We will trace the origin and the composition of the third estate, when we reach the period at which it became one of the great performers in the history of France by reason of the place it assumed and the part it played in the states-general of the kingdom.
In dealing with the formation of the communes from the eleventh to the fourteenth century, the majority of the French historians, even M.Thierry, the most original and clear-sighted of them all, often entitle this event the communal revolution.

This expression hardly gives a correct idea of the fact to which it is applied.

The word revolution, in the sense, or at least the aspect, given to it amongst us by contemporary events, points to the overthrow of a certain regimen, and of the ideas and authority predominant thereunder, and the systematic elevation in their stead of a regimen essentially different in principle, and in fact.

The revolutions of our day substitute, or would fain substitute, a republic for a monarchy, democracy for aristocracy, political liberty for absolute power.

The struggles which from the eleventh to the fourteenth century gave existence to so many communes had no such profound character; the populations did not pretend to any fundamental overthrow of the regimen they attacked; they conspired together, they swore together, as the phrase is according to the documents of the time--they rose to extricate themselves from the outrageous oppression and misery they were enduring, but not to abolish feudal sovereignty and to change the personality of their masters.