Alpha Book

In France, however, the feudal nobility was
more arrogant and exclusive, and the government less in harmony with
middle-class notions. The extravagant and wasteful administration of
royal money was censured by every good business man. It was argued that
if France might only have bourgeois representation in a national
parliament to regulate finance and to see that customs duties, trade-
laws, and foreign relations were managed in accordance with business
interests, then all would be well.

THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES
Thus far, in analyzing social and economic conditions in the eighteenth
century, we have concerned ourselves with the lowest class, the
peasants and day laborers, and with the middle class or bourgeoisie--
the "Third Estate" of France and the "Commons" of Great Britain. All of
these were technically unprivileged or ignoble classes. The highest
place in society was reserved for the classes of the privileged, the
clergy and the nobility, constituting the First and the Second Estates,
respectively.


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