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Since 1500, the nobility has lost many of its former sources of income. The influx of huge masses of gold and silver from America led to the fact that money in Europe began to rapidly become cheaper; the cash quitrents that the nobles received from the peasants did not cover the needs of the aristocrats accustomed to luxury. The increased royal power prevented wars between individual feudal clans - and in fact, in the old days, these skirmishes made it possible for many to live by plundering the possessions of opponents. Finally, royal power takes away from the feudal lords the right to collect tolls on roads and rivers; now this is done by royal officials in favor of the monarch.

The poverty and unpretentiousness of rural life, and often complete impoverishment, force the nobles to go to big cities (and most often to the capital) in search of a profitable place in the royal service. Let us remember d'Artagnan, who entered Paris as a beggar and made a military career; let us recall the main character of the book by the French writer Theophile Gauthier “Captain Fracasse”, who left his ruined estate and fell into the company of wandering actors ... Many, like the famous Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes (see article “Conquistadors”), left their homeland and sought happiness in distant overseas lands. Cortes was lucky, he became fabulously rich, but not everyone was lucky. Most of the nobles were forced to choose between a half-starved existence in the family homestead and an early death from a cannonball, an insidious blow with a sword or a poisoned Indian arrow far from their home.

Getting into the royal service was not at all easy. Cities like Paris were crowded with poor nobles from the provinces, who flocked there in the hope of handouts from the king or a place in his guard. But no matter how rich the French crown was, it still did not have enough funds to support the entire nobility of France.