Duties
However, the nobles also had responsibilities. Nobles were required to honor, serve, and counsel their king. They were often required to render military service (for example, the impôt du sang or "blood tax").
The title of "noble" was not indelible: certain activities could cause dérogeance, loss of nobility. Most commercial and manual activities were strictly prohibited, although nobles could profit from their lands by operating mines and forges.
Read more about this topic: French Nobility
Famous quotes containing the word duties:
“What between the duties expected of one during one’s lifetime, and the duties exacted from one after one’s death, land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one position, and prevents one from keeping it up. That’s all that can be said about land.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Ah! how much a mother learns from her child! The constant protection of a helpless being forces us to so strict an alliance with virtue, that a woman never shows to full advantage except as a mother. Then alone can her character expand in the fulfillment of all life’s duties and the enjoyment of all its pleasures.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“The moment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed; there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, all ennuis, vanish,—all duties even.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)