The desire of every man of rank to be independent, to be a force in himself instead of a part of a unit which might be useful to the state as a whole, was one of the principal defects of the French aristocracy; poverty crushed it, idleness robbed it of its alertness, intriguing and gradual oppression reduced it to despair. Appointed to offices, its members failed in the performance of their duties; the latter fell to the under men who, while the aristocracy was busy at fêtes, in society, at the table, became experts in the affairs of the government--shrewd politicians and financiers. The new nobility, that of the robe, replaced that of the sword in all interests of the government except war; gradually, Parliament was made up of men who, having been elevated to the rank of nobility, retained their aversion to those who were noble by birth, recognizing only the king as their superior and refusing precedence to even the princes of the blood. Louis XIV., however, objecting to and fearing such a strong class as that of the robe, employed, wherever possible, people of lower rank. Thus it happened in the seventeenth century that the still powerful nobility of higher rank was scorned and kept down; but in the eighteenth century, when the gentlemen of the robe had become all-powerful and therefore constituted a dangerous party, it was they who became the objects of scorn and persecution, while the aristocrats of blood, the gentlemen of the court, recovered the royal favors through their political powerlessness. French aristocracy really had no object, no _raison d'être_, after its disappearance from all governmental functions; it became an encumbrance to the state; having no particular part to play, it did nothing; this is one of the causes of its dissolution and of the Revolution as well. Thus France gradually passed from inequality of classes under the sanction of custom to equality of classes before the law: this change in the condition and constitution of the French nobility accounts for many intrigues and scandals and explains the social and moral actions of French women, as well as the difference in the nature of their activities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.