[Footnote 15: From the very different meaning implied by the word parliament in Britain, it will be proper to remind the English reader that the parliaments of France were mere local tribunals, invested with scarcely any political or legislative character.] Therefore under the heads of military force, taxation, and judicature--that is to say, in what forms its essence--the government acquired in France, during the fifteenth century, a character of unity, regularity, and stability which was previously unknown. The public power then definitively supplanted the feudal or local powers. {186} Identical with this fact was the accomplishment of another change, one less visible and less noticed by historians, but perhaps of still greater importance; namely, that which Louis XI. effected in the manner of governing. Much has been said of the contest waged by Louis XI. against the nobles of the realm, of their reduction, and of his favour for the burghers and weaker individuals. There is some truth in all that, though much exaggeration has been made use of in describing it; and it is also true that the conduct of Louis XI., with the different classes of society, far oftener disturbed than served the state. But he did something much more important. Before his time, the government had scarcely ever proceeded except by force, by physical means. Persuasion, address, the art of managing men, and enticing them into the purposed vein--in a word, policy, properly so called, the policy of falsehood and of deceit doubtless, but also of skill and prudence, had previously been little used. Louis XI. substituted in his government intellectual for material means, trickery for force, the Italian system of policy for the feudal. Take the two men whoso rivalship fills that epoch of French history, Charles the Bold, [Footnote 16] and Louis XI. [Footnote 16: Charles the Bold was the last Duke of Burgundy. The general reader cannot do better than take a glance at Sir Walter Scott's 'Quentin Durward' for an admirable picture of these two men.]