In no case could a community such as this exist without the sanction of the King, who placed it under the safeguard of the Crown. At first the kings, blinded by a covetous policy, only seemed to see in the issue of these charters an excellent pretext for extorting money. If they consented to recognise them, and even to help them against their lords, it was on account of the enormous sacrifices made by the towns. Later on, however, they affected, on the contrary, the greatest generosity towards the vassals who wished to incorporate themselves, when they had understood that these institutions might become powerful auxiliaries against the great titulary feudalists; but from the reign of Louis XI., when the power of the nobles was much diminished, and no longer inspired any terror to royalty, the kings turned against their former allies, the middle classes, and deprived them successively of all the prerogatives which could prejudice the rights of the Crown. The middle classes, it is true, acquired considerable influence afterwards by participation in the general and provincial councils. After having victoriously struggled against the clergy and nobility, in the assemblies of the three states or orders, they ended by defeating royalty itself. Louis le Gros, in whose orders the style or title of _bourgeois_ first appears (1134), is generally looked upon as the founder of the franchise of communities in France; but it is proved that a certain number of communities or corporations were already formally constituted, before his accession to the throne. The title of bourgeois was not, however, given exclusively to inhabitants of cities. It often happened that the nobles, with the intention of improving and enriching their domains, opened a kind of asylum, under the attractive title of _Free Towns_, or _New Towns_, where they offered, to all wishing to establish themselves, lands, houses, and a more or less extended share of privileges, rights, and liberties. These congregations, or families, soon became boroughs, and the inhabitants, though agriculturists, took the name of bourgeois. [Illustration: Fig. 21.--Costume of a Vilain or Peasant, Fifteenth Century, from a Miniature of "La Danse Macabre," Manuscript 7310 of the National Library of Paris.]