and the holy father sent over his legates, from time to time, to levy upon it his exorbitant imposts. John, called Lackland, at length made a full and formal cession of his kingdom to his holiness, by whom he had been excommunicated; the barons, who did not at all find their account in this proceeding, expelled that contemptible king, and substituted in his room Louis VIII., father of St. Louis, king of France. But they soon became disgusted with the new-comer, and obliged him to recross the sea. While the barons, bishops, and popes were thus harassing and tearing asunder England, where each of the parties strove eagerly to be the dominant one, the people, who form the most numerous, useful, and virtuous portion of a community, consisting of those who study the laws and sciences, merchants, artisans, and even peasants, who exercise at once the most important and the most despised of occupations; the people, I say, were looked down upon equally by all these combatants, as a species of beings inferior to mankind. Far, indeed, at that time, were the commons from having the slightest participation in the government: they were villeins, or serfs of the soil; both their labor and their blood belonged to their masters, who were called "nobles." The greater number of men in Europe were what they still continue to be in many parts of the world--the serfs of a lord, a species of cattle bought and sold together with the land. It required centuries to get justice done to humanity; to produce an adequate impression of the odious and execrable nature of the system, according to which the many sow, and only the few reap; and surely it may even be considered fortunate for France that the powers of these petty robbers were extinguished there by the legitimate authority of kings, as it was in England by that of the king and nation united.