feudal liberties rapidly perished; the excess of individual independence perpetually compromised society; it found, in the relations of the possessors of fiefs, neither wherewith regularly to maintain itself, nor to develop itself; it had recourse to other principles, to principles opposed to those of feudalism; it sought in other institutions that of which it had need in order to become permanent, regular, progressive. The tendency towards centralization, towards the formation of a power superior to local powers, was rapid. Long before general royalty, the royalty which has become French royalty appeared; upon all parts of the territory there were formed, under the names of duchy, county, viscounty, &c., many petty royalties, invested with central government, in such or such a province, and under the rule of which the rights of the possessors of fiefs, that is to say, local sovereignties, gradually disappeared.

Such were the natural, necessary results of the internal vices of the feudal system, and especially of the excessive predominance of individual independence. These consequences developed themselves far more rapidly, far more energeti cally, when foreign influences, when royalty and the commons in their turn, came to impel them onward, and to second this work of disorganization to which, by its very nature, feudalism was a prey. The study of these two new elements of modern France, and of their part in the heart of feudalism, will be the subject of the following lectures. We shall commence with the history of royalty.

TWELFTH LECTURE,

State of royalty at the end of the 10th century-Progressive debilitation of its various principles-Contradiction between the situation of right and the situation of fact in Carlovingian royalty-Necessity of its fall-Character of the accession of Hugh Capet-Progress of the principle of legitimacy-State of royalty under Robert, Henry I. and Philip I.-Was it as weak, as null as it is said to have been ?-Causes and limits of its weakness-Uncertainty of its character and its principles-New character of royalty under Louis VI.-It disengages itself from the past, and places itself in harmony with the social state-Wars and governmenɩ of Louis VI.-Government of Suger under Louis VII.-State of royalty m the death of Louis VII.

PERMIT me here to recal, in a few words, the plan we have followed, and the point at which we have arrived.

It is with the feudal period that we occupy ourselves. In the feudal period, we have distinguished the history of civil society, the history of religious society, and the history of the human mind. We can in the present course treat only of the history of civil society. We have divided it into two sections. We have promised to study, on the one hand, the feudal element, the possessors of fiefs; on the other, the nonfeudal elements, which also concurred to the formation and to the destinies of society, that is to say, royalty and the

commons.

In studying the feudal element, properly so called, we have considered it under various aspects. We commenced by confining ourselves to the interior of the simple fief, of the elementary feudal domain. We first examined the progressive state of the possessor of this fief and of his family, that is to say, what passed in the interior of the feudal castle; afterwards

what passed around the castle, in the feudal village, that is to ray, the state of the subject population.

The simple fief and the internal revolutions which befel in it from the tenth to the fourteenth century, thus thoroughly known, we considered the relations of the possessors of fiefs among themselves, the institutions which presided over those relations, the feudal society in its organization and in its whole.

Finally, we endeavoured to give a precise account of the general principles of feudalism, its merits and its vices; and we have thus sought in itself, in its proper nature, the principal causes of its destiny.

I will now examine that second portion of civil society which was not feudal in its origin or in its character; which, however, coexisted with feudalism, and at first powerfully modified, and afterwards conquered it; I mean royalty and the commons. I shall endeavour to follow these two great elements in their development from the tenth to the fourteenth century of our civilization. I begin with royalty.

You will recollect what was the state of royalty in France at the end of the tenth century, at the moment of the fall of the Carlovingian race, that is to say, at the commencement of the feudal period, properly so called. I have already made mention of it. It had four origins; it was derived from four different principles. Its first origin was barbarous military royalty; the warlike German chiefs, those numerous, mobile, casual chiefs, often simple warriors themselves, surrounded by companions whom their liberality and bravery attracted, were designated by this same word, kong, kænig, king, from which the modern title is derived; and their power, however limited, however precarious it may have been, was one of the bases upon which royalty raised itself after the territorial establishment.

It also found among the barbarians a religious basis. In the different German confederations or tribes, with the Franks among others, certain families, descended from the ancient national heroes, were invested, in virtue of this title, with a religious character and an hereditary pre-eminence which soon became a power.

See the fourth lecture of the present course

Such is the twofold barbaric origin :f modern royalty, We at the same time recognised in it a twofold Roman origin. We have distinguished, on the one hand, imperial royalty, the personification of the sovereignty of the Roman people, and which commenced with Augustus; on the other, Christian royalty, the image of the Divinity, the representation, in a human person, of his power and his rights.

Accordingly, 1, chiefs of barbarous warriors; 2, descendants of heroes, barbarous demi-gods; 3, depositaries of the national sovereignty, the personification of the state; 4, the image and representative of God upon earth; such were kings from the 6th to the 10th century. These four ideas, then, these four origins, concurred in the formation of royalty.

At the end of the tenth century, (unless I am mistaken, I have already made the remark,) one of these four characters had entirely disappeared. There was no longer any trace of religious barbarous royalty. The second race of the Frank kings, the Carlovingians, had no pretension to a descent from the ancient German heroes, to be invested with a national religious pre-eminence. They were not, like the Merovingians. a separate family, distinguished by its long hair. Only three of the primitive characteristics of royalty were united among them. They were chiefs of warriors, the successors of the Roman emperors, the representatives of the Divinity.

The Roman idea, the imperial character, first predominated in the Carlovingian race. This was the natural result of the influence of Charlemagne. The revival of the empire, and not merely of the name of the empire, but of the real power of the emperors; such, as you know, was the dream of his thoughts, the constant aim of his efforts. He succeeded so far as to restore to royalty, considered as a political institution, its imperial physiognomy, and to strongly impress upon the minds of the people the idea that the chief of the state was the descendant of the emperors. But after Charlemagne, and on the brow of his successors, the crown did not long preserve that glorious and powerful physiognomy. Dating from Louis le Debonnaire, we find establishing in the kingdom of the Carlovingians, not exactly a struggle, but an uncertainty, a continual fluctuation between the descendant of the emperors, and the representative of the Divinity, that is to say, between the Roman idea and the Christian idea, which both served as the basis of royalty. It is sometimes from

one, sometimes from the other of those origins, of those ideas, that Louis le Debonnaire, Charles le Chauve, Louis le Begue, and Charles le Gros, demand the force and ascendancy escaping from them. As military chiefs they were no longer anything; here also was a source of power become exhausted for them; only the imperial Roman character, and the religious Christian character remained to them; their throne tottered upon these two bases.

Its ruin was an almost inevitable consequence. In virtue of this twofold title, as descendant of the emperors, and as allied with the Christian clergy, Carlovingian royalty at the end of the tenth century was in a false and weak condition. The empire of Charlemagne was dismembered, the central power the church, to her general constitution, to the frequent holddestroyed; that which essentially constituted imperial royalty, that omnipotence, that omnipresence, that sole and everywhere active administration had completely disappeared. The Christian clergy was at the same time greatly fallen from its ancient grandeur. It had owed much of it to the unity of ing of councils, to the ascendancy which these exercised over men's minds, to the central power which they established in the bosom of Christianity. By the triumph of feudalism, and the predominance of local institutions and ideas, this visible unity of the church underwent, if not an irreparable check, at least a temporary eclipse. The councils became rarer and less powerful. In the petty new states, the importance and power of the lay seigneur prevailed over the importance and power of the bishop. The clergy acting much less than before as a body, as a combined whole, its isolated members fell into a sort of inferiority. Hence a considerable, though transient enfeeblement of the church in general, and of all the institutions, all the ideas connected with it, among others, of royalty, considered in its religious aspect, and as an image of the Divinity. It is in the tenth contury that this idea appears to have exercised the least empire.

Carlovingian royalty thus found itself deprived of its two fundamental supports, both of them altogether in a tottering condition. Moreover, it found itself in contradiction, in hos tility even, with the new state, the new powers of society. Almost all these recently formed local sovereignties were so many dismemberments of the central power. These dukes,