This gave rise to a sort of absenteeism of feeling, if I may so express myself, even more frequent and more effectual than absenteeism properly so called. Hence it arose that a gentleman residing on his estate frequently displayed the views and sentiments which his steward would have entertained in his absence; like his steward, he learned to look upon his tenants as his debtors, and he rigorously exacted from them all that he could claim by law or by custom, which sometimes rendered the application of the last remnant of feudal rights more harsh than it had been in the feudal times. Often embarrassed, and always needy, the small gentry lived shabbily in their country-houses, caring only to amass money enough to spend in town during the winter. The people, who often find an expression which hits the truth, had given to these small squires the name of the least of the birds of prey, a _hobereau_, a sort of Squire Kite. No doubt individual exceptions might be presented to these observations: I speak of classes, which ought alone to detain the attention of history. That there were in those times many rich landowners who, without any necessary occasion and without a common interest, attended to the welfare of the peasantry, who will deny? But these were persons who struggled successfully against the law of their new condition, which, in spite of themselves, was driving them into indifference, as it was driving their former vassals into hatred. This abandonment of a country life by the nobility has often been attributed to the peculiar influence of certain ministers and certain kings--by some to Richelieu, by others to Louis XIV. It was, no doubt, an idea almost always pursued by the Kings of France, during the three last centuries of the monarchy, to separate the gentry from the people, and to attract the former to Court and to public employments. This was especially the case in the seventeenth century, when the nobility were still an object of fear to royalty. Amongst the questions addressed to the Intendants, they were sometimes asked--‘Do the gentry of your province like to stay at home, or to go abroad?’ A letter from an Intendant has been found giving his answer on this subject: he laments that the gentry of his province like to remain with their peasants, instead of fulfilling their duties about the King. And let it here be well remarked, that the province of which this Intendant was speaking was Anjou--that province which was afterwards La Vendée. These country gentlemen who refused, as he said, to fulfil their duties about the King, were the only country gentlemen who defended with arms in their hands the monarchy in France, and died there fighting for the Crown; they owed this glorious distinction simply to the fact that they had found means to retain their hold over the peasantry--that peasantry with whom they were blamed for wishing to live.