I regret being unable to enter more into detail upon this great subject; I could wish to study to the bottom this rising citizen nation, its institutions, its laws, all its life, already so vigorous and yet so confined. But I am pressed for time, and the documents are incomplete. I think I have at all events given you a just idea of the origins of the third estate. To that I at present confine my ambition. I will endeavour, in our next lecture, to point out to you what a profound revolution was brought about in the passage from the ancient municipal system to that which we have just studied, and what essential, radical differences distinguish the Roman municipality from the borough of the middle ages. Whosoever has not taken into mature consideration these differences, and all their bearings, cannot understand modern civilization, the phases of its development, and its true cha

racter.

EIGHTEENTH LECTURE.

Subject of the lecture-The difference between the Roman municipal system and that of the middle ages-Danger of the immobility of names1. Varions origin of the Roman city and the modern borough; 2. Diversity of their constitution; 3. Diversity of their history-Thence resulted that the aristocratical principle predominated in the Roman city; the democratical spirit, in the modern borough--New proofs of this fact.

In our next lecture we shall terminate the history of civil society, properly so called, during the feudal period. It is true, we shall still have to examine the codes, the laws, the legislative movements of that society, the principal of which are the Assises de Jerusalem, the Etablissemens of Saint Louis, the Coutume de Beauvaisis of Beaumanoir, and the Traité de l'ancienne jurisprudence de France, by Pierre de Fontaine; but we shall be constrained to postpone this study to the next course. We shall at least have completely studied, during the present course, feudalism, royalty, and the commons from the tenth to the fourteenth century, that is to say, the three fundamental elements of civil society during that epoch.

You will recollect what the subject is which must occupy us at present. I first placed before you the formation of the third estate in France, its different origins, and its first developments. I then endeavoured to introduce you into the interior of the various boroughs, and to describe their constitution. At present let us apply ourselves to determine what resemblance and what difference existed between the Roman municipalities and the boroughs of the middle ages. This is the only means of arriving at a thorough comprehension of the latter.

I have already several times had occasion to point out to you the danger of those words which remain immoveable through ages, and are applied to facts which alter. A fact presents itself; people give it a name impressed with such or such a characteristic of the fact, with the most striking, the most general characteristic. After a certain lapse of time, let a fact present itself before men, analogous to the first, analogous at least in that particular characteristic, they do not trouble themselves to find out whether the resemblance is elsewhere complete; they give the same name to the new fact, although perhaps it essentially differs; and here is a fallacy established by a name, which will become the source of infinite errors.

me.

Examples are plentiful. I take the first which occurs to For ages the word republic has meant a certain form of government where there is no sole and hereditary power. It is thus, that not only among the moderns, but among the ancients, a republic has been defined; and this name has been given to all states which have offered this characteristic. Compare, however, the Roman republic and the republic of the United States. Are there not between these two states which bear the same name infinitely greater differences than between the republic of the United States and any particular constitutional monarchy? It is evident that, although in a certain characteristic the republic of the United States resembles the Roman republic, it differs so essentially in other respects that it amounts almost to an absurdity to give it the same name. Nothing, perhaps, has caused more confusion, more fallacy in history, than this immobility of names amidst variety of facts; and I know not how to warn you too strongly never to lose sight of this quicksand.

We are close upon it now. I have frequently spoken of the influence of the Roman municipal system upon modern cities, the boroughs of the middle ages. I have endeavoured to show you how the Roman city did not perish with the empire, how it perpetuated and transfused itself, so to speak, in the modern boroughs. You may have been led to conclude that the boroughs of the middle ages greatly resembled the Roman cities; you would be deceived. At the same time that it is evident that the Roman municipal system did not perish, and that it excrcised a great influence over the forma

tion of modern towns, still it is necessary to understand that there was a transformation of this system, and that the difference between the cities of the empire and our boroughs is immense. It is this difference which I wish at present properly to explain to you.

And first there was in the origin, in the first formation or the cities of the Roman world, and of the towns of the middle ages, an important and fertile difference. The towns of the middle ages, whether boroughs, properly so called, or towns administered by seigneural officers, were formed, as you have seen, by labour and insurrection. On the one hand, the assiduous industry of the burghers and the progressive wealth consequent on industry; on the other, insurrection against the lords, the revolt of the weak against the strong, of the inferiors against the superiors; these are the two sources whence the boroughs of the feudal period took birth.

The origin of the towns of antiquity, of the cities of the Roman world, was wholly different. Most of them were formed by conquest; military or commercial colonies were formed amidst a country thinly populated, or badly cultivated; they successively invaded at the sword's point the surrounding territory. War, superiority of force, of civilization, such was the cradle of most cities of the ancient world, and particularly of a large number of the cities of Gaul, more especially in the south, as Marseilles, Arles, Agde, &c., which, as you know, are of foreign origin. The burghers of these cities, far different in this respect from the citizens of the middle ages, were in the outset, the strong, the conquerors. At their birth they dominated by conquest, while their successors, with great trouble, gained a little freedom by insurrection.

There is another original and not less important difference. Industry, doubtless, played a great part in the formation of the ancient cities, as of the modern boroughs. But here again the same word designates totally different facts. The industry of the burghers of antiquity was of an entirely different nature from that of the burghers of the middle ages. The inhabitants of a rising town, of a colony like Marseilles at the time of its foundation, were devoted to agriculture, to free and proprietary agriculture; they cultivated the territory as they invaded it, as the Roman patricians

improved the territory of the conquests of Rome. Το agriculture, commerce became allied, but an extensive, varied, generally maritime commerce, full of liberty and grandeur. Compare this industry, commercial or agricultural, with that of the rising boroughs of the middle ages: What an enormous difference! in the latter, all is servile, precarious, narrow, miserable! the burghers cultivate, but without true liberty, without true possession; they acquire these, not in a day and by their arms, but slowly and by their sweat. As to the question of industry, of commerce, their industry is for a long time purely manual labour, their commerce is confined within a very limited horizon. Nothing resembles that free, extensive industry, those distant and varied relations of the colonies of antiquity. These formed themselves sword in hand, and with sails spread to the wind; the boroughs of the middle ages arose from furrows and from shops. Truly the difference of origin is great, and the entire life must have shown it.

If you would form a just idea of the origin and the first developments of the ancient cities, look at what has passed, at what is now passing in America. How were Boston, New York, New Haven, Baltimore, all those great maritime towns of the United States, formed? Free, fierce, daring men left their country, transported themselves to a foreign soil, amidst nations far inferior in civilization and force; they conquered the territory of these nations; they worked it as conquerors, as masters. Soon they formed a great and distant commerce with their old country, with the continent which they had quitted; and their wealth was rapidly developed, like their power.

This is the history of Boston, of New York; it is also the history of Marseilles, of Agde, of the great Greek, Phoenician, or even Roman colonies of the south of Gaul. There are, you see, very slight relations between this origin and that of the boroughs of the middle ages; the primitive situation of the burghers in these two cases was singularly different, and there must have resulted from thence profound and lasting differences in the municipal system and its development.

Let us leave the cradle of towns; let us take them already formed; let us study their internal social state, the relations maintained by the inhabitants among themselves or with their