Excerpt from By Order of the King, or the Man Who Laughs, Vol. 1 Everything about England is great, even that which is not good, even her oligarchy. The English patrician order is patrician in the absolute sense of the word. No feudal system was ever more illustrious, more terrible, and more tenacious of life. This feudal system, we may remark, has been useful in its day. The phenomenon of seignorial rights must be studied in England, just as the phenomenon of royalty must be studied in France. The true title of this book should be, Aristocracy. An other, to follow it, may be entitled, The Monarchy. And these two books, if the author is permitted to finish them, will be the predecessors and forerunners of yet a third, which will be entitled, ninety-three. 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.