[Illustration: Fig. 20.--Bourgeois at the End of Thirteenth
Century.--Fac-simile of Miniature in Manuscript No. 6820, in the National
Library of Paris.]
Fortunately for the progress of liberty, the civic bodies, as if they had
been providentially warned of the future in store for them, never
hesitated to accept from their lords, civil or ecclesiastical, conditions,
onerous though they were, which enabled them to exist in the interior of
the cities to which they belonged. They formed a sort of small state,
almost independent for private affairs, subject to the absolute power of
the King, and more or less tied by their customs or agreements with the
local nobles. They held public assemblies and elected magistrates, whose
powers embraced both the administration of civil and criminal justice,
police, finance, and the militia. They generally had fixed and written
laws. Protected by ramparts, each possessed a town-hall (_hotel de
ville_), a seal, a treasury, and a watch-tower, and it could arm a certain
number of men, either for its own defence or for the service of the noble
or sovereign under whom it held its rights.
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