Great War, can readily be seen by one who has eyes to see.2

Everywhere in mediaeval Europe, as in England, we find constitutions resting upon estates, assemblies representing various orders, classes, and conditions of men, except the rightless serf at the bottom of society. In the Cortes of Aragon sat the clergy, the great barons (ricos hombres), the minor barons or knights, and the burgesses of the towns. The old parliament of Scotland was composed of prelates, barons and the smaller townsmen. In the representative assemblies which sprang up in some German principalities and in Russia, the same idea of class representation prevailed.

In the economic foundations of her Constitution, mediaeval France differed in no fundamental way from the neighboring countries. The history of the French estates, local and general, offers to the student of political science an abundance of group phenomena for analysis and interpretation. The records of more than three hundred years copiously illustrate the

2 This sentence may stand as written in 1916. Not until 1917, during the great "War for Democracy," did England establish a practically universal suffrage.

operation of the group process; an added and very significant interest is given to the study by the rôle of the Estates General on the eve of the great Revolution.

As early as 1212, Simon de Montfort called a parliament to which he summoned bishops, nobles, and distinguished bourgeois. A few years later, there was held at Beziers an assembly of the three orders (des trois ordres) to give advice relative to provincial administrative organization. In 1254, by royal ordinance, the Seneschal Beaucaire was instructed to take council with the prelates, the barons, the knights, and the representatives of the towns (hominibus bonarum villarum).

The first Estates General, or National Parliament, was held in France in 1303. This was speedily followed by other parliaments. Speaking of the session of 1308, a chronicler said that the king wished to have the advice and consent of men "of every condition in the realm." h

Like all early national assemblies, the French Estates General met only on the call of the king, and the methods of election depended naturally upon the terms of the royal orders. Complicated and varying practices were adopted at different times and places, but the

following general principles were commonly observed. The members of the two privileged classes, the high clergy and the nobility, were summoned in person. The important convents and chapters were invited to send delegates. Occasionally the regular and secular clergy of a diocese united to elect their deputies. The nobility of the lower order usually chose their representatives, but sometimes members of this group appeared in person. In the towns the delegates were elected -often under a widely extended suffrage, including, on some occasions, women voters. These orders of society were known collectively as the clergy, the nobility, and the third

estate.

It was not thought necessary, however, that each order should be represented only by members of the group. In mediaeval practice, on the contrary, clerks, nobles, curates and canons were sometimes chosen to represent townsmen. Often laymen were selected to speak for the clergy. Again, we see farmers (roturiers) and clergy standing as the spokesmen for men of noble order. Again it happened, perhaps to save expense, that the same deputies represented clergy, nobility, and third estate. Whatever the process of selection,

however, each class acted separately and developed a certain consciousness of identical interest. When, in 1543, the king sought to unite the three groups in a common election, he found that instead of mitigating the group conflicts he only sharpened them. In a little while he restored the old practice of separate elections.

The French Estates General continued to meet from time to time until 1614, when the last grand session previous to the eve of the Revolution was held. At this memorable meeting there broke out a conflict between the nobility and the third estate which foreshadowed the struggle that was destined, more than one hundred and fifty years later, to destroy the whole system. The violence of this session and perhaps the conflict then raging in England between the Parliament and James I, served as a warning that the monarch should beware of nourishing a dangerous hostility among the national estates.

Whatever may have been the cause-with that we are not now concerned-no session of the Estates General was again called until 1788. In that year the king, being in desperate financial straits, once more summoned the representatives of the different economic groups that

could give him relief, to consider the state of the realm. Immediately the antiquarians busied themselves with historical researches in order to restore the ancient and honorable institution in its old form.

To the Estates General of 1789, each estate -clergy, nobility, and third estate-sent its members and representatives. Then arose, as every one knows, a fateful struggle for power. The clergy and nobility, bent on preserving their dominion, insisted that the vote on measures should be taken by the houses, as three distinct orders. Thus they hoped to prevent the upper classes from being overwhelmed by the numerical majority of the third estate, which had twice as many representatives in the assembly as the other two estates combined. Every school history tells us of the deadlock which ensued, of Mirabeau's eloquence, of the Tennis Court Oath, and of the National Assembly which, by firm action, was substituted for the old three-class system. Had the clergy and the nobility been willing earlier to surrender some of their privileges, and concede to the third estate a fair portion of political power the history of the desperate years that followed the peaceful revolution of 1789 might have been far different. By resisting to the