All the historical documents of this period prove, more and more, that the kings had placed themselves at the head of the general movement of society. In all they then did, their motive, doubtless, was to reëstablish order in the kingdom, and to found their authority upon the protection granted to those who suffered from the violences and excesses of feudal anarchy. If, however, we may judge by the ordinance just quoted, and by many other similar ones, their policy was not always disinterested, and, like most of the barons, they sometimes sold rather than granted the freedom of the serfs and the communes. Many peasants showed themselves but little disposed to receive a liberty which was to be sold to them. Some from poverty, others from mistrust, a great number from unwillingness to change their condition, refused the benefit that was offered to them. Such is the spirit of man, that they resolved to remain serfs, because they were condemned to be such no longer. In several provinces, even disorders were created by their resistance. This was slaves fighting, with their chains, against Liberty herself. At a later period, the _jaquerie_ proved that it was more easy to kindle the passions of a gross people, than to make them free; and that it was far, as regarded the serfs, from impatience under the yoke and hatred for their masters, to the true love of liberty. When we are desirous of breaking the chains of the multitude, it is never to the multitude that we must address ourselves; in order that the fate of the lower classes should be ameliorated, the amelioration must come from the superior classes, by whom knowledge is spread and institutions are established. This is what happened at the period of which we are speaking. The servitude of the country was much softened by the maxims of the clergy, but more particularly by the influence of that French magistracy which had arisen contemporaneously with civilization. In the middle of the fifteenth century, some serfs of Catalonia, who had taken refuge in France, being claimed by their lords, the parliament of Thoulouse declared that every man who entered into the kingdom crying _France!_ became free. Mezerai,[103] who relates this fact, adds: “Such is the kingdom of France, that its air communicates liberty to those who breathe it, and our kings are so august that they only reign over free men.”