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"I don't know," said St. Clare. "This is a day of great deeds. Heroism and disinterestedness are rising up, here and there, in the earth. The Hungarian nobles set free millions of serfs, at an immense pecuniary loss; and, perhaps, among us may be found generous spirits, who do not estimate honor and justice by dollars and cents." "I hardly think so," said Miss Ophelia.
There is a very common idea that Russian nobles are as a rule enormously rich. This is a mistake. The majority of them are poor. At the time of the Emancipation, in 1861, there were 100,247 landed proprietors, and of these, more than 41,000 were possessors of less than twenty-one male serfs that is to say, were in a condition of poverty.
A fair balance was maintained among the leading members of the political body, so that the English kings could invade France with united national armies which easily defeated the incoherent rabble of knights and serfs whereby they were opposed.
This gave her fresh interest in the eyes of the serfs and sailors and their women folk, who at first were not inclined towards the Huguenot maiden, partly because she was French, and partly because she was not a Catholic.
But artists begin in poverty, with a crust of bread. You will find they are for the most part freed serfs, small tradespeople or foreigners, or Jews. Poverty drives them to art. But you a Raisky! You have land of your own, and bread to eat.
The visits of the royal judges of assize, of sailors and pilgrims, have already been mentioned. Pedlars, who were active nomad tradesmen, were always to be found in town and country dealing in their small wares. Last, and some of the unhappiest, among the types of people to be found in a mediæval city were serfs who had absconded from the lands or the service to which they were bound.
Have you seen so much of war and battle axes that you have forgotten the ways that are pleasing to men? Yet methinks you must needs have taken notice that, always before he goes into battle, a soldier tests the sharpness of his weapon. It is to that end that I endure the gaze of these serfs, to test the power of my face."
Surrounded as they were on all sides by a serried rank of castles, where the nobles held undisputed sway over their serfs and controlled the arteries of trade, the cities were compelled to proceed against them; but instead of sending them to the gallows, they contented themselves with forcing them to take up their residence within the town walls.
To many it seemed that the best means of preventing the formation of a Proletariat in Russia was the securing of land for the emancipated serfs and the careful preservation of the rural Commune.
In a trice it could be seen that he had played his part in life as all such bailiffs do that, originally a young serf of elementary education, he had married some Agashka of a housekeeper or a mistress's favourite, and then himself become housekeeper, and, subsequently, bailiff; after which he had proceeded according to the rules of his tribe that is to say, he had consorted with and stood in with the more well-to-do serfs on the estate, and added the poorer ones to the list of forced payers of obrok, while himself leaving his bed at nine o'clock in the morning, and, when the samovar had been brought, drinking his tea at leisure.
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