When in the seventeenth century the two all-powerful forces, brute force and money, of the preceding century were replaced by those of money and the pen, the decay of the impoverished and unintellectual nobility became but a question of time. The day when great gentlemen might scorn men of letters and learning was rapidly passing; with the French Academy arose a new spirit, a fresh impulse was given to intellectual attainments. Although treated as inferiors, the literary men of the seventeenth century spoke of the aristocracy in a spirit of raillery, but slightly veiled with respect; and the nobility while remaining, in its way, courageous and glorious, lost its prestige, force, and influence. In the seventeenth century, money acquired a certain purchasing value which procured advantages and luxuries impossible in the preceding period when the brave man was worth infinitely more than the rich who, scorned and considered as a rapacious Jew, was isolated and in constant fear of being robbed or killed. As the number of government officials increased, individual fortunes grew; men became enormously wealthy through the various offices bought by them or given to them by the government. The financier was a king and many marriages of princes and dukes with daughters of men of wealth are recorded. Women of station, however, seldom married beneath their rank, because they lost their titles by so doing, and titles were still the only road to social success. As a rule, titles could not be transmitted through females; when a woman made a misalliance her titles were given to her children. Almost all rich men of the period, from the time of Louis XIII. to the Revolution, became nobles, as almost every brave man was made a knight up to the seventeenth century. It was possible for the wealthy to buy a marquisate or baronetage and give it to their children; a grand-marshal of France was no longer so powerful as a rich banker. The complete change, under Louis XIV., of the customs of the time, caused numberless petty jealousies, scandals, and intrigues in the aristocracy, which could no longer maintain its old form and yet had to be considered by the government. The question of reform arose--how to restrict the number of nobles, which increased every year. Rank was bestowed for service and, sometimes, even for wealth; the old families, being poor, had no distinctive prestige except that given by their privileges at court; their titles no longer distinguished them from the newcomers, whom they gradually began to disdain, and the result was a general lowering of the standing, importance, and influence of nobility. Another party which gained prominence was that of the bench; the judges, as interpreters of the king's laws, became powerful, for law was absolute. A deadly rivalry sprang up between the parties of rank with no money or power and of power and money without rank.