fleece, or a bright sword out of a cow's tail; neither will I, though I can, make a noble gentleman out of a vile villain. You shall all be ploughmen and tillers of the ground, to keep oxen and hogs, to dig and delve, and hedge and dike, and in this wise shall ye live in endless servitude. Even the townsmen shall laugh you to scorn; yet some of you shall be allowed to dwell in cities, and shall be admitted to such occupations as those of makers of puddings, butchers, cobblers, tinkers, costard-mongers, hostlers, or daubers." This, so the story informs us, was the beginning of servile labor; and such a view of caste was no more displeasing to the peasantry, who knew nothing better, than it was to the baron, whose pride it pampered. A poem of the latter part of the fifteenth century gives the wishes appropriate to the men and women of the different ranks of French society. Those of the women are most characteristic. Thus, the queen wishes to love God and the king, and to live in peace; the duchess, to have all the enjoyments and pleasures of wealth; the countess, to have a husband who is loyal and brave; the knight's lady, to hunt the stag in the green woods; the lady of gentle blood also loves hunting, and wishes for a husband valiant in war; the chamber maiden takes pleasure in walking in the fair fields by the riversides; while the burgher's wife loves, above all things, a soft bed at night, with a good pillow and clean white sheets. This statement of the characteristic desires of the various classes of French women holds good as well for the English women of that period.