Alpha Book

[Sidenote: Failure of the Privileged to Perform Real Services]
[Sidenote: The Higher Nobility]
All these advantages, privileges, and immunities might be looked upon
as a fitting reward which medieval Europe had given to her nobles for
protecting peaceable plowmen from the marauding bands then so common,
and which she had bestowed upon her clergy for preserving education,
for encouraging agriculture, for fostering the arts, for tending the
poor, the sick, and the traveler, and for performing the offices of
religion. But long before the eighteenth century the protective
functions of feudal nobles had been transferred to the royal
government. No longer useful, the hereditary nobility was merely
burdensome, and ornamental. Such as could afford it, spent their lives
in the cities or at the royal court where they rarely did anything
worth while, unless it were to invent an unusually delicate compliment
or to fashion a flawless sonnet. Their morals were not of the best--it
was almost fashionable to be vicious--but their manners were perfect.


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