ABSTRACT
The social structure on the European continent still bore an aristocratic imprint, the legacy of an era when, because land was virtually the sole source of wealth, those who owned it assumed all rights over those who tilled it. Priests and nobles had become royal subjects, but they had not lost their privileges. The state had assumed most of the lords’ sovereign powers but left them more or less extensive authority over their own peasants. With the exception of certain regions, such as Sweden and Friesland, where peasants were classed separately, almost the whole population was lumped into a third ‘order’, called in France the Third Estate. Aristocratic prerogatives condemned this order to remain eternally in its original state of inferiority.
