Note 42 — Chapter IX

[The use of the French term bourgeois, here and in some other passages translated ‘middle classes,’ is a further proof of the estimation of the power once exercised by that class in the community. In English the corresponding term burgess has remained inseparable from the exercise of municipal rights; and we have no distinctive appellation, irrespective of political rights, for the large class which separates the nobility from the populace. That class is, in fact, in this country, both socially and politically, the people.]