They are diverse both in their chronological date and their social importance.

The Communes are the first to appear in history.

They appear there as local facts, isolated one from another, often very different in point of origin, though analogous in their aim, and in every case neither assuming nor pretending to assume any place in the government of the state.

Local interests and rights, the special affairs of certain populations agglomerated in certain spots, are the only objects, the only province of the communes.
With this purely municipal and individual character they come to their birth, their confirmation, and their development from the eleventh to the fourteenth century; and at the end of two centuries they enter upon their decline, they occupy far less room and make far less noise in history.
It is exactly then that the Third Estate comes to the front, and uplifts itself as a general fact, a national element, a political power.

It is the successor, not the contemporary, of the Communes; they contributed much towards, but did not suffice for its formation; it drew upon other resources, and was developed under other influences than those which gave existence to the communes.