[Transcriber's note: This production is based on https://archive.org/details/general_history_of_civilization_in_europe/page/n6]

Civilisation In Europe.

General
History Of Civilisation
In Europe,

From The Fall Of The Roman Empire Till The French Revolution.
By M. F. Guizot.

A Treatise On Death Punishments.

By The Same Author.

Edinburgh:
William And Robert Chambers.
1848.

Edinburgh:
Printed By W. And R. Chambers.

Contents.

Life Of Guizot.

His Birth
Education
Entry into Life
Literary Works
Political Career and Exile
1787 to 1848.

Among the many extraordinary personages who have figured within the last sixty years on the political stage of Europe, there are few whose career has been more singular and chequered than that of the author of the following works. In no country does talent so certainly insure pre-eminence to its possessor as in France, nor is success in literature anywhere so nobly rewarded. Rank and fortune are in it no necessary passports to social or political importance, and with perfect truth it may be said that the career of distinction is open to aspirants of every class and merit possessing and evincing legitimate claims to esteem and consideration. Of all professions, that of literature is held in the highest estimation, and its most successful cultivators are those who have exercised for many years the greatest influence over its destinies, and who have constituted its chief legislators and statesmen. From the superiority of his attainments in the field of intellectual exertion, M. Guizot has raised himself from obscurity, and achieved not only the fame of the most philosophic and profound historian of the day, but the lustre of a position the most exalted in the hierarchy of civilised life.

The family of M. Guizot appears to have been of old standing and respectable repute in the south of France, having its chief seat in the town of Nismes, where he himself was born on the 4th of October 1787. His father was an advocate, enjoying considerable practice at the provincial bar of Nismes, and he belonged, like his forefathers before him, to the Reformed Church, which entailed upon him sundry galling disabilities, the Protestants being then a proscribed sect in France, precisely as were the Catholics, on the other hand, in England and Ireland. Hence he viewed with approbation and hope the progress of the Revolution which commenced with the meeting of the States-General under Louis XVI. in 1789, and hailed with joy the abrogation of a system which condemned him to humiliations of both a civil and a religious character. He shrank, however, from the excesses with which the Jacobins polluted the glorious outburst, and by his sentiments of moderation, drew upon himself their revengeful anger, from the consequences of which he sought safety in concealment. Being discovered in his retreat, he heroically refused to accept the offer of permission to escape made him by his captor, preferring to suffer death rather than compromise the existence of another, whom humanity alone prompted to tender a generous protection. He accordingly fell under the axe of the guillotine at Nismes on the 8th of April 1794, contemporaneously with the execution of Danton at Paris, whose fall marked the culminating point of the Reign of Terror. The young Guizot was at this, period nearly seven years of age, and sufficiently old to appreciate all the horrors of that gloomy era: the terrible impression became indelible on his mind, and in a great measure ruled the future tendencies of his mature years, which led him to regard with instinctive abhorrence the smallest approach to a return of revolutionary violence.

The mother of Guizot escaped the fate of her husband, being in that respect more fortunate than the wives of most of the victims sacrificed to the vengeance of the Jacobins, and removed with her children to Geneva, to which Calvinistic city she originally belonged. She was a woman of strong mind and sound religious principles: she proved an excellent parent to Guizot and his younger brother, to whose training and education she devoted herself with exemplary solicitude. The care of an affectionate and virtuous mother is the most precious boon to man in his tender years, and there is scarcely an instance of one rising to high celebrity who has not enjoyed the fostering tutelage of maternal superintendence in his boyhood. This advantage Guizot possessed in a supreme degree: and it has been related by a visitor, who found her with him on her knee, reading to him incidents from the lives of the great Reformers, that she remarked, 'I wish to show my Frank, by these examples, how much may be effected by determination and diligence;' and assuredly her lessons were not thrown away, for these are the very qualities which have chiefly distinguished him through life. At the age of twelve, having already made considerable progress in the acquisition of the classical and principal modern languages, he was placed under the charge of M. de Joux, a minister of the Reformed Church of Geneva, who was at the head of a considerable seminary in that city. Under the auspices of this instructor of youth he made rapid progress in his studies, seeking still to master the difficulties which shroud from the unenlightened the immortal compositions bequeathed from antiquity or illumining more recent eras. In four years—such was the ardour of the young student—he could boast an intimate acquaintance with all the most illustrious of the Greeks and Romans, with all the most renowned of the nations of modern Europe. Homer, Thucydides, Demosthenes; Cicero, Seneca, Tacitus; Dante, Tasso, Ariosto; Schiller, Goethe, Fichte; Shakespeare, Milton, Locke; Racine, Fenelon, Montesquieu—these were the great minds with which he cultivated a familiar intercourse, these the sources from which he drank of the fountain of knowledge, these the ennobling inspirers of his dawning genius. Happy the youth who can embrace the opportunity of such learning, happier he who can appreciate its incomparable virtues, its ineffable charms, its exalted benefits; for no education can be more admirably adapted to refine the mind, develop the understanding, invigorate the intellect, or fill the soul with the divine breath of philosophy!

It was natural that the subtle questions which possess such interest in the minds of reflective men, and which involve the enigma of human existence, should present themselves to the thoughtful Guizot as fitting topics of contemplation. Consequently, we find him turn with avidity to metaphysics, and steep himself in sleepless ponderings on their sublime but inextricable problems. He thus acquired, more perhaps than even from his previous studies, that profound and detective cast of mind which is so perceptible in his works, and which makes the elucidation of causes the distinctive feature, the inestimable merit of his dissertations. But the time arrived when the pleasures of academic training must be exchanged for the toils of active life, since no patrimony removed the necessity of earning a subsistence by labour; and Madame Guizot, after consultation with her friends, determined that his father's profession was the most appropriate for her accomplished son. In 1804, accordingly, she left Geneva and returned to Nismes, whence, after tarrying a few months to inhale his native air, Guizot proceeded to Paris, then the glittering capital of the European world, and resplendent with the lustre of Napoleon's imperial throne. The scene, however, was singularly unfitted to a young adventurer, armed doubtless with much recondite lore, versed in all the learning of the schools, attuned to austerity as a Genevese neophyte: the military career was the great high road to fortune and distinction under the rule of the mighty conqueror. Mere civil virtues or mental acquirements were less in repute, and especially the profession of the law languished under the sceptre of the sword. In the midst of a society thus resonant with the tramp of warriors, the poor student felt abashed and forlorn; he sought in seclusion to escape its noise and glare, and the first year of his residence in Paris he still passed in solitude and study. But it was incumbent on him to exert himself for a livelihood, and he justly conceived the functions of a preceptor equally well suited to his capabilities as congenial to his tastes. In his quest for an engagement in this capacity, it was his good fortune to encounter M. Stapfer, himself a native of Switzerland, and formerly the Swiss minister to France, who took him into his house as tutor to his children. M. Stapfer had been originally a preacher of the Gospel, and likewise a professor of philosophy, which he laboured strenuously to invest with a religious character. He was deeply versed in German metaphysics, then bewildered by the novel and abstruse speculations of Kant, and with them he thoroughly embued the mind of Guizot, whom he treated at once as his disciple and his friend. Under the roof of this estimable personage, who has left behind him several valuable critical essays, Guizot found time, moreover, to follow the example of Gibbon and other men of illustrious name in literature, imposing on himself a rigorous and laborious recast of all his previous studies, analytically digesting them and arranging them in that clear and substantive manner which is essential for a permanent and productive groundwork. Whilst thus engaged in the duties of teaching, in the enjoyments of intellectual intercourse, and in the grateful toils of private application, he passed two happy and fruitful years. Through the introduction of M. Stapfer, he became known to M. Suard, whose house was the rendezvous of all the chief literary men of the day, and where he mingled on a footing of perfect equality with its most distinguished visitors, of whom the first in name and lustre was Chateaubriand, who had just electrified, and in part reclaimed, the infidel mind of France by his brilliant and fervent effusion, the 'Génie du Christianisme'—[the Genius of Christianity].

Sedate, modest, and retiring, Guizot was nevertheless twenty-one years old, and at an age when romance appears decked in a guise of irresistible attraction. Yet it was not love that allured him, but rather generosity and sympathy with misfortune that fired his ingenuous ardour. It chanced that a young lady, by name Pauline de Meulan, already past the bloom of womanhood, had been appointed chief contributor to a journal established by M. Suard, called the Publicist. This highly-gifted person unfortunately contracted a dangerous illness in the year 1807, which incapacitated her from continuing her contributions to the Publicist, on the proceeds of which she depended for the support of herself and her aged mother. No sooner did Guizot hear of her calamitous situation, than he sat down and composed an article in imitation as much as possible of her style and manner, which having completed, he sent to her anonymously, with an intimation that, if agreeable, a similar article would be forwarded for each future number of the journal. It is needless to say that the invalid authoress received the article and the offer with gratitude; and until her restoration to health, her mysterious benefactor perseveringly fulfilled his promise. The extraordinary circumstance was subsequently mentioned by her in the saloon of M. Suard, and in the presence of Guizot, who long refrained from disclosing the secret. When it was at length divulged, it was natural that a very cordial intimacy should ensue between the parties, which, after the lapse of some years— namely, in 1812—resulted in their marriage, although the lady had the advantage in age by at least fourteen years. Nevertheless, the union was a happy and auspicious one, proving also profitable even in a pecuniary view, since M. Guizot found in his wife an able and sedulous assistant in his literary labours. To her severe purity of mind also it is understood that he is much indebted for that lofty probity and adherence to principle which so strikingly distinguish him from the great herd of his contemporaries.

Thus fairly introduced to a literary life, he applied himself to its pursuits with unwearied industry. Under the rigorous censorship in which Napoleon kept the press, a very limited range of subjects was permitted to an author—anything bearing on politics, even in historical, critical, or philosophical dissertation, being strictly forbidden. In this dismal state of restriction, Guizot's first regular work, published in 1809, was an edition of Gerard's French Synonymes, with additions, accompanied by an original treatise on the philosophical character of the French language. This was followed in 1811 by a translation of 'Spain in 1808,' from the German of Rehfus, and by an essay on the state of the fine arts in France. In the course of that year he also received the appointment of conductor of a periodical entitled 'The Annals of Education,' which appeared for some years under his editorship. Before the end of 1812, he produced a translation of Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which was a work of many hands, even Louis XVI., when dauphin, being said to have executed part of it; but the whole of which was carefully revised and annotated by Guizot before publication. At the close of this same year he obtained, through the influence of M. de Fontanes, the professorship of history in the university of Paris, a situation which brought him in contact with Royer-Collard, likewise a professor in the same college, and between them a friendship sprang up, which afterwards bore happy fruits, and had an important influence on the future career of M, Guizot.

The first restoration of the Bourbons in 1814 presented to him the opportunity for which his ambition had been already aroused, of entering into political life. Through the recommendation of Royer-Collard, he was nominated by the Abbé de Montesquiou, minister of the interior, secretary to his department; and he followed the king in his flight to Ghent, where he is stated to have successfully exerted his enlightened remonstrances to induce Louis XVIII. to discard from his councils M. de Blacas, whose antiquated royalism had materially availed to precipitate him from his newly-acquired throne. Under the second restoration he held several secondary offices in the administration, and he remained attached to successive ministries until 1820, when the assassination of the Duke de Berri produced a violent royalist reaction, under which the Decazes ministry fell (of which Royer-Collard formed a component part), and in its ruin involved M. Guizot. He then openly joined the party in opposition to M. Villele, the new minister; and having ventured to arraign his measures in a pamphlet, he was suspended from his chair in the university, which he did not regain until the accession of M. de Martignac to power in the year 1828.

Thus deprived of all official income, he was reduced once more to his pen to eke out a subsistence. With a hearty good-will, and a noble spirit of independence, he turned again to his literary labours, which he prosecuted during the ten years from 1820 to 1830 with unexampled diligence, and soon fixed on himself the attention and admiration of his countrymen. It will be sufficient to enumerate his principal publications during this important era of his life.

1. A Collection of Memoirs relative to the English Revolution, with Historical Notes and Explanations, 25 vols. 8vo; followed by a History of the English Revolution in 2 vols. 8vo, which has not yet been completed according to the authors original intentions.
2. A Collection of Memoirs relative to the History of France from the Foundation of the Monarchy to the Thirteenth Century, with an Introduction, Supplement, Notices, and Notes, 29 vols. 8vo.
3. A new edition of Rollin and Letourneur's Translation of Shakespeare, with great Amendments, and illustrated by Critical Notes and Historical Notices.

4. The 'Revue Française,' a periodical established by him during this period, may be accounted in the number of his works, together with the principal articles in the journal called the 'Globe.'

In the execution of all these labours he was constantly assisted by his wife, who sat in the same room with him in which he carried on his literary operations, attended by her two nieces, and surrounded by a number of young men, who acted in various capacities as copyists, arrangers, and amanuenses: the whole group presenting a picture of silent activity and resolute industry the most interesting that can be conceived.

At this period M. Guizot lived in a quiet retired house in a small street behind the Madeleine, which he has rendered in some degree famous by the indefatigable labours of which it was the scene. He has since lived in sumptuous palaces; but it is probable that in this modest abode he had more real enjoyment than when seated amid the magnificence of high official pomp. Though he was well known to be poor, and to be dependent on literature for a livelihood, his condition, which in England would have been considered one of the most degraded possible, was no drawback to his social position, and his residence was the resort of nearly all the most eminent men of the day both in literature and in politics. On his reception nights his little rooms were crowded with people of distinction, anxious to partake the intellectual feast served out on such occasions; for no substantial viands were there to regale them beyond a cup of tea, dispensed by the fair hands of Madame Guizot and one or two female friends—often the late Duchess de Broglie, a woman of superior attainments. Yet sorrow, too, fell on him in this otherwise cherished home, for here his wife died in the course of 1827, and shortly after her his only son. With her dying breath she besought him to marry one of her nieces, who resided with them; and in the following year he fulfilled her wish by espousing Eliza Dillon, the eldest, whom he has likewise had the misfortune to lay in the tomb, after bearing him two daughters. It was in this same year, 1828, that the liberal ministry of M. de Martignac was formed, one of whose first acts was to restore M. Guizot to his professorship of modern history in the Sorbonne, and in which situation he will he perhaps hereafter held to have earned his chiefest glory.

The lectures that M. Guizot delivered from his university chair have been collected into two publications, the one entitled 'A Course of Modern History,' in six volumes, and the other 'The History of Civilisation in Europe.' This latter course has been very much admired, has passed into all modern languages, and attained a most extensive celebrity. It was delivered on his resumption of his chair in the session of 1828, and more than one translation of it has already appeared in English. But recent events have given to the work an additional interest and importance, justifying its renewed publication and as it will pass into the hands of a fresh class of readers, a few words on its purport, scope, and execution, will scarcely be considered misplaced:—

It embraces a history of the general course of modern civilisation, from the overthrow of the Roman Empire in the west, to the mental convulsion which heralded the French Revolution. The elements of that civilisation the author has reduced to four—namely, the church, the feudal system, the boroughs, and the royal power—and each of them in succession to its origin, and followed in all its subsequent changes. The influence of the great events that have occurred in modern Europe, on the different orders of society, is exhibited with great force and originality, particularly the effect of the crusades, the Reformation, and the English revolution. The manner in which he shows society to have been ultimately divided between two powers only, nations and governments, is very striking and successful. The most brilliant portion of the work is generally judged to be that in which he describes the reign of Louis XIV., and the contests of that monarch with William III., each of them being the representative and personification of a great principle, the one embodying absolute sovereignty, and the other civil and religious liberty, the struggle between which is the characteristic of later European history.

Throughout the work, M. Guizot displays great depth of thought and originality, not only in his general views and analysations, but also in his ideas touching particular orders of facts, individual occurrences, or peculiar institutions. He possesses the art, in a very high degree, of presenting known objects in so novel and startling a light, as to arouse the attention of the reader, and make him stretch his reflective faculties to the utmost, in spite of himself. An exalted tone of philosophical reasoning marks the whole inquiry, which, whilst it opens and delights the mind, keeps it likewise steadfast and attentive; for it will be found impossible to comprehend the greater part of M. Guizot's deductions in a careless or occasional perusal.

Objections have been made to the style in which M. Guizot writes. He is accused, and perhaps justly, of being sometimes barren and spiritless, and at other times diffuse and tedious. But there is no doubt that in his writings there are passages of great beauty and expression, though he evidently is more concerned about the strength and truthfulness of his ideas than the mere diction in which he couches them. A certain suddenness of transition, in which he frequently indulges, renders him a difficult author to translate, in such a manner as to give so perfect an idea of his style of writing as could be wished, though that object has in the present instance been pursued as far as possible.

It will be found that, at the conclusion of the work, the author gives an intimation of his intention to carry out the operation of modern civilisation on the moral and internal development of mankind at a future period, he having limited his present inquiry to its effect on political and social development. From the circumstances about to be related, M. Guizot has not hitherto fulfilled this promise, but it is now understood that he intends without delay to complete his original design.

From the celebrated epoch of 1830 M. Guizot is to be viewed chiefly as a political character, although he has in the interval published several esteemed works, such as the life of Monk, the life of Washington, an Essay on Democracy, and a philosophical essay on Death Punishments, particularly with reference to political offences, which appears at the close of this volume. In January of that year he was returned by the constituency of Lisieux a member of the Chamber of Deputies, and he concurred in the address from the majority of that body, which provoked Charles X. to issue his famous ordinances of the 15th July 1830. At a meeting of deputies held at the house of Casimir Perier, the protest adopted against those ordinances was drawn up by Guizot, and when Charles X. was driven from the kingdom, he was appointed by the provisional government minister of public instruction. On the elevation of Louis-Philippe to the throne, the first administration selected by him was naturally drawn from different parties, and was in a great measure heterogeneous, being left without a head or president. But in it Guizot held unquestionably the first place, since he had the appointment of minister of the interior, which, immediately subsequent to a revolution, must be deemed the most important office of the government. This first ministry, which comprised men of all shades of opinion—Molé, Dupin, Lafitte, and Perier—lasted only three months, being displaced by one of a more decidedly liberal tendency under the presidency of Lafitte, and Guizot retired from office with his friends. It was from this time that the Chamber of Deputies became broken up into so many different fractions, that scarcely any combination was feasible to command for any length of time the necessary majority to carry on the government. Hence changes of ministry were almost continual during the first ten years of Louis-Philippe's reign. The various parties in the Chamber were generically four only—that is, distinguishable from each other on account of fundamental principles. These four were the Legitimatists, or partisans of the fallen dynasty; the Reactionists, the Conservative Reformers, and the Radical Reformers, according to the nomenclature best descriptive of their respective tendencies; but they were known as the Right, the Centre Right, the Centre Left, and the Left, from the positions they occupied in the hall of the Chamber. But these again were subdivided into minuter sections, particularly with regard to the two Centres, which constituted the bulk of the assembly, and from which all the ministries were drawn. Thus, although Guizot belonged to the Centre Right, he, with Royer-Collard and some twenty-five or thirty others, formed a body apart called the Doctrinaires: a term applied to them, like most political designations, from an accidental circumstance. Previous to the Revolution, a teaching corporation had existed under the title of the Doctrinaires, in one of whose colleges Royer-Collard had been educated, whilst his brother and uncle belonged to the fraternity. His style of oratory was of a severe and logical character, proceeding always upon a foundation of fixed doctrines, and the word, moreover, was continually upon his lips. One day he was more than usually profuse of the phrase, and a royalist member, irritated at the lecture he was delivering, exclaimed aloud, 'Ah! hear the Doctrinaires! No one can ever mistake the Doctrinaires!' From that moment the epithet clung to him and his associates, who, sooth to say, accepted it willingly enough. But though the origin of the appellation is easily explained, it is far otherwise with regard to the precise principles upheld by the Doctrinaires. Agreeing generally with the Right Centre on the necessity of resisting any extension of popular franchises, they nevertheless allowed that such an extension might be advisable, and was consistent with reason and justice, but at the same time care must be taken that the real government of the country should always be vested in the men of superior information and capacity. There was nothing so very peculiar in these ideas as really to invest the Doctrinaires with a distinct political character; but in truth both Guizot and Collard were too proud and ambitious to confess the leadership of another, and they aspired to hold the balance between the two Centres, so as to render their support indispensable to the formation of a ministry.

There is perhaps no more difficult task than to render intelligible the struggles of parties and the changes of government that took place during the early years of Louis-Philippe's reign. With the exception of the two small fractions on the extremes of the Chamber, the Legitimatists (of whom Berryer was the leader) and the avowed Republicans (of whom Garnier-Pages was the leader), all were unanimous in maintaining in its integrity the Charter of 1830, and the dynasty it planted on the throne of France. Even Odillon Barrot and Arago only advocated certain electoral changes with a view to an extension of the suffrage to a larger portion of the population, and the adoption of sundry other reforms. But nevertheless, although the battle-ground seemed thus contracted, and merely insignificant points of difference to exist, there are few instances in parliamentary history of a keener or more bitter strife being maintained than between the main parties in the Chamber of Deputies; and this can be explained only by the undoubted fact, that the dissensions almost exclusively arose from personal rivalries. Thus between Guizot and Thiers, who so far outshone all others in oratory and talent as to be the incontestable leaders of the assembly, there existed no such tangible practical difference as to justify their mutual hostility. It is true that Thiers, from the tenor of his writings and his previous associations, was considered as of a more liberal cast; but his name is identified with no measure of any liberal tendency, nor did he hesitate to follow, when himself in power, the same restrictive policy with regard to the press, public meetings, and other matters, which marked what were deemed more retrograde governments. Under such circumstances it was that Louis-Philippe, who possessed great sagacity and knowledge of men, and was, withal, tormented by the lust of ruling, saw that, by skilfully poising between the adverse factions, he might himself hold the reins of government, and violate the great maxim of a constitutional monarchy, which assigns to the king the part of reigning only, and to his responsible advisers that of ruling. This he so far carried out, that notwithstanding the numerous displacements of ministries, they were all essentially of his own composition, and on the great affairs of policy the creatures of his will. Yet it would be unjust to this monarch not to allow that such a condition of things was in a great measure forced upon him by the anomalous state of parties in the Chamber of Deputies, and that throughout his reign he invariably exerted his influence to discourage the passion for war so unhappily inherent in the French people, insomuch that to him personally may be ascribed the glory of preserving for so many years the peace of the civilised world.

There is no doubt that although France attained a great development of material prosperity under the reign of Louis-Philippe, his government must be characterised, as regards social and political improvement, as stagnant, if not retrograde. Whether it could be otherwise or not, from the peculiar character of the French, without its own stability being endangered, will be the subject of curious inquiry with the future historian. But on one important point a magnificent progress was made, and that through the agency of M. Guizot. In October 1832 he took office in a coalition ministry with Thiers, of which Marshal Soult was president, and he received the appointment of minister of public instruction, for which he was so admirably adapted, and which, under innumerable modifications of the cabinet, he retained until 1836. And here it may be remarked in approbation, as indicating the entire extinction of religious bigotry in France, that not a single objection was raised, on the score of his Protestantism, against Guizot being intrusted with the superintendence of the education of the whole youth of France. But it may appear more surprising that he was allowed to extend the system of public education in so extraordinary a degree. Without entering into the particulars of his educational organisation, it is a sufficient proof of the gigantic ramifications he gave it, that whereas in 1829 the grant for education figured in the budget at the moderate sum of 2,000,000 francs, it was increased in 1836 to 15,000,000 francs, or L.600,000 sterling; whilst the item for primary instruction was in like manner swelled from 50,000 to 5,000,000 francs. Thus throughout the whole of France the means of affording an adequate education to the bulk of the population was provided by the foresight of this statesman, who wisely judged that the spread of education among a community is the best security of peace, prosperity, and order.

In February 1836 Guizot yielded to the superior address of his rival, Thiers, who realised the full dream of his ambition in becoming prime minister of France. His tenure of power, however, was very brief, since it continued only to August of the same year, when he in his turn gave way to Molé, whom Guizot joined as a colleague. So brittle was the fabric of these cabinets, that Molé's fell to pieces in March 1837, but was subsequently reconstructed, by the substitution of Montalivet for Guizot, who was sacrificed as obnoxious to the majority of the Chamber. In 1839 Soult was again made president of the council, and Guizot accepted the honourable post of ambassador to England. He was received at the court of London with distinguished regard; and he has himself recorded his sense of the flattering reception he experienced from all classes in Great Britain. His mission, however, was not of long duration, since another ministerial revolution had again hoisted to the head of affairs the redoubtable Thiers, under whom he declined to serve. The warlike propensities evinced by Thiers, consequent upon the coalition of the other great powers to expel Mehemet Ali from Syria, induced the king to dismiss him; and in 1840 Louis-Philippe formed his last ministry, with Soult nominally at its head, but Guizot virtually its chief in the all-important post of minister of foreign affairs. Under this administration was finally consummated the catastrophe, which to the foreseeing had long hideously loomed, and against which the voice of warning had been raised in vain.

The Charter of 1830, and the government established under it, had been gradually becoming indifferent, if not repugnant, to the bulk of the French people, who viewed with amazement the successive variations of ministries, which produced indeed a change of men, but led to no modification of system, to no amelioration of measures. That this was a result almost inevitably entailed on a mushroom institution is perhaps too true, from the simple fact, that the primary function of every orderly government in France is to protect its existence from the ceaseless efforts of a faction the most unscrupulous and ruthless in its means of action known since the days of Catiline in the Roman Forum. The repeated attempts to assassinate the king, and the constant plots to subvert his throne, sufficiently attest this dire necessity, which nevertheless involved consequences most disastrous to his popularity and the durability of his dynasty. Compelled, in sheer self-defence, to adopt repressive measures against the abettors of anarchy, the friends of liberty, forgetting or overlooking the existing danger to order and to society itself, saw in these measures evidences of tyranny, and exclaimed against them as acts of treachery to the spirit of the constitution. In some instances these measures might be too severe, and those taken against the press would seem undoubtedly so, were it not that newspaper articles exercise so extraordinary an influence over the French, insomuch that Napoleon himself stood more in awe of them than of all the million bayonets of the Allies; but at least they were sanctioned by the principal men of all parties, save the extreme republicans, and for the moment acquiesced in as precautions of absolute necessity. Yet no situation can be conceived more unfortunate for a government than being thus continually driven to acts of harshness and severity even against inveterate malefactors, since it thereby becomes easy to represent it in odious colours. The whole system of the government appeared directed to one single aim—that of consolidating the dynasty on the throne, even at the expense of public liberty—and this idea being assiduously circulated, soon took root, and grew into a settled conviction throughout the country. Thus the king grew unpopular, if not odious, and durst not appear in public unless surrounded by innumerable guards. The only member of his family, the Duke of Orleans, who was at all beloved among the people, was unfortunately killed; and although another of his sons, the Prince de Joinville, attempted to gain popularity by pandering to the national hatred against England, he failed in his object; and the whole family came to be regarded by the nation with utter indifference, and perhaps aversion. This was strikingly exemplified in the case of the marriage of the Duke de Montpensier with the Infanta of Spain, which was brought about by means very discreditable to the heads of the French government, albeit regarding it as a master-stroke of policy, but which created no excitement among the people, who saw in it simply the aggrandisement of a family in whose fortunes they had ceased to feel any interest.

It was under such untoward circumstances, with M. Guizot as chief adviser of the crown, that an almost unanimous cry arose in France for electoral reform, such as had been long advocated by Odillon Barrot and his party. But for the general discontent existing against the government, it is probable this cry would have subsided, although founded on strict reason and justice; yet this discontent was unhappily further inflamed by certain disclosures of peculation on the part of high functionaries, which tended to show the entire system of the administration to be deeply tainted with corruption. The integrity of M. Guizot himself was never questioned, nor was he personally affected in character; but he could not escape the imputation of conniving at impurities, certainly of long-standing, and difficult to be eradicated, which could not fail to compromise the government under which they were allowed to continue. [Footnote 1]

[Footnote 1: M. Guizot carried his idea of ministerial integrity to the pitch of austerity. When the Boy of Tunis was received in Paris, one of the questionable proceedings that marked the latter years of Louie-Philippe, he sent presents to Guizot's daughters, amounting in value to L.6000, which the latter immediately returned.]

The question of reform consequently grew in magnitude, and, independently of other causes, for these especial reasons—1st, The electoral system of the Charter was partial and defective; and, 2ldy, It had proved barren and fruitless. The qualification of an elector being fixed at the yearly payment of L.8, 6s. 8d. direct taxes, reduced the number of electors below 200,000 in a population of 35,000,000. Therefore the representation was partial and illusory. The constituencies were so unequal, that whereas in large towns there was only one deputy to every 2000 voters, in the rural districts there was one also to every 150 voters; and these last were, from the multitude of public functionaries in France, almost completely under the influence, and, in fact, close boroughs, of the government. It could not be denied, therefore, that the composition of the Chamber was unequal and defective, and that it might have been advantageously reformed. But Louis-Philippe had grown only the more wedded to his system of repression with increase of age, and he would hear of no change. Guizot himself was of stubborn and haughty temper, and though he might feel all the force of the arguments against the existing system, he scorned to yield to what might be deemed intimidation.

Confident in a force of 50,000 soldiers collected in the capital, confident in the majority of the Chamber of Deputies, which was actually composed of persons holding places under the crown, both king and minister looked with composure on the movement, determined to suppress it the moment it appeared to gather undue strength or wax in real danger.

During the winter of 1847, Reform Banquets were held in almost all the departments of France, which were signalised by the significant omission of the king's health from the list of toasts. This was in itself a circumstance sufficiently indicative of the low estimation in which the monarch was held, not among the lower classes, who are generally discontented with any government, but among the bulk of the middle classes, the assumed bulwarks of the throne. These banquets were of course watched, but were not interfered with by the authorities; but when the legislature again assembled at Paris for its usual session, in the beginning of 1848, it was resolved to hold one on a gigantic scale in the capital itself. This the government resolved to prevent, and accordingly interdicted it; afterwards it withdrew the prohibition, and eventually renewed it. This vacillation was most injurious; it bespoke the government to be in doubt and hesitation; it imparted to the reform leaders additional boldness and determination. They persisted in holding the banquet, which was appointed to take place on the 22d February. It would be out of place to pursue the subject in detail. Suffice it to say, that an insurrection of the people broke out, who erected barricades in the principal thoroughfares of Paris; the national guards and the troops refused to act against the populace, and in four-and-twenty hours Louis-Philippe was dethroned! The palace of the Tuileries was stormed and sacked; the mob burst into the Chamber of Deputies, whence they expelled the members, and proclaimed a Republic. The monarch, who a few days previously had seemed as firmly seated on his throne as any in Europe, who was esteemed as amongst the wisest and most sagacious, and who had to fence around him 500,000 bayonets, was a fugitive with his queen, flying in disguise, without money and without clothes, and at length reaching the shore of England in an old pea-coat borrowed from the master of a steamboat! So sudden and unaccountable an event has never occurred in the history of the world, studded as it is with remarkable vicissitudes and reverses of fortune. It is for the historian, and not for the biographer, to investigate its causes and trace its development.

The minister shared the fate of his master. With difficulty he escaped through the insurgent multitude, and making good his way to the Belgian frontier, took shipping at Ostend, and reached England in safety. For better security, he had despatched his mother and daughters in a different direction for the same destination, and upon his arrival, had the happiness to find they had preceded him. Now an exile from his native land, in which he has played so varied and distinguished a part, he will at least have letters and philosophy to console him; nor will his sterner nature melt into those abject repinings for which we blush in Cicero. In leisure and retirement, he will complete those works which assure him a niche in the temple of fame, if the judgment of posterity be adverse to him as a statesman.

T. W. Redhead.

Since the arrival of M. Guizot in England, he has lived in studied seclusion. He has refused several invitations from public bodies, and even offers of honourable appointments, for it is the boast of Britain to feel sympathy with the unfortunate and the exiled; but upon one occasion he has been tempted from his privacy, and as the words of such a man must ever possess great value and interest, it is deemed fitting they should be here recorded. It was at a public entertainment given in August 1848 at Great Yarmouth, after the re-opening of St. Nicholas Church, that M. Guizot was present; and on his health being drunk by the chairman, he delivered himself as follows:—

'I have come but twice during my life to England. The first time I came as the ambassador of a powerful king; the second time as an exile from my native land. When I came the first time to your country, Europe was in a state of perfect tranquillity and prosperity; there was peace present, and confidence in the future. The second time, some months ago, when I came, my own country—Europe generally—was involved in much sadness and fears for the future; but I found England perfectly quiet, enjoying in the deepest tranquillity her liberty, her constitution, her moral, intellectual, and material prospects; and I was received as an exile, as I had been when an ambassador, with the same kindness, the same sympathy, and, I venture to say, with the same friendship. I have hitherto refused myself to every invitation—declined every invitation to great feasts and to great meetings. Far from my dear country, and deeply sad, it is my inclination as well as my duty to live in retirement; and this I am doing. But this occasion is one of a very different kind. The restoration of a church of God, the piety of an immense people, the eloquence of two worthy bishops—these were the motives that attracted me to your town, after I had refused every other invitation. Only one word more. Allow me to say to you, keep your faith—keep your laws—be faithful to the examples, to the tradition of your ancestors; and I trust God will continue to pour on you and your country His best, His most abundant, His most fertile blessings.'

History Of Civilisation In Europe.

Lecture I.
Objects Of The Course.
Of Civilisation In General.

Gentlemen—I am deeply affected at the reception with which you favour me, and which I accept as a pledge of the sympathy which has continued to exist between us, notwithstanding so long a separation. It is as if the same individuals, the same generation, who seven years ago took part in my labours, were now present within these walls. Because I myself return here, it seems to me that everything is as it was, that nothing is changed; yet all is changed, and changed for the better. Seven years ago, we entered this building with uneasiness, beset by sad and gloomy thoughts; we were aware that difficulties and perils surrounded us; we felt ourselves drawn towards an evil which we vainly strove to escape by a grave, calm, and reserved demeanour. Now we all come, you as well as I, with confidence and hope, our minds at peace, and our thoughts unshackled. There is only one mode by which we can testify our gratitude, gentlemen; and it is by observing in our meetings and our studies the same tranquillity and prudence that marked them when every day brought its fears that they would be fettered or suspended. Let us not forget that good fortune is of a delicate and fragile texture, and liable to accidents; that hope requires moderation like fear; that the convalescent state demands almost the same cares and caution as the approaches of illness. I feel assured, gentlemen, that your ideas correspond with mine. The sympathy, the intimate and unreserved communication of opinions and sentiments, which united us in days of difficulty, and saved us at all events from indiscretions, will equally unite us at this more favourable period, and enable us to gather all its fruits. I reckon upon your acquiescence, gentlemen, and I need nothing more.

The time allowed us between this and the close of the year is very limited. I have myself had only a short period to arrange the course that I should present to you. I have sought a subject which might be the most completely handled, both with reference to the time that is left us, and to the few days that have been granted me for preparation. It has appeared to me that a general picture of the modern history of Europe, considered with respect to the development of civilisation—in other words, a glance at the history of European civilisation, of its origin, its progress, its objects, and its character—was best adapted for the space at our disposal. It is upon this subject, therefore, I have determined to address you.

I am justified in speaking of European civilisation, because it is evident that a certain identity prevails in the civilisation of the different states of Europe; that it results from facts nearly similar, notwithstanding great diversities in time, place, and circumstance; that it is traceable to the same principles, and has an almost universal tendency to analogous results. Thus I deduce an European civilisation, and with it, taken as a whole, I am desirous of interesting you.

On the other hand, it is equally clear that this civilisation is not to be looked for, that its history is not fully developed, in the history of any single state of Europe. If it possesses unity, its variety is not less prodigious: in no peculiar country can its progress be completely traced. Its features are scattered: the elements of its history are to be found sometimes in France, sometimes in England, sometimes in Germany, sometimes in Spain.

We hold a favourable position for prosecuting this search and study into European civilisation. We must avoid flattery to any individual, and even to our country; yet I believe we can say with truth that France has been the centre, the furnace, of the civilisation of Europe. It would be absurd to pretend that she has always marched in the van on all sides. She has been preceded in the arts at different eras by Italy; and in political institutions by England. Perhaps also, in other respects, we should find that other nations have at particular periods been superior to her; but it is impossible to deny that whenever France has perceived herself backward in the race, she has assumed a fresh vigour, has sprung forward, and has soon found herself equal to, or in advance of all. And not only has this come to pass; but when the civilising ideas or institutions, if I may be allowed the phrase, have been transplanted, to render them productive and universal, to fit them for the common good of European civilisation, we have seen them obliged, in some degree, to undergo a new preparatory process in France, and from her, as from a second country, of a richer and more fertile soil, go forth to the conquest of Europe. There is not a great idea, not a great principle of civilisation, which has not first passed through France to be disseminated in every quarter. There is something more sociable and sympathetic, something acting with more facility and energy, in the French character than in that of any other nation: either from our language, or the particular bent of our genius or our manners, our ideas are more popular, are more clearly perceptible to the masses, and penetrate amongst them more easily; in a word, perspicuity, sociability, and sympathy, are the peculiar characteristics of France and of her civilisation, and these qualities eminently fit her to march at the head of European civilisation.

Therefore, in entering upon the history of this great fact, it is from no arbitrary or conventional choice that we assume France as the centre of our studies, but rather that we thereby place ourselves, as it were, in the very heart of civilisation, in the very heart of what we are about to engage our minds in investigating. I call it a fact, gentlemen, and I call it so designedly. Civilisation is a fact, and one as susceptible of being studied, described, and related, as any other in history.

It has long ago been remarked with justice, that history should be comprised in facts—that it should be a relation. Nothing is more true. But there are more facts to relate, and these facts are themselves more various than we are perhaps at first disposed to believe: there are the material, visible facts, such as battles, wars, the official acts of governments; there are the moral, hidden facts, which are not the less real; there are individual facts, which have a distinct designation; and there are general facts, having no designation, to which it is impossible to assign a precise date either of day or year, which it is impossible to include in prescribed limits, and which are unquestionably facts which cannot be excluded from history without mutilating it.

That portion which we are accustomed to name the philosophical part of history—the mutual relations of facts, the bond which unites them, the causes and the effects of events—is as much history as the recitals of battles and of external circumstances. Facts of this description are doubtless more difficult to unravel, and give frequent occasions for error: it is no easy task to give them animation, or present them in clear and vivid colours; but this difficulty affects not, nor changes, their nature, nor renders them a less essential part of history.

Civilisation is one of these facts, a general, hidden, complex fact; very difficult, I grant, to describe and relate, but not the less, on that account, possessing existence, and a right to be described and related. A great number of questions may be raised on this fact: it may be asked, indeed it has been asked, whether it is for good or evil? Some have most gloomy anticipations, others most bright. It may be also asked whether there be an universal civilisation of the human species, a destiny for humanity, and whether there has been transmitted from age to age something which cannot be lost, which must increase, form a store, and thus be passed on to the end of time? For my own part, I am convinced that there is, in fact, a general destiny for humanity, a transmission of the store of civilisation, and, as a necessary consequence, an universal history of civilisation to write. But without raising questions so grave and difficult to resolve, if we confine ourselves to a fixed interval of time and space—that is, if we limit our researches to the history of a certain number of centuries and of certain people—we shall find it clear, that within these bounds civilisation is a fact which can be described, related as matter of history. I do not hesitate to add, that its history is the most important of all, and that it embraces all others.

Is it not apparent that civilisation is the main fact, the general and definite fact, in which all others terminate and are included! Take all the facts which compose the history of a nation, they being generally considered as the elements of its existence; take its institutions, its commerce, its industrial movements, its wars, all the details of its government; and when we reflect upon these circumstances in their consolidated tendency, and in their relations, when we weigh and judge them, our view is directed to ascertain how they have contributed to the civilisation of that nation, in what proportion they have influenced it, what effect they have had in accomplishing it. We thus not only form a complete idea of them, but we measure and ascertain their real value: they are in some degree like rivers, the quantity of water conveyed by which to the ocean is matter of calculation. Civilisation is a species of ocean forming a nation's wealth, and in the bosom of which all the elements and sources of its existence are united. This is so true, that, with respect to facts—which are from their nature detestable, disastrous, a painful weight upon nations, as despotism and anarchy, for example—if they have contributed in some degree to civilisation, if they have given it a considerable impetus, up to a certain point we excuse and pardon their injuries and their evil nature; insomuch, that wherever we discover civilisation, and the facts which have tended to enrich it, we are tempted to forget the price it has cost.

There are, indeed, facts which, properly speaking, cannot be styled social—individual facts, seeming to interest the human soul rather than to affect public life: such are religious creeds and philosophical ideas, sciences, letters, and arts. These are matters apparently influencing man, either to perfect or delight him, and having for their object rather his internal amelioration or gratification, than his social condition. Yet it is with reference to civilisation that these very circumstances are frequently, and ought to be, considered. At all periods, in all lands, religion has been glorified as an engine of civilisation; sciences, letters, and arts, all the intellectual and moral pursuits, have claimed a share in this glory; and we give them praise and honour in our opinion when we admit that their claims are just. Thus facts the most important and sublime in themselves, independently of all external result, and simply taken in their relations with the human soul, increase in importance, and rise in sublimity, from their connection with civilisation. So great is the value of this general fact, that it imparts consideration to everything it touches; and not only that, but there are even occasions when the matters of which we speak—religious creeds, philosophical ideas, letters, arts—are especially estimated and judged with reference to their influence upon civilisation; and the extent of this influence becomes, up to a certain point, and during a certain time, the decisive measure of their merit and value.

It is important to inquire, before undertaking its history, and with regard only to itself, in what consists this grave, and extensive, and precious matter, thus seeming to contain, and give expression to, the entire existence of nations. And here I shall avoid falling into pure philosophy; I shall avoid laying down a reasoning principle, and then deducing the nature of civilisation from it as a consequence: there would be many chances of error in such a method. We encounter a fact preliminarily which requires to be verified and described.

During a long period, and in many countries, the word civilisation has been used; ideas more or less clear, more or less expansive, have been attached to it, but it is in general use, and it is understood. It is the general, human, popular meaning of this word that we must study. It almost invariably occurs, that in the usual acceptation of terms most in vogue, there is more truth than in the more rigorous, and apparently more precise, definitions of science. It is good sense which gives their common signification to words, and good sense is the genius of humanity. The popular meaning of a word is constituted by a successive process as facts actually arise; so that when a matter presents itself which seems to be comprised within the meaning of a received term, it is comprehended within it by, as it were, a natural tendency: the signification of the term expands and takes a larger compass; and by degrees the various facts and ideas which, from the very nature of things, men should include under this word, become so included in reality. When the meaning of a word, on the contrary, is determined by science, such determination, being fixed by one or a small number of individuals, is controlled by some particular fact which has struck their minds. Thus scientific definitions are in general much more confined, and from that circumstance alone, much less true at bottom, than popular acceptations. In studying, as a fact, the meaning of the word civilisation, in investigating all the ideas comprised within it, according to the common sense of mankind, we shall make greater progress in gaining a knowledge of the fact itself, than if we endeavoured to form for ourselves a scientific definition, although it might appear at first more clear and precise.

As a commencement to this investigation, I shall attempt to place before you certain hypotheses—I shall describe certain states of society; and then will arise the question, Whether, by general instinct, the condition of a people advancing in civilisation is at once recognised—whether the meaning which mankind attach naturally to the word civilisation is thereby developed?

Let us take a people whose outward existence is agreeable and comfortable, paying few taxes, exposed to no suffering, amongst whom justice is well administered in private affairs; in a word, whose material existence, in its full extent, is well and happily regulated. But at the same time, the intellectual and moral existence of this people is studiously held in a state of numbness and inactivity, I will not say in a state of oppression, because the feeling is unknown to it, but of compression. This order of things is not without example. There has been a great number of small aristocratic republics in which the people have been treated like flocks, well tended, and materially happy, but without moral and intellectual activity. Is this civilisation! Is this a people in the process of self-civilisation?

Let us take another hypothesis. Here is a people whose material existence is less agreeable, less comfortable, yet supportable. But in return, its moral and intellectual wants have not been neglected; a certain extent of pasture has been afforded them; elevated and pure sentiments are cultivated amongst this people; systems of religion and morality have attained a certain degree of development; but great care is taken to strangle the principle of liberty. Here the intellectual and moral wants, as before the physical wants, are satisfied: to each individual is meted out a portion of truth, but he is not permitted to seek it freely of himself alone. The characteristic of the moral life is immobility; it is the state into which the major part of the Asiatic populations has fallen, where theocratic dominations repress elasticity; it is the state of the Hindoos, for example. I ask the same question as before—Is this a people advancing in civilisation?

I change altogether the nature of the hypothesis. Here is a people amongst whom is a great development of certain individual liberties, but where disorder and inequality are excessive; the empire of force and chance: he who is not strong is oppressed, suffers, and perishes. Violence is the characteristic of the social state. Every person knows that Europe has passed through this state. Is it a civilised condition? It may doubtless contain the principles of civilisation, which will be successively developed; but the predominant fact in such a society is most assuredly not that which the common sense of mankind calls civilisation.

I take a fourth and last hypothesis. The liberty of each individual is very great, inequality is rare, or at least temporary. Each does almost what he pleases, and differs little in power with his neighbour; but there are very few general interests, public ideas or sentiments, very little society; in a word, the faculties and career of individuals are deployed, and run in isolation, without mutual action, and without leaving any marks behind: successive generations leave society at the same point at which it has come to them. This is the state of savage tribes: liberty and equality are there, and yet as certainly is not civilisation.

I could multiply these hypotheses, but I think we have enough to prove what is the popular and natural meaning of the word civilisation.

It is clear that none of the conditions which I have glanced at answers, according to the common sense of mankind, to this term. Why? It appears to me that the first fact comprised in the word civilisation (and this is deducible from the different examples I have brought forward), is that of progress, of development; its application is identical with the idea of a people on the move, not for a change of locality, but of condition; of a people whose state is in the process of expansion and amelioration. Progress and development appear to me the fundamental ideas contained in the word civilisation.

What is this progress? what this development? Here stands the great difficulty.

The etymology of the word seems to afford a clear and satisfactory solution; it says that it is the perfection of the civil life, the development of society, properly so called, of the relations of men amongst themselves.

Such is, in reality, the first idea which presents itself to the human understanding when the word civilisation is pronounced; the extension of the social relations, the imparting to them the greatest activity, the most perfect organisation, are matters of immediate implication: on the one hand, an increasing production of the means which secure strength and happiness to society; on the other, a more equitable distribution amongst individuals of the strength and happiness produced.

Is this all? Have we exhausted all that its natural and prevailing meaning conveys? Does the fact of civilisation contain nothing more?

It is almost as if we asked—Is the human species a mere swarm or aggregation demanding only order and plenty, in which the greater the amount of labour, and the more equitable the appropriation of the fruits of labour, the more effectually will the object be attained and the progress accomplished?

The human instinct rejects so narrow a definition of the destiny of mankind. At the first glance, it concludes that the word civilisation comprehends something more extended and complex, something superior to the mere perfection of the social relations, or of social power and happiness.

Facts, public opinion, the generally received acceptation of the term, are in accordance with this instinct.

Take Rome in the glorious periods of the republic, after the second Punic war, at the time of its greatest virtues, when it was marching to the empire of the world, when its social state was in evident progress: then take Rome under Augustus, at the era of the commencement of decay, when, at all events, the progressive movement of society was arrested, when evil principles were on the point of prevailing; and yet there is no one who does not think and say that the Rome of Augustus was more civilised than the Rome of Fabricius and Cincinnatus.

Again, let us take France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In a social point of view, regarding the amount and distribution of prosperity amongst individuals, France, at those periods, was undoubtedly inferior to some other countries of Europe—to Holland and England, for example. I believe that the social activity in Holland and England was greater, increased more rapidly, and distributed its results better, than in France; yet if we consult general opinion, it will say that France, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was the most civilised country in Europe. There was no hesitation upon the question: the evidences of this public conviction, as to France, are found in all the records of European literature.

I might point out several other states in which prosperity is greater, of more rapid growth, and better dissemination amongst individuals, than elsewhere, and in which, nevertheless, according to the spontaneous instinct, the common understanding of men, civilisation is estimated as inferior to that of other countries not so well situated in a purely social sense.

How come these countries, then, thus styled civilised, to possess their exclusive right? How are they so largely compensated, in the opinion of mankind, for what they are so deficient in on other grounds?

A different development from that of social life has been brilliantly manifested by them—the development of the individual and mental existence, the development of man himself, of his faculties, sentiments, and ideas. If society be more imperfect than in other places, humanity appears with more grandeur and power. Many social conquests remain to be made, but prodigious moral and intellectual conquests are effected; many possessions and rights are wanting to numbers of men, but many great men live and shine in the eyes of the world. Letters, sciences, and arts, display all their splendour. Wherever mankind beholds these great images, so glorious to human nature, come forth resplendently, wherever it finds the treasury of those elevating gratifications, it there recognises and pronounces civilisation.

Two facts are therefore comprised in this great fact; it is based on two conditions, and is revealed by two symptoms—the development of social activity and that of individual activity; the progress of society and the progress of humanity. Wherever the external condition of man progresses, is quickened and ameliorated, wherever the internal nature of man is exhibited with lustre and grandeur—upon these two signs, the human race applauds and proclaims civilisation, often even in spite of fundamental imperfections in the social state.

Such, if I mistake not, is the result of the simple and merely common-sense examination of the general opinion of mankind. If we investigate history, properly so called, if we inquire into the nature of the great crises of civilisation, of those facts which, by universal confession, have given it a great impulse, we shall invariably recognise one or other of the two elements I have just described. They are always crises of individual or social development, or facts which have wrought a change in the internal man, in his creeds or habits, or in his external condition, or his position in relation to his fellow mortals. For example, Christianity, not merely at its first introduction, but during the first ages of its existence, in no degree addressed itself to the social state; it proclaimed aloud that it did not interfere with it; it ordered the slave to obey his master; it attacked none of the great evils and iniquities of the society of that period. Who, however, will deny that Christianity, from the first, was a great crisis in civilisation? Why? Because it changed the internal man, the prevailing principles and sentiments, because it regenerated the moral and intellectual man.

We have witnessed a crisis of another nature, one which was addressed, not to the internal man, but to his external condition, which has changed and regenerated society. That, likewise, was assuredly one of the decisive crises of civilisation. Run through the whole of history, you will everywhere find the same result: you will not discover any important fact aiding in the development of civilisation, which has not exercised one or other of the two sorts of influence which I have mentioned.

Such is, I conceive, the natural and popular meaning of the term; and we have the fact, I will not say defined, but described and exemplified almost completely, or at least in its general features. We understand the two elements of civilisation. Now, we ask ourselves, Whether one of these two things suffices to constitute it—whether, if the development of the social state, or that of the individual man, be presented in disjunction, there would be civilisation? Would the human race recognise it as such? or is there between the two facts so intimate and necessary a relation, that if they are not simultaneously produced, they are notwithstanding inseparable, and the one draws on the other sooner or later?

It appears to me we may approach this question on three sides. We may examine the real nature of the two elements of civilisation, and inquire whether by that alone they are closely united, and mutually necessary or not? We may institute a historical search to ascertain if they have, in reality, been made manifest separately, or if they have always produced each other. We may finally consult the general opinion of mankind, common sense. I will first address myself to the general opinion.

When a great change is effected in the state of a country, when a great development of wealth and power, and a revolution in the distribution of the social prosperity, are worked out, this new order of things encounters adversaries, provokes combats: it cannot be otherwise. What say the enemies of the change? They say that this progress in the social state does not ameliorate or regenerate the moral and internal condition of man, that it is a false and deceitful progress, detrimental to morality and the true interests of mankind. On the other hand, the friends of the social development repel this attack with great energy, and maintain, in opposition, that the progress of society necessarily draws with it the progress of morality, and that when the external life is better regulated, the internal is rectified and made purer. Thus stands the question between the opponents and the partisans of the new order of things.

Reverse the hypothesis: suppose the moral development in progress. What do the men who labour at it usually promise? What, at the origin of societies, have religious leaders, sages and poets, held out, when striving to soften and improve manners?— the amelioration of the social condition, the more equitable distribution of worldly goods.

Now, I ask, what do these disputes on the one hand, and these promises on the other, imply! Doubtless that in the spontaneous, instinctive conviction of mankind, the two elements of civilisation, the social and moral developments, are intimately connected, and that the appearance of one is the assured harbinger of the other. It is to this natural conviction that the arguments are addressed, when, for the purpose of assisting or repulsing the one or the other of the two developments, their union is affirmed or denied. It is known that if men can be persuaded that the improvement of the social condition will be detrimental to the moral progress of individuals, the revolution effected in society will be successfully decried and enfeebled. On the other hand, when men are promised the amelioration of society as a consequence of individual improvement, it is known that their tendency is to believe in such promise, and it is effectually appealed to. Thus it clearly results that the instinct of humanity is enlisted in the belief that the two elements of civilisation are bound up in each other, and are reciprocally productive.

If we turn to the history of the world, we shall arrive at the same conclusion. We shall find that all the great developments of the moral being have resulted in the advantage of society, and that all the great developments of the social condition have raised the character of humanity. The movement takes its peculiar character from whichever of the two facts predominates and lends its lustre. Sometimes long intervals of time, a thousand transformations and obstacles, occur before the second fact is developed, and comes, as it were, to complete the civilisation which the first had commenced. But close observation convinces us of the bond which unites them. The ways of Providence are not confined within narrow limits; he hurries not himself to display to-day the consequence of the principle that he yesterday laid down; he will draw it out in the lapse of ages when the hour is come; and even according to our reasoning, logic is not the less sure because it is slow. Providence is unconcerned as to time; his march (if I may be allowed the simile) is like that of the fabulous deities of Homer through space; he takes a step, and ages have elapsed. How long a time, how many events, before the regeneration of the moral man by Christianity exercised its great and legitimate influence upon the regeneration of the social state! It has succeeded, however: who can at this day gainsay it?

If we pass from history to the actual nature of the two facts which constitute civilisation, we are irresistibly led to the same result. It is consistent with the personal experience of every individual. When a moral change is worked upon a man, when he acquires an idea, a virtue, or a faculty, the more, in a word, when his individual powers gain fuller development, what sudden desire possesses him? It is the necessity he feels to bring his sentiments into the external world, and realise his conceptions. As soon as a man makes an acquisition, as soon as his being takes in his own eyes a fresh development and additional value, to this improved development and value is immediately attached by himself the idea of a mission: he feels himself compelled and driven by his instinct, by an internal voice, to spread and make predominant abroad the alteration, the amendment, that has been effected within himself. We owe great reformers to no other cause: the great men who have changed the face of the world, after being changed themselves, have been urged and governed by no other necessity. So much for the alteration that is worked out in the internal man: let us take the other. A revolution is accomplished in the state of society; it is better regulated, rights and possessions are more justly disseminated amongst individuals—that is to say, the aspect of the world is fairer and brighter, the action, both of governments and of men in their mutual relations, is improved. Is it credible that the contemplation of this spectacle, that this amelioration in external affairs, will have no reaction on the internal man, on humanity? All that is predicated of the authority of examples, habits, and good models, is based upon nothing, unless it be upon the conviction that an external, advantageous, reasonable, and well-regulated order of things leads sooner or later, more or less completely, to an internal order of the same nature and the same merit; that a better arranged and juster world renders man himself more just; that the inward is reformed by the outward, as the outward by the inward; that the two elements of civilisation are closely linked together; that ages and various impediments may be cast between them; that it is possible they may have to undergo a thousand transformations in order to be rejoined, but that earlier or later they will be rejoined; that such is the law of their nature, the leading fact of history, the instinctive faith of the human species.

Thus far, I think, without exhausting the subject, I have laid bare in a complete, though cursory manner, the fact of civilisation: I think I have described it, and assigned its limits, and I have weighed the principal and fundamental questions to which it gives rise. I might here stop, but I cannot avoid mentioning a question which meets me at this stage of the inquiry; one of those questions which are not strictly historical, and which I will call not hypothetical, but conjectural; questions which we can grasp at only one of the ends, without the possibility of ever reaching the other, nor can we make their circuit, nor behold more than one of their sides; and yet they are certainly not the less real, nor less imperatively call for our deep reflection, since they, in spite of ourselves, and at all moments, are forced upon our observation.

Of those two developments of which we have just spoken, and which constitute the fact of civilisation, that of society on the one hand, and that of humanity on the other, which is the end, and which is the means? Is it to expedite the perfectibility of his social condition, for the amelioration of his earthly existence, that man developes his faculties, sentiments, ideas, his whole being?—or rather is not the improvement of the social condition, the progress of society, society itself, the theatre, occasion, and stimulant of the individual development? In a word, is society made to serve the individual, or the individual to serve society? On the answer to this question inevitably depends the decision whether the destiny of man is purely social, whether society drains and absorbs the whole man, or he bears within him something foreign and superior to his existence on earth.

M. Royer-Collard, a man whom I am proud to call my friend, who has passed from such peaceable meetings as ours to assume the first station in more stormy and influential assemblies, and whose words remain engraved wherever they fall, has solved this question, or he has at least, according to his own conviction, solved it, in his speech on the project of law relative to sacrilege. I find in that speech these two sentences: 'Human societies are born, live, and die on the earth; their destinies are there accomplished. But they contain not the whole man. After he has bound himself to society, there remains to him the noblest part of himself, those lofty powers by which he elevates himself to God, to a future life, to unknown bliss in an invisible world. We as individual and identical creatures, as veritable beings endowed with immortality, have a different destiny to that of states.'

I will add nothing, nor will I undertake to treat the question itself; I content myself with bringing it forward. It will be met at the end of the history of civilisation. When the history of civilisation is run through, when there is nothing more to say concerning actual life, we are irresistibly driven to ask ourselves whether all is exhausted, whether we have reached the end? This, then, is the last and highest problem to which the history of civilisation can conduct us. It is sufficient for me to have indicated its position and importance.

From all that I have said, it is clear that the history of civilisation may be treated of after two modes, drained at two sources, considered under two different aspects. The historian may place himself in the depths of the human mind for a given period, a series of ages, and amongst a certain people; he may study, describe, relate all the events, transformations, and revolutions which are accomplished in the internal man; and when he has reached the end, he will have a history of civilisation amongst the people, and for the period he chose. He may proceed in a different manner. Instead of penetrating the inward man, he may place himself in the midst of the worldly spectacle; instead of describing the vicissitudes in the ideas and sentiments of the individual being, he may describe external facts, the events and fluctuations of the social state. These two portions, these two histories, of civilisation are closely united to each other; each is the reflection and image of the other. Nevertheless, they may be separated, and perhaps they ought to be so, at least in the beginning, in order that both the one and the other may be treated of in detail, and with perspicuity. For my own part, I do not propose to investigate the history of civilisation in the inward workings of the human mind; it is only with the history of the external events of the visible and social world that I shall occupy myself. I had a desire to unfold the fact of civilisation, such as I conceive it, in all its complexity and extent, and to lay down all those great questions which may spring from it. But at present I restrict myself, and narrow my field of inquiry; it is only the history of the social state that I purpose entering upon.

We shall begin by searching out all the elements of European civilisation in its cradle, at the fall of the Roman empire; we will study with attention society, such as it was, in the midst of those famous ruins. We will endeavour, not indeed to resuscitate, but to rear its elements side by side; and when we have them placed, we will strive to make them move, and to follow them in their developments, through the fifteen centuries that have elapsed since that epoch.

When we have advanced some way into this study, I believe we shall very shortly feel convinced that civilisation is very youthful, and that a great deal is wanting before the world can measure its career. Human thought is most assuredly very far from being at this day all that it may become, and we are very far from embracing the whole future of humanity. Let each individual search his own mind, let him interrogate himself as to the greatest possible good of which he can form a conception or a hope, and then compare his ideas with what actually exists at this moment in the world; he will be convinced that society and civilisation are very young, and that in spite of all the advance they have made, they have incomparably more to make. But this conclusion will not lessen the pleasure we shall experience in the contemplation of our actual condition. When our attention is awakened to the great critical junctures in the history of civilisation in Europe during fifteen centuries, we shall see how laborious, stormy, and harsh the condition of mankind has been, even to our own time, not only outwardly, and in the social state, but also inwardly, in the mental existence. For all those ages, the human mind has had to suffer as much as the human species. We shall see that, for the first time perhaps in modern times, the human mind has arrived at a state, certainly very imperfect, but in which some peace and harmony reign. It is the same with society; it has evidently made immense strides: the condition of men is easy and just when compared with what it previously was. We may almost apply to ourselves, when thinking of our ancestors, the verses of Lucretius:

Suave mari magno, turbantibus æquora ventis, E terrâ magnum alterius spectare laborem. [Footnote 2]

[Footnote 2: We can look calmly from the land on the perils of another tossed on the ocean by turbulent winds.]

We may even say of ourselves, without too much pride, as Sthenelaus in Homer:

[Footnote 3]

[Footnote 3: We are thankful to Heaven that we are worth infinitely more than those that went before us.]

Let us be careful, however, not to give up ourselves too much to the idea of our happiness and amelioration, or we may fall into two great dangers, pride and relaxation; and by placing too great a confidence in the power and success of the human mind, and of our actual advancement, we may become enervated by the agreeableness of our condition. I know not whether others are struck with the same thought as myself, but in my opinion we are perpetually fluctuating between the temptation to complain of having too little, and that of pluming ourselves on too much. We have a mental susceptibility, an illimitable want and ambition in the thought, in the desires, in the workings of the imagination; and when we bring them to the practical ordeal of life—and it behoves us to undergo pain, and make sacrifices and efforts, to attain the object—our arms droop, and fall listless. We despond with a facility almost equal to the impatience with which we desire. We must take care not to be carried away by either one or other of these two failings. Let us accustom ourselves to a just measurement of what we can legitimately effect with our powers, science, and strength; and let us pretend to nothing more than what can be legitimately, justly, and regularly acquired, with a due regard to the principles upon which our civilisation itself reposes. We sometimes seem disposed to invoke principles that we condemn and despise, the principles and means of barbarous Europe—force, violence, falsehood, habitual usages four or five centuries ago. And when we have yielded to this desire, we find in ourselves neither the perseverance nor the savage energy of the men of those times, who endured much suffering, and who, dissatisfied with their condition, laboured unceasingly to get freed from it. We are satisfied with ours; let us eschew the risks of vague desires, the time for which has not yet come. Much has been given to us, and much will be required from us: we must render to posterity a severe account of our conduct: at the present day, all people and governments must submit to discussion, examination, and responsibility. Let us firmly and faithfully adhere to the principles of our civilisation, justice, legality, publicity, liberty; and let us never forget that if we most reasonably ask that all things should be laid open to us, we are ourselves under the eye of the world, and will in our turn be examined and judged.

[There are some remarks at the commencement of this lecture so purely personal between M. Guizot and his hearers, as to induce the translator to omit them.]

Lecture II.
Peculiar Features Of Civilisation In Europe.
Influence Of The Church.

I have endeavoured, in the preceding lecture, to explain the fact of civilisation in general, without speaking of any civilisation in particular, without referring to circumstances of time and place, but viewing the fact in itself, and in a purely philosophical light. To-day I broach the history of European civilisation; but before entering upon the strict recital, I wish to give a general idea of the peculiar physiognomy of this civilisation. I wish to characterise it so distinctly, that it may appear quite apart from all the other civilisations that have been developed in the world. I am about to attempt this, but I can do little more than so declare, for I dare scarcely flatter myself that I shall succeed in depicting European society with so much fidelity as to lead you at once to recognise it as a true picture.

When we observe the civilisations which have preceded that of modern Europe, whether in Asia or elsewhere, including the Greek and Roman civilisation, it is impossible not to be struck with the unity which prevails in them. They appear to have emanated from a single fact, from a single idea: it would seem as if society clung to one great principle, which controlled it, and determined its institutions, manners, opinions; in a word, all its developments.

In Egypt, for example, it was the theocratic principle upon which the whole social state depended; it was pourtrayed in its manners, on its monuments, and all that remains to us of the Egyptian civilisation. In India, the same fact is perceptible—the almost exclusive domination of the theocratic principle. In other quarters we discern another organisation—the dominion of a conquering tribe: the principle of force alone possesses society, and imposes upon it laws and character. Again, elsewhere, the society is the expression of the democratic principle; thus it appeared in the commercial republics which covered the coasts of Asia-Minor and Syria, Ionia and Phoenicia. Thus, when we survey the ancient civilisations, we find them all impressed with a singular character of unity in institutions, ideas, and manners; a single, or at least a very preponderating power, governs and decides everything.

I do not say that this unity of principle and organisation always prevailed in the civilisation of these states. If we go back to their more ancient history, we find that the different powers that may be formed in the bosom of one society often disputed for empire. Amongst the Egyptians, Etruscans, even the Greeks, &c. the caste of warriors, for example, strove against that of the priests; in other places, the spirit of clan against the spirit of free association, the aristocratic system against the popular system, &c. But, generally speaking, it was in the ante-historical periods that those contests occurred; only a vague recollection of them remained.

The struggle sometimes recurred in the course of their career; but it was almost always promptly terminated: one of the powers that disputed the sway speedily carried it and took sole possession of the society. The war always finished by the dominion, if not exclusive, at least greatly preponderating, of some special principle. The co-existence and the combat of different principles were but a passing crisis, an accidental circumstance, in the history of these people.

Thence resulted a remarkable simplicity in the major part of the ancient civilisations, but attended with different consequences. Sometimes, as in Greece, the simplicity of the social principle drew forth a prodigiously rapid development; never did a people unfold itself in so short a period, or with such lustre. But after that wonderful burst, Greece suddenly appeared exhausted; its decay, if it were not quite so rapid as its progress, was nevertheless singularly prompt. It would seem that the creative power of the principle of Greek civilisation was worn out, and none other came to invigorate it. In other countries—in Egypt and India, for example—the uniformity of the civilising principle had a different effect; society fell into a stationary state. Simplicity produced monotony; the country was not destroyed, society continued to subsist, but motionless and frozen, as it were.

It is to this same cause that that character of tyranny is traceable which prevailed, under the most different forms, and as an embodiment of principles, in all the ancient civilisations. Society belonged to one exclusive power which would tolerate no other. Every different tendency was proscribed and rooted out. The dominant principle never would permit the coeval manifestation and action of a distinct principle.

This character of unity in the civilisation is equally stamped on the literature and on the works of the mind. Who is not acquainted with the records of Indian literature not long ago disseminated through Europe? It cannot fail to be remarked that they are all imbued with the same spirit; they appear all the result of an identical fact, the expression of an identical idea. Works of religion or morals, historical traditions, dramatic and epic poetry, on all is the same characteristic impressed; the labours of the mind bear that same impress of simplicity and monotony which is observable in their transactions and institutions. In Greece, even, amidst all the riches of the human understanding, a singular uniformity prevails in literature and in arts.

It has been quite otherwise with the civilisation of modern Europe. Without entering into detail, look around and collect your thoughts; it will immediately appear to you a varied, confused, and stormy scene; all the forms and principles of social organisation are there co-existent; spiritual and temporal powers, theocratical, monarchical, aristocratical, and democratical elements, all classes, and all the social arrangements, are mingled and pressing on each other: there are extreme degrees as to liberty, wealth, and influence. And these different powers are in a state of continual strife amongst themselves, without any one succeeding in stifling the others, and taking sole possession of society. In the olden times, all societies seem, at every great epoch, to have been cast in the same mould: it is sometimes pure monarchy, sometimes theocracy or democracy which prevails, but each completely lords it in its turn. Modern Europe presents examples of all the systems and theories of social organisation; pure or mixed monarchies, theocracies, republics, more or less aristocratic, exist there simultaneously side by side; and notwithstanding their diversity, they have all a certain resemblance, a certain family aspect, which it is impossible to overlook.

In the ideas and sentiments of Europe there is the same variety, the same combat. The theocratical, monarchical, aristocratical, and popular creeds, encounter, struggle with, limit, and modify each other. Open the boldest writings of the middle age; no idea is ever followed to its ultimate consequences. The partisans of absolute power recoil at once, and unknown to themselves, before the results of their doctrine: they feel that there are ideas and influences around them which arrest them, and prevent their pushing to extremities. The democrats are subject to the same law. On neither side is that imperturbable audacity, that stubbornness of logic, which are displayed in the ancient civilisations. The sentiments present the same contrasts, the same variety; an energetic zeal for independence accompanying a great facility in submission; a singular fidelity of man to man, and at the same time an uncontrollable desire to exercise free will, to cast aside all restraint, to live selfishly, without concern for others. The minds are as various and as agitated as the social state.

The same character is found in the literatures. We cannot but confess that in artistic form and beauty they are far inferior to the ancient literature; but in the depth of the sentiments and ideas, they are more vigorous and rich. It is evident that the later human mind has been moved on far more points, and to a much greater depth. The imperfection of form proceeds from this very cause. The more rich and numerous the materials, the more difficult it is to reduce them into a simple and pure form. What makes the beauty of a composition—that which we call form in works of art—is clearness, simplicity, a symbolic unity of workmanship. From the prodigious diversity of ideas and sentiments in the European civilisation, it has been much more difficult to attain this simplicity and perspicuity.

This predominant character in the modern civilisation is thus everywhere perceptible. It has doubtless been attended with this consequence, that on considering by itself such or such particular development of the human mind in letters, in arts, indeed in all the directions in which it may advance, we find it, in general, inferior to the correspondent development in the ancient civilisations; but in return, when we look at the whole, the European civilisation shows itself incomparably richer than any other, and it has simultaneously exhibited a much greater number of different developments. It has now existed for fifteen centuries, and it is yet in a state of continuous progression; it has not advanced by many degrees as quickly as the Greek civilisation, but it has never ceased to wax in vigour. A boundless career is open before it, and day by day it presses onward the more rapidly, since an increasing liberty accompanies all its movements. Whilst in the earlier civilisations the exclusive domination, or at least the excessive preponderance, of a single principle, of a single organisation, was the cause of tyranny, the diversity of the elements of social order in modern Europe, and the impossibility that has been met with of any excluding another, have generated the liberty which reigns at present. Lacking the power to exterminate, the different principles have been fain to live together, and to make amongst themselves a sort of forced compact. Each has agreed to take only so much development as it could fairly gain; and whilst elsewhere the preponderance of one principle produced tyranny, in Europe liberty has resulted from the variety in the elements of civilisation, and from the state of combat in which they have been constantly involved.

There is a real and immense superiority in this; and if we go farther, and penetrate beyond the outward facts, into the very nature of things, we shall find that this superiority is approved and supported by reason, as well as demonstrated by facts. Passing by for a moment European civilisation, let us cast our eyes upon the world at large, upon the general course of terrestrial affairs. What is its character? How moves the world? It moves precisely with this diversity and variety of elements, a prey to this incessant struggle that we remark in European civilisation. It has evidently been granted to no particular principle or organisation, to no special idea or power, to gain possession of the world to fashion it once for all, to banish from it all other tendencies, and establish an exclusive sway. Different powers, principles, and systems, are engaged in ceaseless strife, commingling with and limiting each other, alternately predominant and oppressed, but never completely conquered or conquerors. Such is the general condition of the world with regard to the diversity of forms, ideas, and principles, their mutual combats, and their effort towards a certain unity, a certain ideal perfection, which will be perhaps never reached, but to which the human species is tending by freedom and laborious exertion. European civilisation is, then, the image of the world: like the course of things in this world, it is neither narrow, nor exclusive, nor stationary. For the first time, as I conceive, the character of specialty has disappeared from civilisation; for the first time it has been developed with the variety, richness, and activity of the great theatre of the universe.

The European civilisation has entered, if it be permitted me to say so, into the eternal truth, into the plan of Providence; it advances according to the intentions of God. This is the rational solution of its superiority.

I am anxious that this fundamental and distinctive character of European civilisation be borne in mind. It is true that at the present moment I only assert it, for the proof must be furnished by the development of facts. Nevertheless, it will be allowed as an important confirmation of my views, if the causes and elements of the character which I attribute to our civilisation are found at its very cradle; if at the moment when it was first born, at the period of the fall of the Roman Empire, we discover in the state of the world, and in the facts which, from its earliest days, have concurred in forming the European civilisation, the active principle of this tumultuous but fruitful diversity which so distinguishes it. Into this scrutiny I am about to enter. I shall proceed to examine the state of Europe at the fall of the Roman Empire, and endeavour to discover, by an investigation into institutions, creeds, ideas, and sentiments, what were the elements which the ancient world bequeathed to the modern. If we distinguish in these elements that character strongly marked which I have just described, it will form a groundwork for belief in its justness.

First of all, it will be necessary to have a correct conception of what the Roman Empire was, and how it was constituted.

Rome at its origin was only a municipality, a corporation. The Roman government was a mere concentration of the institutions which are suited to a people shut up within the walls of a town— that is, municipal institutions. Such was its distinctive character.

This was not peculiar to Rome. When we look at Italy at this epoch, around Rome, we find nothing but towns. What were then called people, were mere confederations of towns. The Latin people was a confederation of Latin towns. The Etruscans, the Samnites, the Sabines, the people of Græcia Magna, were all in the same state.

At this era there was no country—that is to say, the country had no resemblance to what it is at present; it was cultivated—that was necessary; but it was not inhabited. The rural proprietors were the inhabitants of the cities; they went out to look after their farms, and they often kept a certain number of slaves upon them; but what we at present call the country, consisting of a scattered population, in isolated abodes, or in villages, strewed over the whole soil, was a thing altogether unknown to ancient Italy.

When Rome extended, what were her proceedings? Peruse her history, and you will see that she conquered or founded towns; it was against towns she fought, or with towns she made treaties, and also into towns she sent colonies. The history of the conquest of the world by Rome, is the history of the conquest and founding of a great number of cities. In the East, the extension of the Roman sway does not quite bear this character; the population was there distributed differently from the western: being under another social system, it was much less concentrated in towns. But as it is only with the European population that we are interested, what was passing in the East is of little importance.

Confining ourselves to the West, we everywhere discern the fact that I have pointed out. In Gaul, in Spain, we meet with nothing but towns; at a distance from them, the territory is covered with marshes and forests. Examine the character of the Roman monuments, of the Roman roads. We find great roads leading from one town to another; that multitude of small roads which now intersect the country in every direction had no existence. There was nothing resembling that countless throng of small monuments, villages, country-houses, churches, dispersed over the land since the middle ages. Rome has transmitted to us only colossal monuments impressed with the municipal character, suited for a numerous population collected at one point. Under whatever aspect the Roman world may be considered, this almost exclusive preponderance of cities, and the consequent non-existence of a country, socially speaking, will be found. This municipal character in the Roman world evidently rendered the unity and social bond of a great state extremely difficult to establish and maintain. A municipality like Rome had been able to conquer the world, but it was not so easy a task to govern and organise it. Thus, when the work seemed consummated, when all the West, and a great part of the East, had fallen under the Roman sway, we find this prodigious accumulation of cities, of small states instituted for isolation and independence, disunited, detached from each other, and slipping the noose, as it were, in all directions. This was one of the causes which led to the necessity of an empire of a more concentrated form of government, and one more capable of holding elements so slightly coherent in a state of union. The empire endeavoured to introduce unity and connection into this scattered society. It succeeded to a certain extent. Between the reigns of Augustus and Diocletian, a civil legislation was developed, coincidental with that vast system of administrative despotism which spread over the Roman world a network of functionaries upon a hierarchical form of distribution, closely linked amongst themselves, and to the imperial court, and solely employed in giving effect to the decrees of power in society, and in rendering available to power the tributes and capabilities of society.

Not only did this system succeed in rallying and compressing together the elements of the Roman world, but the idea of a despotism, of a central power, penetrated the minds of men with a singular facility. We are astonished at beholding in this ill-united collection of small republics, in this association of municipalities, a reverence for the imperial majesty, sole, august, and sacred, prevail with such rapidity. The necessity of establishing some common bond between all these portions of the Roman world must have been extremely urgent when the modes and almost the sentiments of despotism found so ready an acceptation in the minds of men.

The Roman Empire was sustained against the dissolution which was threatened from within, and against the barbaric invasions from without, by these principles, by its administrative organisation, and by the system of military organisation which was joined to it. It strove for a long time in a continual state of decay, but always defending itself. The moment at last arrived when the struggle ceased; neither the skill and sagacity of despotism, nor the stolid imperturbability of subjection, any longer sufficed to hold up this great body. In the fourth century it was rented and dismembered on all sides; the barbarians poured in at all points; the provinces no longer made any resistance, or concerned themselves with the general destiny. It was then that a singular idea came into the heads of certain emperors; they wished to make an experiment whether hopes of general freedom, a confederation or system analogous to what we at the present day call the representative form of government, would not better defend the unity of the Roman Empire than the despotic administration. Here is a rescript of Honorius and Theodosius the younger, addressed in the year 418 to the Prefect of Gaul, the sole object of which was to endeavour to establish a sort of representative government in the south of Gaul, and by its assistance to still maintain the integrity of the Empire:—

'Rescript of the Emperors Honorius and Theodosius the younger, addressed in the year 418 to the Prefect of the Gauls sitting in the town of Arles.
'Honorius and Theodosius, Augusti, to Agricola, Prefect of the Gauls.
'In consequence of the very satisfactory exposition that your Magnificence has made to us, among other information greatly to the advantage of the republic, we decree, with the purpose of giving them the force of law in perpetuity, the following dispositions, to which the inhabitants of our seven provinces [Footnote 4] will pay due obedience, they being such as they themselves might have wished and demanded.

[Footnote 4: The Viennoise, the first Aquitaine, the second Aquitaine, the Novempopulanie, the first Narbonnaise, the second Narbonnaise, and the province of the Maritime Alps.]

Inasmuch as persons in office, or special deputies, frequently resort to your Magnificence on affairs either of public or private utility, not only from each of the provinces, but also from every town, either to render accounts, or to treat of matters having reference to the interest of the proprietors, we have considered that it might be turned to good account and great advantage if, at a certain epoch in every year, dating from the present, there should be an assembly of the inhabitants of the seven provinces held in the chief city—that is to say, in the town of Arles. By such an institution, we have equally in view the providing for individual as well as general interests. In the first place, by the most notable inhabitants meeting together in presence of the prefect, if the public order should not induce his absence, the best possible information will be obtained upon every subject under deliberation. Nothing that is discussed and decided, after mature deliberation, will remain unknown to any of the provinces, and those persons who have taken no part in the assembly will be equally bound to follow the same rules of justice and equity. Furthermore, by ordaining that an assembly be held every year in the city of Constantine, [Footnote 5] we believe we shall promote not only the public good, but also social relations. The city is so advantageously situated, strangers frequent it in such numbers, and it enjoys so extended a commerce, that everything that grows, or is manufactured elsewhere, is brought thither.

[Footnote 5: Constantine the Great had a singular affection for the city of Arles. It was he who established in it the seat of the Gaulish prefecture. He also wished that it should bear his name, but usage was more powerful than his inclination.]

All the famous productions of the rich East, spicy Arabia, mild Assyria, fertile Africa, beauteous Spain, and valorous Gaul, abound in that place with such profusion, that all things admired for their magnificence in the various parts of the world seem the products of its soil. Besides, the junction of the Rhone with the Tuscan Sea draws near, and renders almost neighbours, the countries which the first traverses, and which the second bathes with its sinuosities. Thus, since the whole earth places at the disposal of this city all its most estimable possessions, since the individual productions of all countries are there transported by land, by sea, by the course of rivers, by means of sails, oars, and wagons, will not our Gaul perceive the benefit of the order that we give to convoke a public assembly in that city, where all the enjoyments of life, and all the facilities for commerce, are found concentrated by, as it were, the especial gift of God?
'The illustrious prefect, Petronius [Footnote 6] with a praiseworthy and most reasonable purpose, issued orders at a previous date that this custom should be observed; but as its fulfilment was interrupted by the confusion of the times, and the reign of usurpers, we have resolved to restore it to vigour by our authoritative prudence. Therefore, your Magnificence Agricola, our dear and well-beloved cousin, conforming yourself to our present ordinance, and the custom established by your predecessors, will cause the following dispositions to be observed in the provinces:

[Footnote 6: Petronius was prefect of the Gauls between the years 402 and 408.]

'Let intimation be given to all persons honoured with public functions, or proprietors of domains, and all the judges of the provinces, that they must assemble in council every year in the city of Arles, in the interval elapsing between the ides of August and those of September, the actual days of meeting and of sitting being fixed at pleasure.
'Novempopulanie and the second Aquitaine, as the most distant provinces, may, if their judges are retained by indispensable duties, send deputies in their place, according to custom.
'Those who shall fail to appear at the prescribed place and time shall pay a fine, rated to the judges at five pounds of gold, and to the members of the curiæ [Footnote 7] and the other dignitaries, three pounds of gold.

[Footnote 7: The municipal bodies of the Roman towns were called curiæ, and the members of those bodies, who were very numerous, curiales.]

'We design by this measure to confer great advantages and an important boon on the inhabitants of our provinces. We are likewise assured of adding to the embellishment of the city of Arles, to the fidelity of which we owe much, according to our brother and patrician. [Footnote 8]

[Footnote 8: Constantine, the second husband of Placidea, whom Honorius had taken for a colleague in 421.]

'Given on the 15th of the calends of May, and received at Arles the 10th of the calends of June.'

The provinces and towns refused the boon; no deputies were named, no one would go to Arles. Centralisation and unity were contrary to the primitive nature of that society; the spirit of locality, of municipality, was displayed in full force, and the impossibility of reconstituting a general society or country was clearly evidenced. The towns shut themselves up within their walls, and looked not beyond their own affairs; and the Empire fell because no one would be of the Empire, because the citizens would no longer concern themselves with anything but their own city. Thus, at the fall of the Roman Empire, we find again the same fact that was observable at its commencement—the predominance of the municipal form and spirit. The Roman world returned to its first condition: towns had formed it; it was dissolved, but the towns remained.

It is the municipal system that the ancient Roman civilisation bequeathed to modern Europe; in a very irregular and weakened form, and doubtless very inferior to what it had been in the early times, but still the only real constituted system which had alone survived all the elements of the Roman world.

When I say alone, I am wrong. Another fact, another idea, equally survived—namely, the idea of the Empire, the name of the emperor, the maxim of imperial majesty, and of an absolute, sacred power, attached to that name. These are the elements that Roman civilisation transmitted to the European civilisation; on one hand, the municipal system, its customs, rules, and precedents, containing the germ of liberty; on the other, a uniform and universal civil legislation, coupled with the idea of the absolute power and the sacred majesty of the imperial name, containing the principle of order and subjection.

Influence Of The Church.

But at the same time a very different society, founded upon totally distinct principles, animated by other sentiments, and one destined to infuse into the modern European civilisation elements of quite a different nature, had arisen in the bosom of the Roman society—namely, the Christian church. I speak peculiarly of the Christian church, and not of Christianity. At the end of the fourth, and commencement of the fifth century, Christianity had ceased to be simply an individual creed; it had become an institution, and had taken a constituted form; it had its own government, a body of clergy, a hierarchy arranged for the different clerical functions, revenues, means for independent action, and rallying-points suitable to a great society, provincial, national, and oecumenical councils, and the custom of deliberating in common upon the affairs of the society. In a word, Christianity at this epoch was not merely a religion, it was a church.

If it had not been a church, it is impossible to say what might have happened to it amid the fall of the Roman Empire. I confine myself to purely human considerations; I put aside every element foreign to the natural consequences deducible from natural facts; and I believe that if Christianity had been, as in the early times, only an individual belief, sentiment, or conviction, it would have sunk under the ruins of the Empire, and the invasions of the barbarians. It succumbed at a later date in Asia and in the north of Africa, under an invasion of the same nature, an invasion of Moslem barbarians, even when it was in a state of institution, when it was an established church. Much more might the same result have occurred at the fall of the Roman Empire. There were at that time none of the means in existence by which at the present day moral influences are established or offer resistance independently of institutions, none of the means by which a mere truth or idea acquires an empire over the minds of men, governs actions, and determines events. Nothing existed in the fourth century to give to personal ideas and sentiments such a sway. It is clear that a society powerfully organised and vigorously governed was needed to struggle against so destructive a crisis, and to arise victorious from so fearful a conflict. It is not therefore too much to affirm that, at the end of the fourth, and beginning of the fifth century, it was the Christian church which saved Christianity; it was the church, with its institutions, its magistrates, its temporal power, which strove triumphantly against the internal dissolution which convulsed the Empire, and against barbarity which subdued the barbarians themselves, and became the link, the medium, the principle of civilisation, as between the Roman and barbarian worlds. Hence it is the state of the church rather than of Christianity, properly so called, in the fifth century, which ought to be investigated, in order to discover in what Christianity has from that period aided modern civilisation, and what elements it has introduced. An inquiry necessarily arises, What was the Christian church at that epoch?

When we consider, under a merely human aspect, the different revolutions which have been accomplished in the development of Christianity, from its origin to the fifth century, taking it only as a society, and not as a religious creed, we find that it has passed through three stages essentially distinct.

In the earliest period, the Christian society presents itself as a simple association arising from a common creed, from common sentiments; the first Christians congregated in order to enjoy amongst themselves an interchange of the religious emotions and convictions common to all their breasts. There was no settled system of doctrines, of rules, or of discipline, or no body of persons invested with authority.

There is no doubt that in every society that exists, however newly-born or feebly-constituted it may be, a moral power is perceptible, animating and directing it. So in the different Christian congregations there were men who preached, taught, and morally governed the rest, but no superior, or no discipline, was regularly instituted; the primitive state of the Christian society was simply an association of persons drawn together by an identity of creed and sentiment.

In proportion as it progressed (and very speedily, for the marks are traceable in the earliest records), a system of doctrines, of rules, of discipline, and of functionaries or magistrates, was brought out. Of the magistrates some were called presbuteroi, or ancients, who became the priests; others episkopoi, or inspectors, or watchers, who became bishops; and others diakonoi, or deacons, charged with the care of the poor and the distribution of alms.

It is almost impossible to determine the precise functions of these different magistrates; the line of demarcation was probably very vague and fluctuating, but at all events the institutions had a commencement. This second epoch, however, had a predominant feature, which consisted in the control, the preponderance belonging to the body of the faithful. It was they who decided both as to the choice of dignitaries or magistrates, and as to the adoption as well of systems of discipline as of doctrine. The Christian people were not as yet separated from the government of the church. They did not exist apart from or independently of each other, and the Christian people continued to exercise the principal influence in the society.

In the third era everything was changed. A clergy was formed distinct from the people, a body of priests having riches, jurisdiction, a constitution of their own, in a word, a complete government, being in itself a regular society, furnished with all the means of existence independently of the society for whose behoof it was intended, and over which it extended its influence. This was the state in which the Christian church appeared at the commencement of the fifth century, and in the third stage of its constitution. The government was not completely taken out of the hands of the people, or separated from them; a system prevailed which is without any parallel, especially in religious affairs; but in the relations between the clergy and the flocks of the faithful, the clergy ruled almost without control.

The Christian clergy had, besides, another means of influence of a different character. The bishops and clerks became the chief municipal magistrates. We have seen that the municipal system was, properly speaking, all that remained of the Roman Empire. From the annoyances of despotism, and the ruin of the towns, it came to pass that the curiales, or members of the municipal bodies, fell into despair and apathy. The bishops and the body of priests, on the contrary, being full of life and zeal, naturally offered themselves to guard and direct affairs. It would be wrong to reproach them with officiousness, or to tax them with usurpation; they merely obeyed the natural impulse of events. The clergy alone were morally strong and animated, and it became powerful; the result is a law of the universe.

All the legislation of the emperors at that epoch bears marks of this revolution. In the codes both of Theodosius and Justinian we find a great number of regulations which remit municipal affairs to the clergy and the bishops. I will quote some of them.

'Cod. Just. 1. i. tit. iv. de episcopali audientia, § 26.—With regard to the annual affairs of the cities (whether they refer to the ordinary city revenues, resulting either from funds arising from the city property, or from individual gifts or legacies, or from any other source, whether deliberation is required touching the public works, or magazines of provisions, or aqueducts, or the maintenance of baths or of harbours, or the construction of walls or towers, or the repairing of bridges and roads, or lawsuits in which the city may be engaged, on account of public or private interests), we ordain as follows:—The very pious bishop, and three men of good fame amongst the chief men of the city, shall assemble together; they shall examine every year the works that have been performed, and they shall take care that those who conduct them, or have conducted them, do measure them with precision, give in accounts of them, and make it clear that they have fulfilled their engagements in the administration, whether it be of the public monuments, or of the sums appropriated to provisions and baths, or of what is expended for the repair of roads, aqueducts, or any other work.
'Ibid. § 30.—With regard to the guardianship of young people, of the first or second age, and of all those to whom the law assigns curators, if their fortune does not exceed 500 aurei, we ordain that the nomination of the president of the province shall not be waited for, as it might give rise to heavy charges, especially if the said president did not reside in the city where the guardianship is required to be provided. The nomination of the curators or tutors shall therefore be made by the magistrate of the city, in concert with the most pious bishop, and other persons invested with public functions, if the city possess several.
'Ibid. 1. i. tit. lv. de defensoribus, § 8.—We will that the defenders of the cities, being well instructed in the holy mysteries of the orthodox faith, be chosen and instituted by the venerable bishops, the clerks, the notables, the proprietors, and the curiales. As to their installation, it shall be referred to the glorious power of the Prefect of the Pretorium, in order that their authority may gather more solidity and vigour from the admissory letters of his Magnificence.'

I might cite a great number of other laws illustrative of the fact everywhere displayed, that between the Roman municipal system and the municipal system of the middle ages an ecclesiastical municipal system interposed; that the preponderance of the clergy in city affairs succeeded that of the old municipal magistrates, and preceded the organisation of the modern corporations.

Thus, by its own constitution, by its action on the Christian population, and also by the part it bore in civil affairs, the Christian church exercised prodigious means of influence. From that epoch, therefore, it operated powerfully on the character and development of modern civilisation. I will endeavour to sum up the elements it has infused into it.

In the first place, an incalculable benefit resulted from the existence of a moral influence and force, of a force which simply rested on moral convictions, persuasions, and opinions, in the midst of that deluge of physical force which poured upon society at that epoch. If the Christian church had not been established, the whole world had been overborne by pure physical force. It alone exercised a moral power. It did more: it sustained and spread the idea of a rule or law which was superior to all human laws; it maintained, for the safety of humanity, that fundamental doctrine that there is above all human laws a law, which, according to the spirit of times and manners, is sometimes called reason, and sometimes Divine will, but which, at all periods, and in all places, is the same law under different designations.

The church, then, originated a great fact—namely, the separation of the spiritual from the temporal power. This separation is the source of liberty of conscience; and it rests upon no other principle than that which serves as the base of the most unrestricted and extended liberty of conscience. The separation between the temporal and spiritual powers is founded upon the principle that physical force has no right or influence over the minds of men, or over conviction and truth. It results from the distinction established between the world of thought and that of action, between circumstances of an internal and those of an external nature. So that this maxim of liberty of conscience—for which Europe has struggled and suffered so much, and which has prevailed only so lately, often against the exertions of the clergy—was laid down under the name of a separation between temporal and spiritual power in the earliest stages of European civilisation; and its introduction and maintenance was owing to the Christian church being compelled, by the necessity of its situation, to defend itself against the barbarism of the times.

The Christian church, therefore, shed upon the European world in the fifth century three essential blessings—the recognition of a moral influence, the upholding a divine law, and the disjunction of temporal and spiritual power.

But even at that period all its influence was not equally salutary. So early as the fifth century, some evil principles made their appearance in the church, which have played an important part in the development of our civilisation. Thus there arose within it at that era the doctrine of the separation of the governing and the governed, the attempt to establish the irresponsibility of rulers to subjects, to impose laws, to control opinion, and to dispose of men, without the consent of the governed, or regard being paid to their reason and inclination. It likewise strove to infuse into society the theocratic principle, to seize upon temporal power, and to exercise exclusive domination. And when it failed in fully accomplishing this design, it allied itself with temporal princes, and supported their absolute power at the expense of the liberty of the people, in order that it might obtain a share for itself.

Such were the principal elements of civilisation that Europe drew from the church and the Empire in the fifth century. It was in this state that the barbarians found the Roman world when they came to take possession of it. In order to comprehend all the elements which were included and mingled in the cradle of our civilisation, there remains nothing but the barbarians to contemplate.

It is not with the history of the barbarians that we have to concern ourselves, for relation is not our province. We are aware that, at the epoch in question, the conquerors of the Empire were almost all of the same race, all Germans, except some Slavonic tribes, as the Alani, for example. We are likewise aware that they were all pretty nearly in the same state of civilisation. Some difference might exist amongst them, according to the greater or less degree of contact into which they had respectively come with the Roman provincials. Thus there is no doubt that the Goths were more advanced and milder in their manners than the Franks. But considering things in a general point of view, and with reference to their results upon ourselves, this early diversity amongst the barbaric tribes in civilisation is of no importance.

It is the general state of society amongst the barbarians that it behoves us to ascertain; and this is a subject which is involved in considerable difficulty. We can understand with comparative ease the Roman municipal system and the Christian church, because their influence is perpetuated even to our own days, and we discover traces of them in a multitude of actual institutions and circumstances, affording us a thousand means of identifying and explaining them. But the manners and the social state of the barbarians have completely perished; we are reduced to the necessity of evoking them either from the most ancient historical monuments, or by an effort of the imagination.

There is a sentiment, a fact, which we must impress upon our minds, in order to have a true idea of what a barbarian was, and that is the feeling of individual independence, the joy he experienced in casting himself, in the fulness of his strength and freedom, into the midst of worldly vicissitudes—the pleasure to him of activity without labour, the charm of an adventurous career, full of uncertainty, inequality of fortune, and danger. This was the predominant sentiment of the barbarian state, the moral craving which urged these human masses to movement. At present, in a society so regular as that into which we are wedged, it is difficult to imagine the extent of dominion which this sentiment exercised over the barbarians of the fourth and fifth centuries. There is only one work which in my opinion presents this character of barbarism in its full strength—namely, 'The History of the Conquest of England by the Normans,' by M. Thierry; it is the only book in which the motives, the longings, and the impulses, which are the springs of actions in men when in a social state bordering upon the barbaric, are perceived and brought out with true Homeric vividness. Nowhere do we perceive so well what a barbarian is, or in what his life consists. Something also of the same is found, though, according to my ideas, in a far inferior degree, and in a much less simple and truthful manner, in Mr. Cooper's romances of the North American savages. The existence of the American savages, the ties and the sentiments which they bear with them in the midst of the woods, recall to a certain extent the manners of the ancient Germans. Of course these pictures are somewhat idealised and poetical, the dark side of barbaric life and manners being studiously glossed over. I speak not only of the ills provoked by these manners in the social state, but also of the inward and individual state of the barbarian himself. In this furious craving for personal independence there was far more grossness and animalism than we would conclude from the work of M. Thierry; there was a degree of brutality, frenzy, and sullen apathy, which is not always faithfully given in his account. Nevertheless, when we regard things fundamentally, we are convinced that, in spite of this alliance of brutality, materialism, and boorish selfishness, the desire for individual independence is a noble moral sentiment, which derives its strength from the moral nature of man; it consists in the gratification of feeling as a man, in the consciousness of personality and of human free-will in its fullest development.

The German barbarians introduced this feeling into the European civilisation; it was unknown to the Roman world, to the Christian church, and to almost all the ancient civilisations. Liberty in those ancient civilisations meant political, municipal liberty. Men were not engaged in a strife for personal liberty, but for their liberty as citizens; they belonged to an association, to it they were devotedly attached, and for it they were prepared to sacrifice themselves. It was the same in the Christian church: there prevailed within it a sentiment of strong regard for the Christian corporation, of devotion to its laws, and an ardent desire to extend its empire; or rather the religious sentiment caused a reaction in the minds of men, which was displayed in an inward struggle to subdue individual liberty, and to give blind submission to what faith decreed. But the feeling of personal independence, the taste for liberty making itself apparent at all moments without other design sometimes than that of proving itself—this was a sentiment unknown to the Roman society and to the Christian church. It was imported and fixed by the barbarians at the birth of modern civilisation, and it has performed too important a part, and produced too many happy results in connection with it, to be omitted as one of its fundamental elements.

There is a second fact, a second element in civilisation, that we likewise draw exclusively from the barbarians. It is the military chieftainship, the tie that was formed between individuals as warriors, and which, without destroying the liberty of each, without destroying, except to a certain extent, the equality which almost completely existed amongst them, introduced a graduated subordination, and gave a beginning to that aristocratic organisation which at a later date expanded into the feudal system. The groundwork of this relation was the attachment of man to man, the fidelity of one individual to another, without any outward compulsion, and without any obligation founded on the general principles of society. In the ancient republics, no man was of his own accord specially attached to any other man; all were bound to their city. With the barbarians the social bond was formed amongst individuals, in the first place by the relation of the chief to his companion, when they lived in a banded state traversing the face of Europe, and later by the relation of suzerain and vassal. This second principle, which has also had an important effect on modern civilisation, this devotedness of man to man, comes to us from the barbarians, and from their manners it has passed into ours.

Was I wrong, then, in stating at the commencement that modern civilisation was at its very origin as varied, agitated, and confused as I endeavoured to represent it in the general picture which I gave of it? Do we not discover at the dissolution of the Roman Empire almost all the elements which meet in the progressive development of our civilisation? Three perfectly different societies are found at that period; the municipal society, the last remnant of the Roman Empire, the Christian, and the barbarian society. We find these societies very differently organised, based upon perfectly distinct principles, and inspiring men with opposite sentiments: we perceive the longing for the most absolute independence by the side of the most complete subservience; military chieftainship ranged with ecclesiastical domination; the spiritual and temporal powers in activity on every side; the canons of the church, the studied legislation of the Romans, and the almost unwritten customs of the barbarians—everywhere a mixture, or rather a co-existence, of races, tongues, social situations, manners, ideas, and feelings, all the most contrary to each other. This I adduce as a satisfactory proof of the accuracy of the general character under which I have laboured to present our civilisation.

This confusion, diversity, and strife, have doubtless cost us dear; they have retarded the progress of Europe; to them are owing the storms and agonies to which she has been a prey. Yet I am not of opinion that we should regret them. To nations, as well as to individuals, the opportunity of the most varied and complete development, of pushing onwards in all directions, and to an almost indefinite extent, compensates by itself alone for all the sacrifices it may have cost to obtain the faculty of enjoying it. Upon a comprehensive view, this agitation, violence, and laboriousness, have availed more than the simplicity with which other civilisations are marked, and the human race has thereby gained more than it has suffered.

We have now traced in its general features the state in which the fall of the Roman Empire left the world, and the different elements which were in turmoil and commixture, germinating European civilisation. Henceforth we shall see them advancing and acting. In the next lecture I shall endeavour to show what they became, and what they effected, in the epoch that we are accustomed to call the times of barbarism—that is to say, the period during which the chaos of the invasion lasted.

Lecture III.
First Ages Of Civilisation.

I have brought forward the fundamental elements of European civilisation by tracing them in its very cradle, at the moment that the Roman Empire fell. I have endeavoured to point out how great was their diversity, how constant their strife, and that none of them succeeded in gaining a mastery over our society, or at least in ruling it so effectually as to subject or expel the others. We have seen that in this consists the distinctive character of the European civilisation. We now come to its history, at its first start, in the ages that it is usual to designate 'the barbarous.' At the first glance that we cast upon this epoch, it is impossible not to be struck with a fact which seems in flat contradiction to what I have just advanced. In investigating the opinions that have been formed upon the antiquities of Europe, it is surprising to observe that the different elements of our civilisation—the monarchical, theocratical, aristocratical, and democratical principles—all lay claim to the original proprietorship of the European society, and all pretend that they have lost exclusive empire by the usurpations of contrary principles. If we turn to all that has been written, and listen to all that has been said, on this subject, we shall find that all the systems by means of which our groundworks are sought to be displayed or explained, maintain the exclusive predominance of one or other of the elements of European civilisation.

Thus there is a school of feudal advocates, the most celebrated of whom is M. de Boulainvilliers, who asserts that after the fall of the Roman Empire, the conquering nation, subsequently formed into a nobility, possessed all power and rights, that society was its lordship, that kings and people have despoiled it, and that, in fact, the aristocratic organisation was the primitive and veritable constitution of Europe.

Alongside of this school we find that of the monarchists, amongst whom is the Abbé Dubos, who maintain, on the contrary, that the European society belonged to royalty. They say that the German kings inherited all the rights of the Roman emperors, that the ancient populations—the Gauls amongst others—appealed to them, that they alone ruled legitimately, and that all the acquisitions of aristocracy are mere encroachments upon monarchy.

A third school presents itself, that of liberals, republicans, democrats, as you may choose to style them. If we follow the Abbé de Mably, we shall conclude that the government of society was handed over, from the dawning of the fifth century, to a system of free institutions, to assemblies of free men, to the people properly so called; that nobles and kings have enriched themselves with the spoils of primitive liberty, which shrunk under their attacks, but nevertheless reigned before them.

And above all these monarchical, aristocratical, and popular pretensions, rises the theocratic claim of the church, which says that, by virtue of her very mission and divine title, society belonged to her, that she alone had any right to govern it, and that she alone was the legitimate queen of the European world, reclaimed by her labours to civilisation and truth.

Thus we are placed in a peculiar position. We imagined that we had demonstrated that none of the elements of European civilisation has had exclusive sway in the course of its history, but that they have existed in a constant state of vicinage, of amalgamation, of strife, and of activity; and at our very first step, we find this directly contrary opinion maintained, that at its birth, in the bosom of barbaric Europe, some one or other of these elements had sole possession of society. And it is not in a single country, but in all the countries of Europe, that the advocates for the different principles of our civilisation have put forward their irreconcilable pretensions, under forms and at periods somewhat variable. The historical schools that we have just characterised are not confined to one country, but are met throughout Europe.

This fact is important, not in itself, but because it brings to light other facts which hold a material place in our history. Two important particulars are started by this simultaneous advocacy of the most incongruous pretensions to the exclusive possession of power in the first ages of modern Europe. The first is the principle or idea of political legitimacy, which has enacted a prominent part in the drama of European civilisation: the second is the actual and veritable character of the state of barbarian Europe of that epoch, with which we have specially to concern ourselves at this period of our inquiry.

I shall proceed to draw these two particulars from obscurity, and to sever them in succession from the contest of allegations which I have previously mentioned.

What do the different elements of European civilisation—the theocratical, monarchical, aristocratical, and popular—claim when they assert themselves the first possessors of society in Europe? Is it not that each proclaims itself to be solely legitimate? Political legitimacy is evidently a right based on antiquity and duration. Priority of time is invoked as the source of right, as the proof of the legitimacy of power. And here I beg attention to the fact, that this pretension is not confined to one particular system or element of our civilisation, but that it spreads over all. We are accustomed in modern times to consider the idea of legitimacy as involved in only one system—the monarchical—which is a great mistake, for it is at issue in all the others. We have already seen that all the elements of our civilisation have endeavoured to monopolise it; and if we cast a look forward into the history of Europe, we shall see the most varied social forms and governments equally in possession of this character of legitimacy. The Italian and Swiss aristocracies and democracies, the republic of San Marino, like the greatest monarchies of Europe, have styled themselves, and have been esteemed, legitimate; they, exactly like the others, have founded their claim to legitimacy upon the antiquity of their institutions, upon the historical priority, and upon the prolonged duration, of their system of government.

If we go beyond Europe, and carry our observation to other times and countries, we encounter on all sides this idea of political legitimacy, and find it clinging to some portion of the ruling government, to some of its institutions, forms, or maxims. There is no country or time in which a certain portion of the social system, of the public powers, has not bestowed upon itself, and had recognised as inherent in it, this character of legitimacy derived from antiquity and stability.

And what is this principle! What are its elements? How came its introduction into European civilisation?

All systems of power are, at their origin, mixed up with force. I do not mean to say that they are all based upon force alone, or that if they had not originally had other titles than force, they would have been established. They most certainly needed others; powers are established in accordance with certain social wants, and with reference to the state of society, to manners and opinions. But we cannot avoid perceiving that force has sullied the foundation of all the systems of power in the world, whatever may have been their nature and form.

But every one repudiates this origin, all the systems of every description deny it, and there is none that will consent to spring from force. An invincible instinct apprises governments that force does not confer right, and that if their claims rested upon that alone, right could never be deduced. For this reason, when we recur to ancient times, and unmask the different systems and powers abandoned to violence, all hasten to exclaim, 'I was earlier, I subsisted previously, and by virtue of other titles; society belonged to me before this state of violence and strife in which you discover me; I was legitimate; my just prerogatives were contested and wrenched from me.'

This single fact demonstrates that the maxim of force is not the groundwork of political legitimacy, and that it reposes upon some other base. What is the effect of this formal repudiation of force by all the systems? Their acknowledgment that there is another legitimacy, the veritable foundation for all others, the legitimacy of reason, justice, and right. Such is the origin to which they are all eager to cling. And because they discard force as their initiatory element, they are driven to assert themselves robed with a different title, quoting their antiquity. The main characteristic, then, of political legitimacy, is to deny force as the source of power, and to allege it as cohesive with a moral idea and force, with the idea, in fact, of right, justice, and reason. This is the fundamental element which constitutes the principle of political legitimacy. It has taken its rise therefrom, receiving a helping hand from time and stability. We will trace the process.

Force having presided at the dawn of all governments and societies, time progresses and effects changes in the operations of force; it administers correctives, from the very circumstance that a society endures and is composed of men. Man bears within him a certain number of notions of order, justice, and reason, and a certain craving to give them sway, and to introduce them into the facts amidst which he lives. To attain this object, he labours unremittingly; and if the social state in which he is located continues, his labours are not fruitless. Man brings reason and right to bear in the sphere he moves in.

Independently of the exertions of man, there is a law of Providence too palpable to be denied, a law analogous to that which rules the material world, by which a certain measure of order, reason, and justice, is indispensable to the continuance of a society. Indeed, from the mere fact of durability, we may be assured that any particular society is not utterly absurd, insensate, or iniquitous, and that it is not entirely bare of that element of reason, truth, and justice, which can alone give life to any society. If, furthermore, the society is developed, if it becomes more vigorous and powerful, if its terms are from time to time accepted by an increasing number of people, then are we sure that by the action of time, more reason, justice, and right have been infused into it; for facts imperceptibly arrange themselves according to true legitimacy.

Thus has the idea of political legitimacy spread over the world, and from the world penetrated men's minds. For foundation or first origin, it has, in a certain degree, at least, moral legitimacy, justice, reason, and truth; and afterwards the sanction of time, which gives ground for belief that reason has become part and parcel of existing facts, that, in reality, true undeniable legitimacy has been introduced into external matters. In the epoch we are about to open upon, we shall find force and falsehood ingredients in the first composition of royalty, aristocracy, democracy, and even of the church; and then force and falsehood will be perceived undergoing gradual reformation under the plastic hand of time, and right and truth taking their places in civilisation. It is this introduction of right and truth into the social state that has developed by degrees the principle of political legitimacy, and it is thus that it has become established in modern civilisation.

When attempts have been made at various times to raise this idea as the banner of absolute power, its real origin has been grossly mistaken or perverted. So utterly apart is it from identification with absolute power, that right and justice are the titles by which it has been diffused, and has taken root in the world. It is not in any degree exclusive, it appertains to none in particular, but is planted wherever right finds development. Political legitimacy, I assert again, is as much bound up with liberty as with power, and with individual rights equally with the forms, whatever they may be, by which public functions are exercised. We will meet it in our progress, in the most discordant systems—equally in the feudal system, in the municipalities of Flanders and Germany, in the republics of Italy, as in monarchy. It is a character partaken of by all the different elements of modern civilisation, and it behoves us fully to comprehend it in investigating the history of that civilisation.

The second fact which is brought to light by the simultaneous pretensions of which I have so often spoken, is the real character of the epoch styled barbarous. As I have said, all the elements of European civilisation assert that they possessed Europe at that period; as a consequence, none of them predominated. When a social form domineers in the world, there is not so much difficulty in recognising it. When we come to the tenth century, we shall have no hesitation in recognising the preponderance of the feudal system; in the seventeenth, we shall have no doubt in affirming the prevalence of the monarchical principle; and if we regard the Flemish corporations or the Italian republics, we shall immediately declare the sway of the democratic principle. When a principle is really predominant in the world, there is no possibility of mistaking it.

The contest that has arisen among the various systems which are included in European civilisation, upon the question as to which ruled it at its origin, proves that they had all a co-existence therein, without any one so generally or assuredly prevailing as to impress upon society its form and name.

And herein lies the actual character of the barbarous epoch—a chaos of all the elements, an outburst of all the systems, a universal hubbub, in which the struggle was neither permanent nor systematic. By examining, in all its phases, the social state of that era, I might demonstrate the impossibility of discovering any fact or principle approaching to a general or established recognition. I will confine myself to two essential points—the state of individuals, and the state of institutions. They will suffice to depict the entire society.

We discern four classes of persons at this epoch: 1st, The free men—that is to say, those who depended upon no superior or patron, who held their possessions, and regulated their lives, in full liberty, without any tie binding them to another man; 2d, The leudes, fideles, anstrustions, &c. bound by a relation—first that of companion to a chief, then of vassal to a suzerain—to another man towards whom they had contracted the obligation of a service, in respect of a grant of lands or other gifts; 3d, The freedmen; 4th, The slaves.

But these different classes were not immovably fixed; men, when once included within their limits, did not remain there for ever; the relations of the various classes were neither definite nor permanent. Among the free men were some ever and anon leaving their position to assume service under a particular person, receiving from him some gift, and passing into the class of leudes; whilst others fell into that of slaves. On the other hand, some leudes struggled to get rid of their patron, to re-establish their independence, and return into the free class. On all sides was a continual movement and transition from one class to another, a general uncertainty and instability in the mutual bearings of the classes: no man adhered to his position, and no position remained unchanged.

Tenures of land were in the same state; they were distinguished as allodial, or completely free, and beneficiary, or subject to certain obligations towards a superior. It is well known that attempts have been made to establish, in this last class of tenures, a precise and determined system; it has been said that the grants were made for a certain number of years, then for life, and that finally they became hereditary. The attempts are vain; all these varieties of tenure existed simultaneously; the self-same epoch displays benefices for years, for life, to heirs; and even the same lands passed in a few years through those different states. Nothing was more stable or generalised in the condition of landed property than in that of individuals. The difficult transition is everywhere perceptible from the wandering to the sedentary life, from relations merely personal to those in combination with bodies of men and the rights of property, which are real, substantial, obligatory relations. In this state of transition all was confused, partial, and disordered.

The same instability and turmoil marked the institutions. Three systems were in juxtaposition—royalty, aristocratical institutions, or superiorities over men and lands in gradation, and free institutions, or assemblies of free men deliberating in common. No one of these systems was in possession of society, no one had a preference. Free institutions existed, but the men who should have taken part in the assemblies did not attend. The signorial jurisdiction, likewise, was not exercised. Royalty, which is the most simple institution, and the easiest to determine, had no fixed character: election and hereditary right were mingled together: sometimes the son succeeded his father; sometimes a selection was made out of the royal family; and sometimes a pure and simple election took place of a distant relative, or perhaps of a stranger. We find nothing settled in any system; all the institutions, like the social conditions, existed together, were confounded, and continually changing.

Countries were in the same unsettled state. They were created and suppressed, united and divided. Frontiers, governments, nations, ceased to be distinguishable. A universal confusion in positions, principles, facts, races, and tongues, was the condition of barbarian Europe.

Within what limits is this strange epoch contained? Its commencement is well marked—it occurred at the fall of the Roman Empire. But when did it end? In order to answer this question, we must inquire to what this state of society was owing, what were the causes of the barbarism.

I think two main ones are discoverable. The one physical, arising outwardly from the course of events; and the other moral, working inwardly from the mental state of man himself.

The physical cause was the prolongation of the invasion. We are not to conclude that the invasion of the barbarians was arrested at the fifth century, nor that because the Roman Empire had fallen, and barbaric kingdoms were founded on its ruins, the populations brought their movements to a close. On the contrary, they continued long after the fall of the Empire, of which we have all-sufficient proof.

We see the Frank kings, even of the first race, continually compelled to make war beyond the Rhine; we see Clotaire, Dagobert, incessantly engaged in expeditions into Germany, fighting against the Thuringians, the Danes, and the Saxons, who occupied the right bank of the Rhine. For what reason? Because those nations wished to cross the river, and gather their share of the spoils of the Empire. What caused, about the same period, those great invasions of Italy by the Franks established in Gaul, principally of the eastern or Austrasian Franks? Why did they precipitate themselves on Switzerland, pass the Alps, and enter Italy? Because they were pushed on the north-east by new populations; their expeditions were undertaken from necessity, and were not mere forays for pillage; their settlements were interfered with, and they went forth to seek others. Then a new German nation appeared upon the stage, and founded in Italy the kingdom of the Lombards. In Gaul, the first Frank dynasty was subverted: the Carlovingians succeeded the Merovingians. It is now acknowledged that this change of dynasty was in truth an accession of population which displaced the western for the eastern Franks. The change was effected, and the second race reigned. Charlemagne began against the Saxons what the Merovingians had directed against the Thuringians, and became involved in ceaseless wars with the nations beyond the Rhine. And these were urged onwards by the Obotrites, the Wiltzes, the Sorabes, the Bohemians, by the whole Slavonic race which pressed upon the Germanic, and from the sixth to the ninth century goaded it to advance towards the west. To the whole of the north-east, the invading movement continued and controlled events.

In the south a movement of the same nature occurred, occasioned by the Moslem Arabs. Whilst the Germanic and Slavonic populations crowded along the Rhine and the Danube, the Arabs began their career of conquest on all the coasts of the Mediterranean.

The invasion of the Arabs had a peculiar character. The spirit of conquest and that of proselytism were united; their invasion was made both to conquer territory and spread their faith. There was a great difference between this movement and that of the Germans. In the Christian world, the spiritual and temporal arms were disjoined. Zeal for the propagation of a faith was not felt by the same men who burned with the desire of conquest. The Germans on their conversion had preserved their manners, sentiments, and tastes; earthly interests and passions continued to sway them; and though they might be Christians, they were not missionaries. The Arabs, on the contrary, were conquerors and missionaries; with them the sword and the Word were wielded by the same hands. At a later date, this circumstance gave the unfortunate turn to the Mussulman civilisation; for it is from the unity of the temporal and spiritual powers, from the confused mixture of moral influence with material force, that the tyranny which seems inherent in that civilisation took its rise; and such is, as I believe, the principal cause of the stagnant state into which it has fallen. But this was far from appearing at the first outburst; on the contrary, a prodigious power was thereby imparted to the Arab invasion. Strengthened as it was by moral ideas and passions, it gained, upon the instant, a lustre and greatness which had been signally wanting to the German invasion; more energy and enthusiasm were displayed in it, and the minds of men were affected by it in a very different manner.

Such was the situation of Europe from the fifth to the ninth century; pressed on the south by the Mohammedans, on the north by the Germans and Slavi, the interior of the European region was inevitably kept in continual disorder by the reaction of this double invasion. Populations were incessantly displaced and hurled upon each other; no settlement could be established; the nomade life recommenced in every quarter. There was certainly some difference in this respect amongst the various countries; the turmoil was greater in Germany than in the rest of Europe, for it was the very furnace of agitation; and France was more convulsed than Italy. But nowhere could society get fixed or regulated; barbarism was prolonged on all sides, from the same cause which had given it a commencement.

So much for the material cause which sprang from the course of events. I now come to the moral cause, founded upon the internal state of mankind, which was not less powerful.

Whatever external events may be, it is, after all, man himself who makes his world; it is from the ideas and sentiments, the moral and intellectual dispositions of men, that the world is regulated in its progress; it is upon the inward state of men that the outward state of society depends.

What is needful to men in order to found a society at all durable and regular? It is evidently requisite that they have a certain number of ideas sufficiently expansive to suit that society, and to be applicable to its wants and relations. It is furthermore necessary that these ideas be common to the majority of the members of the society, and that they exercise some sway over their desires and actions.

It is clear that if men have no ideas extending beyond their own existence, if their intellectual horizon be limited to themselves, if they give unrestrained play to the fury of their passions and inclinations, if they have not amongst them a certain number of notions and sentiments held in common, around which they may be rallied, then it is clear, I repeat, that no society can possibly exist among them, and that each individual will be an element of disorder and dissolution in any society into which he enters.

Wherever individuality gains a nearly absolute sway, where man considers only himself, where his ideas stretch not beyond his own person, where he listens only to his own passions, society (meaning thereby a society calculated for some small degree of extension and permanence) is almost an impossibility. Now this was the moral state of the conquerors of Europe in the epoch treated of. I observed, in the preceding lecture, that we are indebted to the Germans for the vigorous sentiment of individual liberty, of human individuality. But in a state of extreme coarseness and ignorance, this sentiment is pure selfishness in all its brutality and unsociability. It was at this point among the Germans from the fifth to the eighth century. They were concerned only for their own interests, with their own passions and inclinations, and how could they thus accommodate themselves to a state approaching the social? Attempts were made to induce them to enter into it; they even tried it of themselves. But from some act of recklessness, some burst of passion, or some deficiency in understanding, they broke immediately loose. Society was incessantly endeavouring to form itself, but as incessantly was it routed by the act of man, by the absence of those moral conditions which are essential to its existence.

Such were the two disposing causes of the barbaric state. So long as they lasted, barbarism continued. Let us inquire how, and when, they finally ceased.

Europe laboured to get out of this state. It is the nature of man to struggle to emerge from such a chaos, even though he has been plunged into it by his own fault. However brutal and ignorant, however much devoted to his own gratification and passions, there is within him a voice or instinct which repeats to him that he is made for something else, that he has another capacity and destiny. In the midst of his disorganisation, a taste for order and advancement pursues and torments him. Longings for justice, for foresight, for development, agitate his breast even under the yoke of the most boorish selfishness. He feels himself urged to reform the material world, society, and himself; and he labours for this object without much cognisance of the want that goads him. Thus the barbarians aspired at civilisation, although utterly incapable of it, I may say, indeed, utterly detesting it, when its restraints were felt.

There remained, likewise, some considerable remnants of the Roman civilisation. The name of the Empire, the remembrance of that great and glorious society, agitated the memories of men, especially of the town senators, the bishops, the priests, and of all those who had their origin in the Roman era.

Many of the barbarians themselves, or of their barbarian forefathers, had been witnesses of the grandeur of the Empire; they had served in its armies, or fought against it. The image and name of the Roman civilisation had an imposing effect upon them, and they experienced a desire to imitate it, to bring it back, or to preserve some portion of it. In this was an additional stimulus to drive them from the state of barbarism which I have described.

There was a third, which suggests itself to every mind—I mean the Christian church. The church was a society regularly constituted, having principles, rules, and discipline of its own, and actuated by an ardent zeal to extend its influence, and to vanquish its conquerors. Among the Christians of that epoch, in the ranks of the clergy, there were men who had pondered deeply upon all moral and political questions, who held fixed opinions and energetic sentiments upon all things, and strove strenuously to propagate them and render them paramount. No society ever made such efforts as did the Christian church, from the fifth to the tenth century, to extend its sphere, and smooth the external world into its own likeness. When we study its particular history, we shall perceive the full extent of its labours. It attacked barbarism, as it were, on all its sides, to civilise by subduing it.

Finally, there existed a fourth cause of civilisation, one which it is impossible accurately to weigh, but which is not the less real on that account—namely, the influence of great men. No one can say why a great man comes at a particular era, or what he infuses of his own into the development of the world; the secret remains with Providence, but the fact is certain. There are men whom the spectacle of anarchy or of social stagnation strikes and distresses, who are intellectually shocked thereat as with a fact which should not be, and who become possessed with an uncontrollable desire to change it, and to plant some rule, some uniformity, regularity, and permanency in the world before them: a terrible, and often a tyrannical power, committing a thousand iniquities and errors, for human weakness accompanies it; yet a glorious and salutary power, for it gives to humanity a vigorous jerk, an admirable impulse.

These different causes and influences originated various attempts to emancipate European society from the clutch of barbarism, in the epoch stretching from the fifth to the ninth century.

The first of these attempts (although it may have had little effect, yet requires to be noticed, for it emanated from the barbarians themselves) was the digesting the barbarian laws. Between the sixth and eighth centuries, the laws of almost all the barbarous tribes were written. Formerly it was otherwise, these people having mere customs for governance before they established themselves on the ruins of the Roman Empire. There were the laws of the Burgundians, of the Salian and Ripuarian Franks, of the Visigoths, the Lombards, the Saxons, the Frisons, the Bavarians, the Allemanni, &c. Here was evidently a commencement of civilisation, an endeavour to transfer society to the empire of general and regular principles. It was impossible for much success to attend it, for it presented the laws of a society which no longer existed, the laws of the social state of the barbarians before their establishment on the Roman territory, before they had changed a wandering for a sedentary life, and the condition of nomad warriors for that of proprietors. Here and there are found some articles as to the lands which the barbarians had acquired, and as to their relations with the old inhabitants of the country, and even attempts are made to regulate some of the new circumstances with which they were mixed up; but the ground-work of the majority of these laws is the ancient life and state of things in Germany, which were utterly inapplicable to the new society, and have had but little influence in its development.

An attempt of another nature was commenced in Italy and the south of Gaul at the same period. The Roman society had not perished there so completely as in other quarters; in the cities there remained a somewhat greater degree of order and energy. Civilisation attempted to rear itself there again. For example, we find the municipal system recover breath, as it were, and exercise some influence upon the general course of events, in the kingdom of the Ostrogoths in Italy, under Theodoric, although both king and nation were barbarian. The Roman society had humanised the Goths, and to a certain extent assimilated them with itself. The same fact is perceptible in the south of Gaul. At the commencement of the sixth century, a Visigoth king of Toulouse, Alaric, caused the Roman laws to be collected, and published a code for his Roman subjects, under the name of the Brevarium Aniani.

It was the church which endeavoured to give a new beginning to civilisation in Spain. Instead of the old German assemblies of warriors (the malla), the council of Toledo held sway in Spain, and although influential laymen attended the council, the bishops governed it. In the laws of the Visigoths there is not a barbaric enactment; the compilation is evidently the work of the philosophers of the era, the clergy. They abound in general ideas and in theories which are completely foreign to barbarian manners. Thus it is known that the legislation of the barbarians was a personal legislation; that is to say, the same law applied only to men of the same race. The Roman law governed the Romans, the Franco law governed the Franks; each people had its own law, although they were united under the same government, and inhabited the same territory. This is the system which is called personal legislation, in opposition to the system of real legislation, founded upon territorial distinctions. Now the legislation of the Visigoths was not personal, but territorial. All the inhabitants of Spain, whether Romans or Visigoths, were subject to the same law. But there are still more evident traces of philosophy to be found. Amongst the barbarians, men were valued at a fixed rate, according to their situations; the barbarian, the Roman, the freeman, the vassal, &c. were not estimated at the same sum; their lives were made matter of tariff. The principle of men being of equal value in the eyes of the law, was established in the code of the Visigoths. With regard to the system of procedure, we find the oath of compurgatores and the judicial combat displaced for the proof by witnesses, and such a rational examination into facts as might be adopted in any civilised society. In a word, the whole Visigoth code bears a wise, systematic, and social character. We perceive in it the labours of that same clergy which held command in the councils of Toledo, and operated so powerfully on the government of the country.

Therefore in Spain, up to the great invasion of the Arabs, it was the theocratic principle which laboured to raise up civilisation.

In France, the same endeavour was the work of a different influence; it originated with great men, especially with Charlemagne. If we examine his reign in its various phases, we shall find that the prevailing idea of his mind was the civilisation of his people. First, with regard to his wars. He was constantly in the field, ranging from the south to the north-east, from the Ebro to the Elbe or the Weser. These were not mere arbitrary expeditions, arising from an insatiable thirst for conquests. I do not assert that all he did may be systematically accounted for, or that his plans display a profound diplomatic or strategetic wit, but he obeyed the impulse of a great necessity resulting from his scheme to repress barbarism. During the whole period of his reign, he was employed in arresting the double invasion of the Mussulmans on the south, of the Germans and Slavi on the north, in prosecution of that object. This is the character of the military part of the reign of Charlemagne: as I have previously said, this was also the end and purpose of his expeditions against the Saxons.

Passing from his wars to his internal government, we find the same principle in activity, the attempt to introduce order and uniformity into the administration of all the countries which he possessed. I cannot call them a kingdom or a state, for these expressions are of too regular a stamp, and raise ideas too little in accordance with the society over which Charlemagne presided. This much, however, is certain, that he, master of an immense territory, was indignant at beholding all things therein in a most dissevered, anarchical, and brutish condition, and devoted his energies to soften its hideousness. His first measure was to despatch his missi dominici into the different districts of his possessions, to inquire into facts, and either reform them, or report them to him. He afterwards held general assemblies with much more regularity than his predecessors, which he compelled almost all the influential men of his territories to attend. These were not free assemblies; nor were they summoned for what we would call deliberation. They were used by Charlemagne as a means of getting information as to facts, and of introducing some regularity and union among his disorganised subjects.

In whatever point of view the reign of Charlemagne is considered, the same character is found predominant, a contest against the barbaric state, the genius of civilisation at work. This is the spirit which is evinced in his eagerness to institute schools, in his taste for learned men, in his predilection for ecclesiastical influence, and in his adoption of everything which appeared to him capable of acting beneficially either on society as a whole, or on man as an individual.

An attempt of the same nature was made by King Alfred in England somewhat later.

Thus the different causes which I have particularised, as tending to put an end to barbarism, were in action, in some quarter or other of Europe, from the fifth to the ninth century.

Not one was successful. Charlemagne failed to give stability to his great empire, and the system of government which he wished to institute. In Spain, the church was not more happy in its endeavours to establish the theocratic principle. In Italy and the south of Gaul, although the Roman civilisation made various efforts to rise again, it was not until afterwards, towards the end of the tenth century, that it really assumed any vigour. Up till that period, all the endeavours to extinguish barbarism were fruitless: they proceeded on the idea that men were more advanced than the reality demonstrated: they all strove for a society more extended and regular than comported with the actual diffusion of coercive influences, and the state of men's minds. However, they were not completely thrown away. At the commencement of the tenth century, there was no longer any question about the great empire of Charlemagne, or the glorious councils of Toledo, but barbarism did not the less surely approach extinction. Two great results were obtained:

1st, The invading movements were arrested both on the north and the south. After the dismemberment of the empire of Charlemagne, a strong barrier was opposed to the tribes still pushing to the west, by the nations established on the right bank of the Rhine. The Normans prove this fact incontestibly; for up to this era, excepting the tribes that had fallen on Britain, the action of maritime invasion had not been considerable. It was in the course of the ninth century that it became constant and general, and principally because invasions by land were rendered very difficult, since society had acquired more fixed and assured frontiers on that side. That portion of the roving population which could not be driven back, was yet constrained to turn away and pursue its adventurous career on the sea. Whatever evil the Norman invasions inflicted on the west, they were much less fatal than the inroads by land, and gave infinitely less general disturbance to the infant society.

In the south, the same consequence ensued. The Arabs took up quarters in Spain, and the struggle between them and the Christians continued, but it was no longer attended with the displacement of the population. The Saracenic bands still infested from time to time the coasts of the Mediterranean, but Islamism had evidently ceased its grand march.

2d, In the interior of the European territory, the wandering life came to a cessation; populations were settled, property was fixed, and the relations of men no longer varied from day to day at the impulse of force or chance. The internal and moral state of man himself began to change, his ideas and sentiments acquired some stability as well as his life; he became attached to the locality he inhabited, to the ties he had contracted, to those domains which he flattered himself with leaving to his children, to that abode which in time he was to designate his castle, and to that miserable assemblage of colonists and slaves which was one day to rise into a village. Small societies, petty states, were everywhere formed, hewn, so to express myself, according to the extent of ideas and knowledge possessed by men. Amongst these societies a bond of confederation, which did not destroy individual independence, was gradually introduced, according to a principle which lurked in the barbarian manners. On one hand, every considerable personage established himself in his domains with his family and retainers; on the other, a certain gradation of services and rights was instituted among these warlike proprietors scattered over the territory. What was the result?—the feudal system, which ultimately arose from the bosom of barbarism. Of the different elements of our civilisation, it was natural that the Germanic should first of all prevail, for it had the force, and it had conquered Europe; and the first social form and organisation were necessarily received from it.

The feudal system, its character, and the part which it has played in the history of European civilisation, will be the object of the next lecture. In the very heart of the victorious feudal regime, we shall, however, encounter at every step the other elements of our civilisation, royalty, the church, and corporations; and we shall have little difficulty in concluding that they were not destined to be crushed under that feudal form to which they assimilated themselves, whilst struggling against it, and waiting for the hour that victory might declare for them in their turn.

Lecture IV.
Influences Of The Feudal System.

We have now surveyed the state of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, in the first epoch of modern history—namely, the barbaric. We have seen that, at the end of that era, at the commencement of the tenth century, the first principle or system which was developed, and which took possession of European society, was the feudal system, the earliest offspring of barbarism. It is therefore the feudal system that we shall make the present object of our inquiry.

I need scarcely here repeat that it is not the history of events, properly so called, that I treat of. I am not called upon to detail the destinies of feudalism: it is the history of civilisation with which I concern myself, and that is the general, hidden fact, which I seek for under all the exterior facts which envelope it.

Thus events, social crises, and the various states through which society has passed, interest us only in their relations with the development of civilisation; we have to inquire how they opposed or aided it, what they gave to it, and what they abstained from giving. It is simply in this point of view that we take the feudal system into consideration.

On commencing this inquiry, we determined what civilisation was, we endeavoured to distinguish its elements, and we became aware that it involved, in one respect, the development of man himself, of the individual, of human nature; and in the other, that of his outward and visible condition, of society. Every time, therefore, that we open out an event, a system, a general order of things, we have this double question to ask: What has it effected for or against the development of humanity—what for or against the development of society?

In this investigation, it is impossible for us to avoid encountering in our progress very important questions in moral philosophy. When we would decide to what extent an event or system has contributed to the development of man and of society, it behoves us to ascertain what is the true development of society and of humanity, and whether certain developments are not deceitful and illegitimate, tending to pervert rather than to ameliorate, and leading to a retrograde instead of an advancing movement.

We shall not attempt to elude the task that is imposed upon us. Not only should we thereby emasculate and degrade our ideas, and the facts themselves, but the actual state of the world compels us frankly to adopt as law this unquestionable alliance between philosophy and history. This conjunction is precisely one of the features, if not the main and essential feature, of our age. We are called upon to study, and to give simultaneous weight to science and reality, to theory and practice, to right and fact. In previous times, these two powers have lived apart: the world was accustomed to behold scientific theory and practice take different routes, without acknowledging each other, or at least without forming a union. And when doctrines or general ideas operated upon events, and stirred up the world, they have succeeded in doing so only by the impulsion of fanaticism. The sway over human societies, and the direction of their affairs, have hitherto been divided between two sorts of influences: on the one hand, the believers, the men of general ideas and of principles, the fanatics; on the other, men strangers to all rational principle, making circumstances their only rule of conduct, practicians, libertines, as the seventeenth century called them. This state of things has now ceased; neither the fanatics nor the libertines can any longer wield predominance. In order to govern and have influence amongst men at present, it is necessary to ascertain and comprehend both general ideas and circumstances; it is necessary to have the capacity to keep count of principles and facts, to respect truth and expediency, and to avoid as well the blind presumption of the fanatics, as the insensate disdain of the libertines. The development of the human mind and of the social state has conducted us to this point: on the one hand, the human understanding, elevated and unshackled, has a clearer conception of the entirety of things, can direct its scrutiny to all questions, and bring everything that has being into its combinations; on the other hand, society is brought to that state of advancement that it can bear testing by the application of truth; and facts may be supported by appeal to principles, without inspiring, by such comparison, an overwhelming discouragement or disgust, in spite of their great imperfection. Therefore, by passing, as occasions arise, from the examination of circumstances to that of ideas, from an exposition of facts to an inquiry into theories, I shall only follow the natural tendency, the tone and the demands of our age. Perhaps, also, there is an additional reason in favour of this method, derived from the actual disposition of men's minds. For some time past, a decided taste, I will even say a sort of predilection, for facts, for the practical point of view and the positive side of human affairs, has manifested itself amongst us. We have been so much a prey to the despotism of general ideas and theories, and they have cost us in many respects so dear, that they have become objects of partial distrust. We prefer to appeal to facts, to special circumstances, and to the tests of application. Nor is this matter for regret: it is a fresh advance, a great step towards the knowledge and empire of truth; taking care, nevertheless, that we avoid being carried too far by this disposition, and provided we always bear in mind that truth alone has a prerogative to reign in the world, and that facts have no merit but as they give it expression, and take form upon its model; that all true greatness springs from thought, and is indebted to it for fruitfulness. The civilisation of our country has this peculiar character, that it has never been wanting in intellectual grandeur: it has always been rich in ideas: the influence of the human understanding has been great in French society, perhaps greater than anywhere else. It must not lose this glorious feature, it must not fall into that somewhat subordinate and material state which characterises other societies. Intellect and thought must still hold in France at least the place that they have hitherto occupied.

We shall therefore on no account shun general and philosophical questions; we shall not beat about in search of them, but when facts bring us on them, we shall face them without hesitation or embarrassment. More than one occasion for this hardihood will present itself, on considering the feudal system in its relation to the history of European civilisation.

That the feudal system was necessary, and the only possible social state, in the tenth century, is proved by the universality of its establishment. Wherever barbarism ceased, everything took the feudal form. At the first moment, men saw in it only the last stage of chaos. All unity and general civilisation seemed finally prorogued; society was seen dismembered on all sides, and a multitude of petty, obscure, isolated, and incohesive societies, to arise. This appeared to contemporaries the dissolution of all things, a universal anarchy. Both the poets and chroniclers of the era believed the end of the world at hand. Yet this feudal society was so necessary and inevitable, so completely the only possible consequence of the anterior state, that all entered into it, all adopted its form. Even elements the most foreign to the system—the church, municipalities, royalty—were constrained to accommodate themselves to it: churches became superiors and vassals, towns had lords and vassals, and royalty was hid under the mask of paramount lordship. All things were given as fiefs— not only lands, but certain rights, as those of cutting in forests, and of fishing: churches gave their casualties to be held in fief, revenues from baptisms, and the churchings of women. And in the same manner that all the general elements of society entered into the feudal frame, the minor details and circumstances of common life became its objects.

On beholding the feudal form thus take possession of everything, we are tempted to believe at the first blush that its essential and vital principle had also universal predominance. But this is a great error. The institutions and elements of society, which were not analogous to the feudal system, did not renounce their peculiar nature or principle, although borrowing the feudal form. The feudal church did not cease to be animated and governed at bottom by the theocratic principle; and in order to give it prevalence, it struggled unceasingly, sometimes in concert with the royal power, sometimes with the pope, and sometimes with the people, to destroy the system whose livery, so to speak, it wore. It was the same with royalty and the corporations; the first continued, at bottom, to be actuated by the monarchical principle, the last by the democratic. In spite of their feudal trappings, these varied elements of the European society constantly laboured to free themselves from a form alien to their nature, and to assume that which corresponded to their own vital principle.

After demonstrating the universality of the feudal form, it behoves us, then, to avoid concluding therefrom the universality of the feudal principle, and studying that system indiscriminately wherever its outward aspect meets our eyes. In order to gain a full knowledge and comprehension of it, in order to unfold and form a judgment of its effect upon modern civilisation, we must seek it only where the principle and form are in harmony; we must contemplate it in the hierarchy of the conquerors of the European territory. There truly resides the feudal society, and upon it I shall forthwith enter.

I mentioned just now the importance of moral questions, and the necessity of grappling with them. There is another order of considerations quite opposed to that one, which has in general been too much neglected; I mean the physical condition of society, the physical changes introduced into men's modes of existence by a new occurrence, by a revolution in the social state. Sufficient attention has not always been paid to this matter; inquiry has not been sufficiently directed to the modifications these great crises in the world have produced in the material existence of men and in their relations. These modifications have more influence upon the entirety of society than is usually imagined. Every one knows how much the question of the influence of climate has been discussed, and the great importance attached to it by Montesquieu. If the direct influence of climate upon men be mooted, it is perhaps not so extensive as is supposed; at all events, the appreciation is vague and difficult. But the indirect influence of climate—that which results, for example, from the fact, that in a hot country men live in the open air, whilst in cold countries they shut themselves up in habitations, and that they support themselves in the two extremes after different modes—becomes of extreme importance, since the mere variation in physical life has a powerful operation on civilisation. Now every great revolution brings with it modifications of the sort I have mentioned into the social state, and it is incumbent upon us to give them great attention.

The establishment of the feudal system produced one of these changes of grave import; it completely altered the distribution of the population on the face of the land. Previously, the masters of the territory, the conquering population, had lived in masses more or less numerous, either sedentary in the interior of towns, or roving in bands over the country. By the feudal system, these men came to live isolated, each in his habitation, at great distances from each other. This change of course exercised material influence upon the character and course of civilisation. The social preponderance, the government of society, passed at once from the towns to the country; private property necessarily became of greater importance than public property, and in the same manner public life was absorbed in private life. Such was the first effect, a purely physical effect, of the triumph of the feudal society. The farther we investigate it, the more will the consequences of this single fact be unveiled.

In order to get more unequivocally at the part borne by this system in the history of civilisation, let us first of all take it in its most simple phase, in its primitive and fundamental element; let us contemplate a possessor of a fief in his domain, and inquire what becomes of all those who compose the petty society around him.

He establishes himself in an isolated and elevated locality, which he takes care to render sure and strong; he builds there what we shall call his castle. With whom does he establish himself? With his wife and children: perhaps some free men, who are not proprietors, are attached to his person, and continue to live with him and frequent his table. These are the occupiers of the interior of the castle. Around its base is grouped a small population of colonists and serfs, who cultivate the domain of the owner of the fief. In the midst of this inferior population religion erects a chapel, which attracts a priest. In ordinary cases, during the first period of the feudal government, this priest was at once the chaplain of the castle and the curate of the village; in time these two characters were separated, and each village had its minister, who dwelt beside his church. Such was the elementary, the atomic state (so to speak), of the feudal society. This is the condition that we have first to examine; and we will subject it to the double question that it is expedient for us to address to all facts—What resulted from it towards the development, 1st, of man himself, 2d, of society?

We are strictly correct in submitting this narrow society to the double analysation, and in relying on the result, for it is the faithful type and image of the feudal society in its full extent. The lord, the people of his domains, and the priest, represent feudalism on the large scale as well as on the small, when it is severed from royalty and the towns, which were distinct and foreign elements.

The first fact which strikes us in considering this petty association, is the prodigious importance which the possessor of the fief must have had in his own eyes, and in the eyes of those who surrounded him. The sentiment of personality, of individual liberty, was the predominant one of the barbarian life. But here the matter was quite altered; there was not only the independence of the man or warrior, but also the importance of a proprietor, of a family chief; of a master. From this position must have sprung an impression of immense superiority, a superiority altogether peculiar, and greatly different from anything perceptible in the course of other civilisations. I will give an illustration of this. I take a high aristocratic condition in the ancient world; a Roman patrician, for example. Like the feudal lord, he was the head of a family, a master, a superior. He was the priest, the pontiff, in the interior of his family. Now his importance as a religious magistrate came to him from without; it was not an importance purely personal or individual; he received it from above, as the delegate of the Divinity, the interpreter of the religious doctrines attached to that idea. The Roman patrician was, furthermore, the member of a corporation which was gathered into one place, the senate, giving him an additional importance derived from without, received and borrowed from his corporation. The grandeur of the ancient aristocrats, associated as it was with a religious and political character, belonged to the station, to the corporation in general, rather than to the individual. That of the possessor of a fief was purely personal; he drew nothing from any one; all his rights and all his power came to him from himself alone. He was not a religious magistrate, he made part of no senate; in his own person, in his individual self, all his importance resided, and all that he was he was by himself, and in his own right. How great an influence must such a position have exercised upon him who occupied it! How much of individual haughtiness, what prodigious pride—let us not mince the word—what insolence, must have been generated in his mind! Above him was no superior whose representative and interpreter he might be; near him, no equals; no powerful and general system of law restraining him, no external control shackling his will, and no curb upon him but the limitations of his strength and the presence of danger. Such was the moral result of the situation on the character of the man.

I proceed to a second consequence, also of grave moment, and too little noticed—the particular tone of the feudal family spirit.

Let us cast a glance upon the various systems of family, taking first of all the patriarchal, of which the Bible and the eastern records sketch the model. Here the family was very numerous; it formed a tribe. The chief or patriarch lived in common with his children, his near relatives, the different generations which had sprang up around him; in a word, his whole kindred, together with his servants; and not only did he live with them, but he had the same interests and occupations, and his existence was in all things the same as theirs. Was this not the situation of Abraham, of all the patriarchs, and of the Arab chiefs who still present the image of the patriarchal life?

Another family system offers itself, the clans, a sort of petty associations, of which the type is to be found in Scotland and Ireland, through which in all probability a great portion of the European world has passed. This was very different from the patriarchal family. There existed an important distinction between the situations of the chief and the rest of the population: they did not lead the same life; the greater part tilled and served, whilst the chief was an idler and a warrior. But they had a common origin, and they all bore the same name; whilst relations of kindred, old traditions, identity in recollections, and feelings of attachment, established a moral tie, a sort of equality, amongst all the members of the clan.

These are the two principal types of family association that history supplies. But do they contain the feudal family? Certainly not. At the first glance, some similarity may be imagined to exist with the clan, but in reality there was a great difference. The population which surrounded the possessor of a fief was perfectly alien to him; it neither bore his name, nor was there between him and it any relationship, or traditional or moral tie. And assuredly it was not the patriarchal family. The fief-holder led not the same life, nor surrendered himself to the same labours, as those who encompassed him; he was addicted to idleness and war, and their occupations were servile and toilsome. The feudal family was not numerous; it formed no tribe; it included simply the family, properly so called, the wife and children, who lived apart from the rest of the population in the seclusion of the castle. The serfs made no part of it; their origin was distinct, and their inequality of condition prodigious. The feudal family was composed of five or six individuals, occupying a position at once superior and antagonistic. In such a state, it was sure to be invested with a peculiar character. Thus it was close and concentrated, perpetually on the alert to defend itself, doubtful of, or at least isolating itself from, its very retainers. The home life, or domestic manners, were certain to become of preponderating influence in this sequestered state. I am well aware that the development of domestic manners would meet with great obstacles from the brutal passions of the chief, and his habits of consuming time in war and the chase. But these obstacles would be overcome; the chief, of course, must have habitually returned to his home, and there he would always find his wife and children; they alone must have been his permanent society, and the assured sympathisers with his interests and projects. Under these circumstances, it was impossible that the domestic existence should not acquire a great sway. There are numerous proofs of it. Was it not in the bosom of the feudal family that the importance of women received its grand development! In all the ancient societies, not adducing those in which the spirit of family did not prevail, but in those even where it was potential, in the patriarchal life, for example, the women were very far from holding the station they acquired in Europe under the feudal system. This change or advancement in their position was mainly owing to the development, to the necessary preponderance, of domestic manners in the feudal state. Its cause has been sought for in the peculiar manners of the ancient Germans, in a sort of national respect which, it is asserted, they paid to women amidst their primeval forests. Founding upon a phrase of Tacitus, German patriotism has reared a fabric of such superior gentleness, of such native and ineffaceable purity, in the relations of the two sexes amongst the old Germans, as is truly surprising. Similar phrases to those of Tacitus, sentiments and usages analogous to those of the ancient Germans, are found in the recitals of a host of describers of savage or barbarian populations. The result was not owing to anything primitive, or peculiar to a certain race. It was from the consequences of a social situation strongly marked, from the progress and preponderance of domestic manners, that the importance of women in Europe originally sprang, and this very preponderance became, at a very early date, an essential characteristic of the feudal system.

A second fact, forming an additional proof of the sway of domestic ties, likewise distinguished the feudal family—namely, the hereditary spirit, the desire for perpetuity which clearly prevailed in it. The idea of hereditary descent is inherent in the spirit of family, but it never took so great a development as in the feudal system. This resulted from the nature of the property to which the family was linked. The fief was not like any other property; it had constant need of a possessor to defend it, to do its services, to fulfil the obligations cohesive to the domain, and so maintain its position in the general association of the lords of the soil. Thence arose a species of identification between the actual possessor of the fief, and the fief itself, and the series of his future successors.

This circumstance greatly contributed to strengthen and bind more closely the family ties, already so powerful from the nature of the feudal state.

I shall now leave the seignorial abode, and descend amongst that petty population which surrounded it. Here things bore a very different aspect. The nature of man is so happily disposed, so open to impressions, that when a social situation endures any length of time, a certain moral tie, sentiments of protection, benevolence, and affection, are inevitably established between those whom it draws together, whatever conditions may clog the junction. So it happened in the feudal system. There is no doubt that after the lapse of a certain period, some moral relations, some habits of affectionate regard, were formed between the serfs and the owner of the fief, in spite of their reciprocal situation, and certainly not in consequence of it; for, considered in itself, the situation was radically vicious. There was nothing morally in common between the lord and the serfs; they formed part of his domain, and were his property; under which designation were comprised all the rights that we at present call rights of public sovereignty, as well as the privileges of private property, he having the right of giving laws, of imposing taxes, and of inflicting punishment, as well as that of disposing and selling. In fact, as between the lord and the labourers on his domain, there were no recognised laws, no guarantees, no society, at least so far as may be predicated of any state in which men are brought into contact.

Hence arose, as I believe, that vast inextinguishable hatred which the country people have borne at all times to the feudal system, to its recollections, and to its very name. We are not without examples that men may endure oppressive despotisms, become used to them, and even voluntarily accept them. Both theocratic and monarchical despotisms have more than once obtained the sanction, almost the affection, of the population subjected to them. The feudal despotism was always repulsive and odious; it sat heavily on the destinies, but it never reigned over the minds, of men. The reason of the difference is obviously deducible from the fact, that power in a theocracy or monarchy is exercised by virtue of principles common to the wielder and the subject; the former is the representative and administrator of another power, superior to all human powers; he speaks and acts in the name of the Divinity, or of a general idea, and not in right of man himself, and of man alone. The feudal despotism was quite the contrary; it recognised the power of one individual over another, the dominion of the personal and capricious will of a man. This is perhaps the only tyranny that man, to his eternal honour, never would yield to. Wherever he perceives that his master is but a man, so soon as the will which weighs upon him is but a human individual will like his own, he grows indignant, and submits to the yoke with wrath. Such was the veritable and distinctive character of the feudal sway, and such also was the origin of the antipathy which it never ceased to inspire.

The religious element which was associated with it was little calculated to lighten the burden. I do not believe that the influence of the priest was at all considerable in the confined society I have just depicted, nor that he succeeded, to any great extent, in imparting a juster character to the relations between the servile population and the lord. The church has doubtless exercised an important influence on European civilisation, but it has done so by proceeding in a general manner, by operating a change on the general dispositions of men. Now when we narrowly scrutinise the petty feudal society, limiting the designation as I have previously done, we find the influence of the priest, as between the lord and the serfs, almost a nullity. In the majority of cases, he was himself as boorish and subservient as the serf, and in very poor condition and weak inclination to bear up against the arrogance of the superior. We can readily imagine that he, the sole instrument to sustain and develop any sort of moral life in the lower population, would be useful to it in that respect, and attract some regard; he would confer a modicum of consolation and enlightenment; but he neither could nor did effect much in his ministry.

I have now examined the elementary feudal society, and brought forward the principal consequences that necessarily flowed from it, as affecting the possessor of the fief himself, his family, and the population gathered around him. We will now emerge from this narrow circle. The population of the fief was not alone on the face of the land; there were other societies, analogous or different, with which it had relations. The influence of this general society upon civilisation, therefore, becomes our present object of inquiry.