We have traced its character and progressive development from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, through the reigns of Louis the Fat, of Philip Augustus, of St.Louis, and of Philip the Handsome, princes very diverse and very unequal in merit, but all of them able and energetic.

This period was likewise the cradle of the French nation.

That was the time when it began to exhibit itself in its different elements, and to arise under monarchical rule from the midst of the feudal system.

Its earliest features and its earliest efforts in the long and laborious work of its development are now to be set before the reader's eyes.
The two words inscribed at the head of this chapter, the Communes and the Third-Estate, are verbal expressions for the two great facts at that time revealing that the French nation was in labor of formation.

Closely connected one with the other and tending towards the same end, these two facts are, nevertheless, very diverse, and even when they have not been confounded, they have not been with sufficient clearness distinguished and characterized, each of them apart.