It can scarcely be said that France was a compact nation. The nobility were separated from the middle and lower classes by the fact that all younger sons retained the status and privileges of nobles. In ancient times they had paid no share of the taxes raised for war, on the ground that they rendered personal service, and the privilege of being free from taxation was retained long after the services of a feudal militia had disappeared. The nobility in France became a caste, numerous, poor in many instances, and too proud to belittle themselves by entering any of the professions or engaging in commerce. Louis XI. had done his best to encourage trade, and had introduced the silkworm industry into France. But as the whole weight of taxation fell upon the rural districts, the middle classes took refuge in the towns, and the peasantry, between the dues they had to pay to their lords and the taxation for the king, were in an oppressed condition. Their grievances were set forth in the petition they addressed, in the delusive hope of amelioration, to the States-General which assembled on the accession of Charles VIII. “During the past thirty-four years,” they say, “troops have been ever passing through France and living on the poor people. When the poor man has managed, by the sale of the coat on his back, and after hard toil, to pay his _taille_, and hopes he may live out the year on the little he has left, then come fresh troops to his cottage, eating him up. In Normandy, multitudes have died of hunger. From want of cattle, men and women have to yoke themselves to the carts; and others, fearing that if seen in the daytime they will be seized for not having paid their _taille_, are compelled to work at night. The king should have pity on his poor people, and relieve them from the said _tailles_ and charges.” This was in 1483, before the Italian wars had further increased the burdens which the poorest class of the community had to pay. The New Learning had begun to filter into France at a comparatively early date. In 1458 an Italian of Greek descent had been appointed to teach Greek by the University of Paris. But that University had been for long the centre of mediæval scholastic study, and it was not until the Italian campaigns of Charles VIII., who was in Italy when the Renaissance was at its height, that France may be said to have welcomed the Humanist movement. A Greek Press was established in Paris in 1507, a group of French Humanists entered upon the study of the authors of classical antiquity, and the new learning gradually displaced the old scholastic disciplines. French Humanists were perhaps the earliest to make a special study of Roman Law, and to win distinction as eminent jurists. Francis, like Henry VIII. of England, was welcomed on his accession as a Humanist king. Such was the condition of France in the beginning of the sixteenth century. § 5. Spain.