Aristocracy: The Constituted Bodies 25
service, at least for England. It appears that British servants were rowdy and insub-
ordinate before this time, and terrorized house guests by their bold demand for
tips; but about 1760 county meetings of the better families began to take the ser-
vant question seriously in hand, and “the transition to the more disciplined man-
servant of Victorian London began to take place.”^3
Aristocracy denoted also a concern for public business. The “aristocrat” (to bor-
row a term from eighteenth- century polemics) often had a public spirit, a desire to
take part in organized government, hardly characteristic of the unruly noble of
former times; or, perhaps, he only thought that governing others, being responsible
for their welfare, in state or church, was the occupation most suited to a man of his
standing whether or not he actually worked at this kind of occupation.
The following is a descriptive survey of the constituted bodies of the middle of
the eighteenth century, with especial reference to their membership and recruit-
ment. We move from east to west.
THE DIETS OF EASTERN EUROPEThe absence from Russia of bodies of the kind here described is only one of the
signs that Russia, at the middle of the eighteenth century, did not belong to the
region of Western Civilization. It was, however, moving in that direction. When
the Empress Catherine, in 1767, called together a consultative assembly to sound
out opinion in her domains, one of the proposals made by some noblemen was for
the organization of the Russian nobility into a corporate body with corporate
rights, somewhat as in Europe. Catherine, after a long delay, issued a Charter of
the Nobility in 1785, as described in Chapter XII below, which by setting up pro-
vincial noble assemblies, with limited local powers, brought the Russian upper
class, toward the end of our period, a little closer to the model of the European
upper classes.
For most purposes Sweden (with Finland), Poland, Bohemia, and Hungary rep-
resented the eastern border of Europe.
In Sweden the years from 1719 to 1772 are known as the Age of Freedom, be-
cause at this time the Diet or Riksdag ruled without interference by the King. In-
deed, these Swedish Whigs, after their revolution of 1719, had the works of John
Locke translated into Swedish. The diet met in four houses, Nobles, Clergy, Bur-
ghers, and Peasants. Peasants could elect only peasants to represent them, and bur-
ghers only burghers, so that the classes or “orders” were kept apart. Nobles elected
no one; every head of a noble family had the right to appear in person, but many
were too poor or indifferent to do so, and added to their incomes by selling their
proxies. Nobles were exempt from certain taxes, and claimed the exclusive right to
high office. Government was in the hands of a council of nobles of which the
King was only the chairman. During sessions of the diet executive power reverted
to a secret committee of that body composed of 50 nobles, 25 churchmen, and 25
burghers (the peasants being left out as too unsuited for great affairs); the advan-
3 D. Marshall, “The Domestic Servants of the 18th Century,” in Economica, IX (1929), 15–40.