lords pre- served game for their lordly sport. Droves of wild boars, herds of deer ranged the country, trampling the crops into ruin. The peasant who slew one of these invaders expiated his offense by Imprisonment. The wedding and hoe ing of crops were forbidden, as tending to disturb the young cartridges. Limi- tations were imposed upon the use of manures, lest the flavor of the game should be injuriously affected. Now and then the ruined peasantry in their despair demanded, "with great cry, |" the abolition of all sorts of game; but their cry was unheeded. Men were bound to grind their corn only at the seigneur's mill; to press their grapes only in his press to bake their bread only in his oven. Hand-mills were for bidden; but sometimes the great lord sold for money to the wretched peasant permission to crush his handful of wheat between two stones. Services the most intolerable were exacted, or exemption from them obtained by payment. When the lady of the seigneur was ill, it be- came the duty of the peasants to beat the marshes all night and terrify the frogs into silence, lest the great lady should be disturbed by their clamor. The obligation was, in course of ages, commuted into an annual payment.