[22].  De Bouillé, “Mémoires,” p. 50.  According to him, “all the noble old families, excepting two or three hundred, were ruined.  A larger portion of the great titled estates had become the appanage of financiers, merchants and their descendants.  The fiefs, for the most part, were in the hands of the bourgeoisie of the towns.” — Léonce de Lavergne, “Economie rurale en France,” p. 26.  “The greatest number vegetated in poverty in small country fiefs often not worth more than 2,000 or 3,000 francs a year.” — In the apportionment of the indemnity in 1825, many received less than 1,000 francs.  The greater number of indemnities do not exceed 50,000 francs. — “The throne,” says Mirabeau, “is surrounded only by ruined nobles.”

[23].  De Bouillé, “Memoires,” p. 50. — Cherin, “Abrégé chronologique des édits” (1788).  “Of this innumerable multitude composing the privileged order scarcely a twentieth part of it can really pretend to nobility of an immemorial and ancient date.” — 4,070 financial, administrative, and judicial offices conferred nobility. — Turgot, “Collection des Economistes,” II. 276.  “Through the facilities for acquiring nobility by means of money there is no rich man who does not at once become noble.” — D’Argenson, “Mémoires,” III. 402.

[24].  Necker, “De l’Administration des Finances,” II. 271.  Legrand, “L’Intendance de Hainaut,” pp. 104, 118, 152, 412.

[25].  Even after the exchange of 1784, the prince retains for himself “all personal impositions as well as subventions on the inhabitants,” except a sum of 6,000 livres for roads.  Archives Nationales, G, 192, a memorandum of April 14th, 1781, on the state of things in the Clermontois. — Report of the provincial assembly of the Three Bishoprics (1787), p. 380.

[26].  The town of St. Amand, alone, contains to day 10,210 inhabitants.

[27].  See note 3 at the end of the volume.

[28].  De Ferrières, “Mémoires,” II. 57:  “All had 100,000 some 200, 300, and even 800,000.”

[29].  De Tocqueville, ibid.. book 2, Chap. 2. p.182. — Letter of the bailiff of Mirabau, August 23, 1770.  “This feudal order was merely vigorous, even though they have pronounced it barbarous, because France, which once had the vices of strength, now has only those of feebleness, and because the flock which was formerly devoured by wolves is now eaten up with lice. . . .  Three or four kicks or blows with a stick were not half so injurious to a poor man’s family, nor to himself, as being devoured by six rolls of handwriting.” — “The nobility,” says St. Simon, in his day, “has become another people with no choice left it but to crouch down in mortal and ruinous indolence, which renders it a burden and contemptible, or to go and be killed in warfare; subject to the insults of clerks, secretaries of the state and the secretaries of intendants.”  Such are the complaints of feudal spirits. — The details which follow are all derived from Saint Simon, Dangeau, de Luynes, d’Argenson and other court historians.