Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/470

 and the Duchess of Orleans, a German princess, writes in a letter of November 29, 1719, that six ladies of the highest rank waylaid in the court of a building the above-mentioned Law, who was at that time the most courted and the busiest man in France and therefore very hard to interview, in order to induce him to dispose of some of the shares founded by him, for which at that time all France was competing and which brought on the Exchange six and eight times the nominal price at which Law had issued them.

If you ask me again what the causes were which made possible this development of manufacturing and the consequent wealth of the middle class, I should have to exceed, if I tried to give them thorough treatment, the time at my disposal. I can only enumerate for you the most essential ones: The discovery of America and its tremendous influence on production; the route to the East Indies around the Cape of Good Hope, taking the place of the former land route by way of Suez for all trade with the East Indies; the discovery of the magnetic needle and the invention of the mariner's compass, and in consequence greater safety and speed and lower insurance rates for all ocean traffic; the waterways established in the interior of the countries, the canals, also the good roads which made possible for the first time a more remote market through the lessening of the transportation costs of various commodities which formerly could not carry the raise in price thus caused; greater security of property; well-established courts of law ; the invention of powder, and, in consequence of this invention, the breaking down by the monarchy of the feudal military power of the nobility; the dismissal of the mercenaries and mounted retainers of the nobles on account of the destruction of their castles and of their independent military power. For these retainers there was now nothing left but to find work in the medieval workshops. All these events gave impetus to the triumphal chariot of the middle class. All these events, and many