Excerpt from From the Crusades to the French Revolution: A History of the La Tremoille Family As long as the Dukes of La Tremoille lived amongst their vassals, taking a personal interest in their concerns, feudal burdens, though heavy, were bearable. At the bidding of the Duke and Duchess living in their midst the people of Thouars had been content to slave, to give their labour, as well as their money, for the building of that huge castle which still dominates their town. But when their princes left them to return only at rare intervals, and then without ceremony or even incognito, when they ceased to hold in those lordly halls the annual gatherings of their numerous vassals, when the courts of Thouars ceased to resound beneath the armed feet of goodly companies assembling to be led to battle by their chief, when corvees had to be rendered and feudal dues paid to an absent and unknown lord, then the gorges of sturdy Bretons and Poitevins rose against the injustice of the ancien regime Thouars became one of the first pro vincial cities to set up a Jacobite club, and soon the broad lands of the La Tremoilles were seized by the Government of the Revolution. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.