The history of civilization, from the fall of the Roman empire to the French revolution

LIBRARY

ST*T~ TEMWEJPf C"L* ROE

SA TA/.fc*&RA. CALIFORNIA

THE

HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION,

FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

TO

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

BY t GUIZOT.

THE PRIME MINISTER OF FRANCE;
AUTHOR OF "HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION OK 1640 '

TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM IIAZLITT.

VOLUME II.

NEW YORK:
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,

90, 92 & 94 GRAND STREET.
1870.

Q.6

n\

ADVERTISEMENT.

The following Lectures were delivered by M. Guizoi
in the years 1828, 1829, and 1830, at the Old Sortnnnc
now the seat of the Faculte des Lettrcs, of Paris, on al-
ternate days with MM. Cousin and Villemain, a triad of
lecturers whose brilliant exhibitions, the crowds which
thronged their lecture-rooms, and the stir they excited in
the active and aspiring minds so numerous among the
French youth, the future historian will commemorate as
among the remarkable appearances of that important
era.

The first portion of these Lectures, those comprising
the General History of Civilization in Europe, have al-
ready appeared. The Lectures on the History of Civili-
zation in France, are now for the first time translated.
Of these Lectures, it is most justly observed by the
Edinburgh Review : " There is a consistency, a cohe-
rence, a comprehensiveness, and what the Germans
would term many-sidedness, in the manner of M Gui
zot's fulfilment of his task, that manifests him one to
whom the whole subject is familiar ; that exhibits a full

VI ADVERTISEMENT. •

poisession of the facts which have any important bearing
upon his conclusions ; and a deliberateness, a matureness
an entire absence of haste or crudity, in his explanations
of historical phenomena, which giv e evidence of a general
scheme so well wrought out and digested beforehand,
that the labors of research and of thought necessary for
the whole work, seem to have been performed before any
part was committed to paper."

CONTENTS,

FIRST LECTURE.

Object of the course — Two methods of studying in detail the history at
European civilization — Reasons for preferring the study of the history
of the civilization of a particular country — Reasons for studying that
of France — Of the essential facts which constitute the perfection of
civilization — Comparison of the great European nations under this
point of view — Of civilization in England — Germany — Italy — Spain
— France — French civilization is the most complete, and offers the
most faithful representation of civilization in general — That the stu-
dent has other things to bear in mind besides the mero study — Of tho
present prevailing tendencies in the intellectual order — Of the prevail-
ing tendencies in the social order — Two problems resulting therefrom
— Their apparent contradiction — Our times are called upon to solve
them — A third and purely moral problem, rendered equally important
by the present state of civilization — The unjust reproaches of which
it is the object — The necessity of meeting them — All science, in the
present day, exerts a social influence — All power should tend to the
moral perfection of the individual, as well as to the improvement of
society iu general p. 9

SECOND LECTURE.

Necessity of reading a general history of France, before wo study that of
civilizatvm — M. (le Sismondi's work — Why wo should study the politi-
cal staid of a country before its moral state, the history of society
before that of man — The social state of Gaul in tho fifth century —
Original monuments &.:d modern works descriptive of thut subject —
Difference between the civil and religious society of that period — Im-
perial government of Gaul-— Tho provincial governors — Their official
esiablishments-^Their salaries — Benefits and defects of the adminis-
tration— Fall of the Roman empire — Gaulish society : 1. Tho senators ;
2. The curiales; 3. The people ; 4. Tho slaves — Public relations of
these various classes — Decline and helplessness of Gaulish civil socie-
ty— Causes of this — Tho people attach themselves to tho religious
community ... ... • • y 29

CON TENTS.

THIRD LECTURE.

Object of the lecture — Variety of the principles and forms of religious so-
ciety in Europe — Classification of the different systems, 1. According
to the relations of the church in the state ; 2. According to the inter-
nal constitution of the church — All these systems assign their origin
to the primitive church — Critical examination of these pretensions^
They have all a certain degree of foundation — Fluctuation and com-
plexity of the external situation and internal position of Christian
society from the first to the fifth century — Predominant tendencies —
Prevalent facts of the fifth century — Causes of liberty in the church at
this period — The election of bishops — Councils — Comparison of reli-
gious with civil society — Of the chiefs of these two societies — Letters
of Sidonius Apollinaris . .... .... . p. 55

FOURTH LECTURE.

Object of the lecture — What must be understood by the moral state of a
society — Reciprocal influence of the social state upon the moral state,
and of the moral state upon the social state — At the fourth century,
civil Gaulish society alone possessed institutions favorable to intel-
lectual development — Gaulish schools — Legal situation of tlie profes-
sors— Religious society has no other mediums of development and
influence than its ideas — Still one languishes and the other prospers —
Decline of the civil schools — Activity of the Christian society — Saint
Jerome, Saint Augustin, and Saint Paulin of Nola — Their correspond-
ence with Gaul — Foundation and character of monasteries in Gaul —
Causes of the difference of the moral state of the two societies — Com-
parative view of the civil literature and the Christian literature in the
fourth and fifth centuries — Inequality of the liberty of mind in the
two societies — Necessity for religion lending its aid to studies and
letters p. 84

FIFTH LECTURE.

Of the principal questions debated in Gaul in the fifth century — Of Pela-
gianism — Of the method to follow in its history — Of the moral facts
which gave place to this controversy : 1st, of human liberty ; 2d, of
the impotency of liberty, and tne necessity for an external succor ;
3d, of the influence of external circumstances upon liberty ; 4th, of
the moral changes which happen in the soul, without man attributing
them to his will — Of the questions which naturally arose from these
facts — Of the special point of view under which we should consider
them in the Christian church in the fifth century — History of Pelagian-
ism at Rome, in Africa, in the East, and in Gaul — Pelagius — Celestius
— Saint Augustin — History of semi-Pelagianism — Cassienus — Faustus
— Saint Prosper of Aquitaine — Of predestination — Influence and gen-
eral results of this controversy .p. 104

CONTENTS.

SIXTH LECTURE.

Object of the lecture — General character of the literature of the middlo
ages — Of the transition from pagan philosophy to Christian theology —
Of the question of the nature of the soul in the Christian church — The
ancient priests for the most part pronounced in favor of the system of
materialism — Efforts to escape from it — Analogous march of ideas in
pagan philosophy — Commencement of the system of spirituality —
Saint Augustin, Nemesius, Mamertius Claudienus — Faustus, bishop of
Itiez — His arguments for the materiality of the soul — Mamertius Clau-
dienus answers him — Importance of Mamertius Claudieuus in Gaul —
Analysis of, and quotations from his treatise on the nature of the soul
— The dialogue of Evagrius between Zacheus the Christian and Apol-
louius the philosopher — Of the effects of the invasion of the barba-
rians upon the moral state of GauL p. 130

SEVENTH LECTURE.

Object of the lecture — Of the Germanic element in modern civilization —
Of the monuments of the ancient social state of the Germans: 1. Of
the Roman and Greek historians ; 2. Of the barbaric laws ; 3. Of na-
tional traditions — They relate to very different epochs — They are often
made use of promiscuously — Error which results therefrom — The
work of Tacitus concerning the manners of the Germans — Opinions
of the modern German writers concerning the ancient Germanic
state — What kind of life prevailed there, was it the wandering life,
or the sedentary life? — Of the institutions — Of the moral state —
Comparison between the state of the German tribes and that of other
hordes — Fallacy of most of the views of barbarous life — Principal
Characteristics of the true influence of the Germans upon modern civi-
lization . p. 145

EIGHTH LECTURE.

Object of the lecture — Description of the state of Gaul in the last half oi
the sixth century — True character of the German invasions — Cause
of errors on this subject— Dissolution of Roman society : 1. In rural
districts ; 2. In towns, though in a lesser degree — Dissolution of Ger-
man society : 1. Of the colony or tribe ; 2. Of the warfaring band —
Elements of the new social state: 1. Of commencing royalty; 2.
Of commencing feudalism; 3. Of the church after the invasion —
Summary. - p. 167

NINTH LECTURE.

Obpctof the lecture — False idea of the Salic law — History of the forma-
tion of this law — Two hypotheses upon this matter — Eighteen manu-
scripts— Two texts of the Salic law — M. "Wiarda's work upon tin*
!•

CONTENTS.

history and exposition of the Salic law — Prefaces attached to th«
manuscripts — Value of national traditions concerning the origin and
compilation of the Salic law — Concerning its tendencies — It is essen-
tially a penal code — 1st. Of the enumeration and definition of offences
in the Salic law ; 2d. Of penalties ; 3d. Of criminal proctdure —
Transitory character of their legislation ... . . . . p 184

TENTH LECTURE.

Object of the lecture — Is the transitory character of the Salic law found
in the laws of the Ripuarians, the Burgundians, and the Visigoths ? —
1st. The law of the Ripuarians — The Ripuarian Franks — History o)
the compilation of their law — Its contents — Difference between it and
the Salic law — 2d. The law of the Burgundians — History of its com-
pilation— Its contents — Its distinctive character — 3d. The law of the
Visigoths — It concerns the history of Spain more than that of France
— Its general character — Effect of Roman civilization upon the bar-
barians p. 204

ELEVENTH LECTURE.

Perpetuity of the Roman law after the fall of the Empire — Of the History
of the Roman law in the Middle Ages, by M. de Savigny — Merits anil
deficiencies of this work — 1. Roman law among the Visigoths — Brevia-
rium Aniani, collected by command of Alaric — History and contents of
this collection — -2. Roman law among the Burgundians — Papiani Res-
ponsorum — History and contents of this law — 3. Roman law among th6
Franks — No new collection — The perpetuity of Roman law proved by
various facts — Recapitulati n . . p. 225

TWELFTH LECTURE.

Object of the lecture — State of the church in Gaul, from the sixth to the
middle of the eighth century — Analogy between the primitive state of
the religious society and the civil society — The unity of the church or
the spiritual society — Two elements or conditions of spiritual society ;
1st. Unity of truth, that is to say, of absolute reason ; 2d. Liberty of
minds, or individual reason — State of these two ideas in the Christian
church from the sixth to the eighth century — She adopts one and rejects
the other — Unity of the church in legislation — General councils — Differ-
ence between the eastern and the western church as regards the perse-
cution of heretics — Relations of the church with the state, from the sixth
to the eighth century ; 1st, in the eastern empire ; 2d, ir the west, es-
pecially in Frankish Gaul — Interference of the temporal power in the
affairs of the church — Of the spiritual power in the affairs af the state —
Recapitulation ... p. 237

CONTENTS.

THIRTEENTH LECTURE.

Of the internal organization and state of the Gallo-Frankish church, froir
the sixth to the eighth century — Characteristic facts of the Gaulish
church at the fifth century — What became of them after the invasion —
The exclusive domination of the clergy in the religious society continues
— Facts which modify it : 1. Separation of ordination and tenure ; priests
not ecclesiastics — 2. Patronage by laymen of the churches which they
founded — 3. Oratories, or particular chapels — 4. Advocates of the
churches — Picture of the general organization of the church — Parishes
and their priests — Archpriests and archdeacons — Bishops — Archbishops
— Attempts to establish the patriarchates in the west — Fall of the arch-
bishops— Preponderance and despotism of tho episcopacy — Struggle of
the priests and parishes against the bishops — The bishops triumphant —
Despotism corrupts them — Decline of the secular clergy — Necessity
for a reformation p 255

FOURTEENTH LECTURE.

History of the regular clergy, or the monks, from toe sixth to the eighth
century — That the monks were at first laymen — Importance of this
fact — Origin and progressive development of tho monastic life in the
east — First rules — Importation of the monks into the west — They are
ill received there — Their first progress — Difference between eastern and
western monasteries — Opinion of St Jerome, as to the errors of the
monastic life — General causes of its extension — State of the monks in
the west in the fifth century — Their power and their want of coherence
— Saint Benedict — His life — He founds the monastery of Monte Cas-
sino — Analysis and estimate of his rule — It diffuses itself throughout
the Wist, and becomes predominant in almost all the monasteries
there p. 279

FIFTEENTH LECTURE.

The relations of the monks with the clergy, from the fourth to the eighth
century — Their primitive independence— Causes of its decline — 1. In
proportion as the number and the power of the monks were augmented,
the bishops extended their jurisdiction over them — Canons of the coun-
cils— 2. The monks demand and obtain privileges — 3. They aspire to
enter into the clergy — Differences and contests among the monks
themselves upon this subject — The bishops at first repulse their preten-
sions— They give way to them — In entering into the clergy the monks
lose their independence — Tyranny of the bishops over tho monasteries
— Resistance of the monks — Charters granted by the bishops to some
monasteries — The monks have recourse to the protection of the kings,
to that of the popes — Character and limits of the intervention — Simi-
larity between the struggle of the monasteries against the bishops, and
that of the commons against the feudal lords . p. 30#

CONTENTS.

SIXTEENTH LECTURE.

Frow the sixth to the eighth century all profane literature disappeared ;
sacred literature alone remained — This is evident in the schools and
writings of this epoch — 1. Of the schools in Gaul from the sixth to the
eighth century — Cathedral schools — Rural schools — Monastic schools
— What they taught there — 2. Of the writings of the day — General
character of literature — It ceased to be speculative, and to seek more
especially science and intellectual enjoyments ; it became practical ;
knowledge, eloquence, writings, were made means of action — Influence
of this characteristic upon the idea formed of the intellectual state at
this epoch — It produced scarcely any works ; it has no literature, prop-
erly so called ; still minds were active — Its literature consists in ser-
mons and legends — Bishops and missionaries — 1st. Of Saint Cesaire,
bishop of Aries — Of his sermons — 2d. Of Saint Columban, missiona-
ry, and abbot of Luxeuil — Character of sacred eloquence at this
epoch ... p. 317

SEVENTEENTH LECTURE.

Preface of the Old Mortality of Walter Scott — Robert Patterson — Preface
of the Vie de Saint Marcellin, bishop of Embrun, written at the com-
mencement of the sixth century — Saint Ceran, bishop of Paris —
Eagerness of the Christians of these times to collect the traditions and
monuments of the life of the saints and martyrs — Statistics of this
branch of sacred literature — Collection of the Bollandists — Cause of the
number and popularity of legends — They almost alone satisfy at this
epoch — 1. The wants of the moral nature of man — Examples : Life
of Saint Bavon, of Saint Wandregisilus, of Saint Valery — 2. The
wants of physical nature — Examples : Life of Saint Germain of Paris,
of Saint Wandregisilus, of Saint Rusticulus, of Saint Sulpicius of
Bourges — 3. The wants of the imagination — Examples : Life of Saint
Seine, of Saint Austregesilus — Literary defects and merits of le-
gends . p. 337

EIGHTEENTH LECTURE.

St me wrecks of profane literature from the sixth to the eighth century—
Of their true character — 1st. Prose writers — Gregory of Tours — His
life — His Ecclesiastical History of the Franks — The influence of the
ancient Latin literature unites with that of the Christian doctrines —
Mixture of civil and religious history — Fre'degaire — His Chronicles —
2d. Poets — Saint Avitus, bishop of Vienne — His life — His poems on
the creation — Original sin — The condemnation of man — The deluge
— The passage of the Red Sea — The praise of virginity — Comparison
of the three first with the Paradise Lost of Milton — Fortunatus, bishop
of Poictiers — His life — His relations with Saint Radegonde — His poems
— Their character — First origin of French literature ... p. 355

CONTENTS.

NINETEENTH LECTURE.

The causes and the character of the revolution which substituted the Car«
!ovmgians for the Merovingians — Recapitulation of the history of civi«
lization in France under the Merovingian kings — The Frankisb stats
in its relations with the neighboring nations — The Frankish state in \*r
internal organization — The aristocratical element prevailed in it, br*
without entirety or regularity — The state of the Frankish church. -
Episcopacy prevails in it, but is itself thrown into decay — Two n*>
powers arise — 1. The Austrasian Franks — Mayors of the palace — Ti
family of the Pepins — 2. Papacy — Circumstances favorable to its pn
gress— Causes which drew and united the Austrasian Franks to th<
popes — The conversion of the Germans beyond tho Rhine — Relation
of the Anglo-Saxon missioaaries, on the one hand with the popes, o.-
the other, with the mayors of tho palace of Austrasia — Saint Bonifai-
— The popes have need of the Austrasian Franks ap;ahist the Low •
bards — Pepin -le-Bref has need of the pope to make hhiwelf king--
Their alliance, and the new direction which it ir.ir ^csa-.d upon civili-
zation— Conclusion of the first part of the course . p. 37£

TWENTIETH LECTURE.

Reign of Charlemagne — Greatness of his name — Is it true that he settled
nothing? that all that he did has perished with him? — Of the action
of great men — They play a double part — That vhich they do in virtue
of the first, is durable ; that which they atteirpt under the second,
passes away with them — Example of Napoleon — Necessity of being
thoroughly acquainted with the history of events under Charlemagne,
in order to understand that of civilization — How the events may be
recapitulated in tables — 1. Charlemagne as a warrior and conqueror :
Table of his principal expeditions — Their meaning and results —
2. Charlemagne as an administrator and legislator — Of the government
of the provinces — Of the central government — Table of national as-
semblies under his reign — Table of his capitularies — Table of the acta
and documents which remain of this epoch — 3. Charlemagne as a pro.
tector of intellectual development: Table cf the celebrated coutempo-
raneous men — Estimation of tho general r.«ults, and of the charade!
of his reign . . . p. 317

HISTORY

OF

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE

FROM THE FALL OF THE ROM 4*1 EMPIRE.

LECTURE THE FIRST.

Object of the course — Two methods of studying in. detail the history
of European civilization — Reasons for preferring the study of the
history of the civilization of a particular country — Reasons for

m studying that of France — Of the essential facts which constitute the
perfection of civilization — Comparison of the great European nations
under this point of view — Of civilization in England — Germany —
Italy — Spain— France — French civilization is the most complete,
and offers the most faithful representation of civilization in general
— That the student has other things to bear in mind besides the
mere study — Of the present prevailing tendencies in the intellec-
tual order — Of the prevailing tendencies in the social order — Two
problems resulting therefrom — Their apparent contradiction — Our
times are called upon to solve them — A third and purely moral
problem, rendered equally important by the present state of civili-
zation— The unjust reproaches of which it is the object — The ne-
cessity of meeting them — All science, in the present day, exerts a
social influence — All power should tend to the moral perfection of
the individual, as well as to the improvement of society in general.

Many of you will call to mind the nature and aim of a
course of lectures which were brought to a close some months
since. That course was cursory and of a general nature.
I then attempted, in a very short period of time, to place be.
fore you an historical view of European civilization. I
hastened, as it were, from point to point, confining myself
strictly to general facts and assertions, at the risk of being
sometimes misunderstood and perhaps discredited.

Necessity, as you know, imposed this method upon me ;
but in spite of this necessity I should have been much pained

10 HISTOKY OF

by the inconveniences which arose from it, had I not foreseen
that in a future course I should be enabled to remedy it ; and
had I not proposed to myself, at the time, to complete, at some
future period, the outline which I then traced, and of leading
you to the general results which I placed before you, by the
same path which I myself had followed, an attentive and
complete study of the facts. Such is the end at which I now
aim.

Two methods offer themselves as tending to the attainment
of the proposed end. I might either recommence the course
of last summer, and review the general history of European
civilization in its whole extent, by giving in detail that which
it was impossible to give in mass, and by again passing over
with more leisurely steps that ground which before was gone
over in almost breathless haste. Or I might study the history
of civilization in a single great country, in one of the princi-
pal European nations in which it has been developed, and
thus, by confining the field of my researches, be the better
enabled thoroughly to explore it.

The first method seemed to offer serious inconveniences.
It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to maintain any^
unity in a history with so extensive a range, and which, at
the same time, should be perfect in all its details. We dis-
covered last summer, that there was a true unity running
through European civilization ; but this unity is only visible
in general actions and grand results. We must ascend the
highest mountain before the petty inequalities and diversities
of the surface will become invisible, and before we can dis-
cover the general aspect, and the true and essential nature
of the entire country. When we quit general facts and wish
to look into particulars, the unity vanishes, the diversities
again appear, and in the variety of occurrences one loses
sight of both causes and effects ; so that to give a detailed
history, and still to preserve some harmony, it is absolutely
necessary to narrow the field of inquiry.

There is also another great objection to this method, in the
immense extent and diversity of knowledge which it pre-
supposes and requires both in the speaker and his audience.
Those who wish to trace with moderate accuracy the course
of European civilization should have a sufficiently intimate
acquaintance, not only with the events which have passed
among each people, with their history, but likewise, with
their language, literature, and philosophy, in short, with all

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 11

phases of their career; a work which is evidently almost im-
possible, and certainly so in the time which wo could spend
upon it.

It appears to me, that by studying the history of civiliza-
tion in one great European nation, I shall arrive more
quickly at the desired result. The unity of the narrative
will then, indeed, be compatible with details ; there is in every
country a certain national harmony, which is the result of
the community of manners, laws, language, and events, and
this harmony is imprinted in the civilization. We may pass
from fact to fact without losing sight of the whole picture.
And lastly, though I will not say that it can easily be done,
it is yet possible to combine the knowledge necessary for such
a work.

I have therefore decided upon this second method, upon
that of abandoning the general history of European civiliza-
tion, in all the nations which have contributed thereto, and
confining myself to the civilization of one country, which, if
we note the differences between it and other countries, may
become, for our purpose, an image of the whole destiny of
Europe.

The choice of method being once made, that of a nation
easily follows ; I have taken the history and civilization of
France. I shall certainly not deny having experienced a
sensation of pleasure while making this choice. No one will
deny that the emotions of patriotism are legitimate, provided
they be sanctioned by truth and reason. Some there are, in
the present day, who seem to fear that patriotism suffers much
from the enlargement of ideas and sentiments, arising from
the actual state of European civilization ; they predict that
it will become enervated, and lose itself in cosmopolitism.
I cannot share such fears. In the present day, it will be with
patriotism as with all human actions, feelings, and opinions.
It is condemned, I admit, incessantly to undergo the test of
publicity, of inquiry and discussion ; it is condemned no
longer to remain a mere prejudice, habit, or a blind ana ex-
clusive passion ; it must give a reason for itself. It will be
oppressed by this necessity no more than any natural ana
legitimate feelings are ; on the contrary, it will become re-
fined and elevated. These arc the tests to which it must
submit, and it will soar above them. I can truly say, if
any other history in Europe had appeared to me greater, more
instructive, or better suited to represent the general course

12 HISTORY OF

of civilization than that of France, I should have chosen it.
But I have reasons for selecting France ; independently of
the special interest which its history has for us, France has
long since been proclaimed by all Europe the most civilized
of its nations. Whenever the opinion of the struggle has not
been between the national all-love, when one seeks the true
and disinterested opinion of people in the ideas and actions
wherein it manifests itself indirectly, without taking the form
of a controversy, we find that France is acknowledged to be
the country in which civilization has appeared in its most
complete form, where it has been most communicative, and
where it has most forcibly struck the European imagination.

And we must not suppose, that the superiority of this
country is solely attributable to the amenity of our social re-
lations, to the gentleness of our manners, or to that easy and
animated life which people so often come to seek among us.
There can be no doubt that it partly arises from these attri-
butes ; but the fact of which I speak has more profound and
universal causes: it is not a fashion, as might have been
supposed when the question was concerning the civilization
of the age of Louis XIV., neither is it a popular ebullition,
as a view of our own times would lead us to suppose. The
preference which the disinterested opinion of Europe accords
to French civilization is philosophically just ; it is the result
of an instinctive judgment, doubtless in some measure con-
fused, but well based, upon the essential elements and general
nature of civilization.

You will call to mind the definition of civilization I at-
tempted to give in the commencement of the former course
of lectures. I there sought to discover what ideas attach
themselves to this word in the common use of men. It ap-
peared to me, on a reference to general opinion, that civiliza-
tion essentially consists of two principles ; the improvement
of the exterior and general condition of man, and that of his
inward and personal nature ; in a word, in the improvement
both of society and of humanity.

And it is not these two principles of themselves, which con-
stitute civilization ; to bring it to perfection, their intimate and
rapid union, simultaneousness, and reciprocal action, are ab-
solutely necessary. I showed that if they do not always
arrive conjointly — that if, at one time, the improvement of
society, and at another, that of individual man, progresses
more quickly or extends further, they are not the less neces-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 19

sary the one to the other ; they excite each other, and soonci
or later will amalgamate. When one progresses for any
length of time without the other, and when their union is long
interrupted, a feeling of regret, and of a painful hiatus and
incompleteness, seizes the spectators. If an important social
improvement, a great progress in material well being, is mani-
fested among a people without being accompanied by intellec-
tual improvement, or an analogous progression in mind ; the
social improvement seems precarious, inexplicable, and almos*
unjust. One asks what general ideas have produced and jus.
tified it, or to what principles it attaches itself. One wishes
to assure oneself that it will not be limited to particular gene-
rations, to a single country ; but that it will spread and com-
municate itself, and that it will fill every nation. And how
can social improvement spread and communicate itself but
by ideas, upon the wings of doctrines ? Ideas alone mock at
distance, pass over oceans, and everywhere make themselves
received and comprehended. Besides, such is the noble na-
ture of humanity, that it cannot see a great improvement in
material strength, without aspiring to the moral strength
which should be joined with it and direct it ; something sub-
prdinate remains imprinted on social improvement, as long as
it bears no fruit but mere physical prosperity, as long as it
does not raise the mind of man to the level of his condition.

So, on the other hand, if any great intellectual improvement
appears, unaccompanied by a social progress, one feels uneasy
and surprised. It seems as if we saw a beautiful tree devoid
of fruit, or a sun bringing with it neither heat nor fertility.
Or/3 feels a kind of disdain for ideas thus barren, and not
seizing upon the external world. And not only do we feel a
disdain for thern, but in the end we doubt their reasonable
legitimacy and truth ; one is tempted to believe them chime-
rical, when they show themselves powerless and incapable of
governing human condition. So powerfully is man impressed
with the feeling that his business upon earth is to transform
the ideal into the actual, to reform and regulate the world
which ne inhabits according to the truth he conceives; so
closely are the two great elements of civilization, social and
intellectual development, bound to one another ; so true is it
that its perfection consists, not only in their union, but in their
simultaneousness, and in the extent, facility, and rapidity with
which they mutually evoke and produce themselves.

Let us now endeavor to regard from this point of view tint
2

14 HISTORY OF

several nations of Europe : let us investigate the particulal
characteristics of the civilization in each particular case, and
inquire how far these characteristics coincide with that essen-
tial, fundamental, and sublime fact, which now constitutes for
us the perfection of civilization. We shall thus discover
which of the various kinds of European civilization is the most
complete, and the most conformable to the general type of
civilization, and, consequently, which possesses the best right
to our attention, and best represents the history of Europe.

I begin with England. English civilization has been espe
cially directed towards social perfection ; towards the ameliora-
tion of the external and public condition of men ; towards the
amelioration, not only of their material but also of their moral
condition ; towards the introduction of more justice, more
prosperity into society ; towards the development of right as
well as of happiness.

Nevertheless, all things considered, in England the develop-
ment of society has been more extensive and more glorious
than that of humanity ; social interest and social facts have,
in England, maintained a more conspicuous place, and have
exercised more power than general ideas : the nation seems
greater than the individual. This is so true, that even the
philosophers of England, men who seem devoted by their pro-
fession to the development of pure intelligence — as Bacon,
Locke, and the Scotch philosophers — belong to what one may
call the practical school of philosophy ; they concern them-
selves, above all things, with direct and positive results ; they
trust themselves neither to the nights of the imagination, nor
to the deductions of logic : theirs is the genius of common
sense. I turn to the periods of England's greatest intellectual
activity, the periods when ideas and mental movements occu-
pied the most conspicuous place in her history : I take the poli-
tical and religious crisis of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies. No man is ignorant of the mighty movement which
was going on at that time in England. Can any one, how-
ever, tell me of any great philosophical system, of any great
general doctrines since become law in Europe, which were
born of this movement ? It has had immense and admirable
results ; it has established rights, manners ; it has not only
powerfully influenced social relations, it has influenced the
souls of men ; it has made sects and enthusiasts, but it has
hardly exalted or extended — at all events directly — the hori-
zon of the human mind ; it has not ignited one of those great

CIVILIZATION IN FUANJE. 15

intellectual torches which illuminate an entire epoch. Per-
haps in no country have religious creeds possessed, nor at the
present day do they possess more power than in England ;
but they are, above all things, practical ; they exert a great
influence over the conduct, happiness, and sentiments of indi-
viduals ; but they have few general and mental results, results
which address themselves to the whole of the human race.
Under whatever point of view you regard this civilization, you
will discover this essentially practical and social character.
I might investigate this development in a more extended de-
gree ; I might review every class of English society, and I
should everywhere be struck with the same fact. In litera-
ture, for instance, practical merit still predominates. There
is no one who will say that the English are skilful at com-
posing a book, the artistical and rational arrangement of the
whole, in the distribution of the parts, in executing so as to
strike the imagination of the reader with that perfection of art
and form, which, above all things, gratifies the understanding.
This purely intellectual aim in works of genius is the weak
point of English writers, whilst they excel in the power of
persuasion by the lucidity of their expositions, by frequently
returning to the same ideas, by the evidence of good sense, in
short, by all the ways of leading to practical effects.

The same character is seen, even in the English language.
It is not a language rationally, uniformly, and systematically
constructed ; it borrows words on all sides, from the most
various sources, without troubling itself about maintaining any
symmetry or harmony. Its essential want is that logical
beauty which is seen in the Greek and Latin languages : it
has an appearance of coarseness and incoherence. But it is
rich, flexible, fitted for general adaptation, and capable of sup-
plying all the wants of man in the external course of life.
Everywhere the principle of utility and application dominates
m England, and constitutes at once the physiognomy and the
force of its civilization.

From England I shall pass to Germany. The development
of civilization has here been slow and tardy ; the brutality of
German manners has been proverbial throughout Europe for
centuries. Still when, under this apparent grossness, one
•eeko the comparative progress of the two fundamental ele-
ments of civilization, we find that, in Germany, intellectual
development has always surpassed and left behind social de.
velopment, that the human spirit has there prospered much
aiore than the human condition.

16 HISTORY OF

Compare the intellectual state of the German reformers al
the sixteenth century — Luther, Melancthon, Bucer, and many
others — compare, I say, the development of mind which is
shown in their works with the contemporaneous manners of
the country. What a disparity ! In the seventeenth century,
place the ideas of Leibnitz, the studies of his disciples, and
the German universities, by the side of the manners which
prevailed, not only among the people, but also among the su-
perior classes ; read, on one side, the writings of the philoso-
phers, and, on the other, the memoirs which paint the court of
the elector of Brandenburg or Bavaria. What a contrast !
When we arrive at our own times, this contrast is yet more
striking. It is a common saying in the present day, that be-
yond the Rhine, ideas and facts, the intellectual and the real
orders, are almost entirely separated. No one is ignorant of
what has been the activity of spirit in Germany for the last
fifty years ; in all classes, in philosophy, history, general lite-
rature, or poetry, it has advanced very far. It may be said
that it has not always followed the best path ; one may contest
part of the results at which it has arrived ; yet concerning its
energy and extensive development it is impossible to dispute.
But assuredly the social state and public condition have not
advanced at the same pace. Without doubt, there also pro-
gress and amelioration have been made ; but it is impossible
to draw a comparison between the two facts. Thus, the pe-
culiar character of all works in Germany, in poetry, philoso-
phy, or history, is a non- acquaintance with the external world,
the absence of the feeling of reality. One perceives, in read-
ing them, that life and facts have exercised but little influence
upon the authors, that they have not pre-occupied their ima-
gination ; they have lived retired within themselves, by turns
enthusiasts or logicians. (Just as the practical genius every-
where shows itself in England, so the pure intellectual ac-
tivity is the dominant feature of German civilization. (

In Italy we shall find neither one nor the other of thesu
characters. Italian civilization has been neither essentially
practical as that of England, nor almost exclusively speculative
as that of Germany ; in Italy, neither great development of
individual intelligence, nor social skill and ability have been
wanting ; the Italians have flourished and excelled at one and
the same time in the pure sciences, the arts and philosophy,
as well as in practical affairs and life. For some time, it is
rue, Italy seems to have stopped in both of these progres-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 17

sions ; society and the human mind seem enervated and
paralysed ; but one feels, upon looking closely, that this is no.
the effect of an inward and national incapacity ; it is froir
without that Italy is weighed down and impeded ; she re-
sembles a beautiful flower that wishes to blossom, but is com.
pressed in every part by a cold and rude hand. Neither
intellectual nor political capacity has perished in Italy ; it
wants that which it has always wanted, and which is every,
where one of the vital conditions of civilization, — it wants
faith, the faith in truth. I wish to make myself correctly
understood, and not to have attributed to my words a different
sense from that which I intend to convey. I mean here,
by faith, that confidence in truth, which not only causes it to
be held as truth, and which satisfies the mind, but which gives
men a confidence in right to reign over the world, to gov-
em facts, and in its power to succeed. It is by this
feeling that, once having possession of truth, man feels called
upon to introduce it into external facts, to reform them,
and to regulate them according to reason. Well, it is this
which is almost universally wanted in Italy ; she has been
fertile in great minds, and in universal ideas ; she has been
thronged with men of rare practical ability, versed in the
knowledge of all conditions of external life, and in the art of
conducting and managing society ; but these two classes of
men and facts have remained strangers to each other. The
men of universal ideas, the speculative spirits, have not be-
lieved in the duty, perhaps not even in the right, of influenc-
ing society ; although confident in the truth of their principles,
they have doubted their power. Men of action, on the othei
hand, the masters of society, have held small account of
universal ideas ; they have scarcely ever felt a desire to
regulate, according to fixed principles, the facts which came
under their dominion. Both have acted as if it was desirable
merely to know the truth, but as if it had ho further influence,
and demanded nothing more. It is this, alike in the fifteenth
century and in later times, that has been the weak side of
civilization in Italy ; it is this which has struck with a kind
of barrenness both its speculative genius and its practical
ability ; here the two powers have not lived in reciprocal con-
fidence, in correspondence, in continual action and reaction.

There is another great country of which, indeed, I speak
more out of consideration and respect for a noble and unhappy
nation, than from necessity ; I mean Spain. Neither grew
2*

18 HISTORY OF

minds nor great events have been wanting in Spain ; under
standing and human society have at times appeared there in
all their glory ; but these are isolated facts, cast here and there
throughout Spanish history, like palm-trees on a desert. The
fundamental character of civilization, its continued and uni-
versal progress, seems denied in Spain, as much to the human
mind as to society. There has been either solemn immobility,
or fruitless revolutions. Seek one great idea, or social
amelioration, one philosophical system or fertile institution,
which Spain has given to Europe ; there are none such : this
nation has remained isolated in Europe ; it has received as
little from it as it has contributed to it. I should have re-
proached myself, had I wholly omitted its name ; but its
civilization is of small importance in the history of the civili-
zation of Europe.

You see that the fundamental principle, the sublime fact of
general civilization, the intimate and rapid union, and the
harmonious development of ideas and facts, in the intel-
lectual and real orders, has been produced in neither of the
great countries at which we have glanced. Something is
essentially wanting in all of them to complete civilization ;
neither of them offers us the complete image, the pure type of
civilization in all its conditions, and with all its great charac-
teristics.

In France it is different. In France, the intellectual and
social development have never failed each other. Here
society and man have always progressed and improved, i
will not say abreast and equally, but within a short distance
of each other. By the side of great events, revolutions, and
public ameliorations, we always find in this country universal
ideas and corresponding doctrines. Nothing has passed in
the real world, but the understanding has immediately seized
it, and thence derived new riches ; nothing within the do-
minion of understanding, which has not had in the real world,
and that almost always immediately, its echo and result.
Indeed, as a general thing, in France, ideas have preceded
and impelled the progress of the social order ; they have been
prepared in doctrines, before being accomplished in things,
and in the march of civilization mind has always taken the
lead. This two-fold character of intellectual activity and
practical ability, of meditation and application, is shown in all
the great events of French history, and in all the great classes
of French society, and gives them an aspect which we do not
Snd elsewhere.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 10

At ttie commencement of the twelfth century, for example,
burst forth the great movement for the enfranchisement of
the Commons, a great step in social condition ; at the same
time was manifested a vivid aspiration after freedom of
thought. Abailard was contemporary with the citizens of
Laon and Vezelay. The first great struggle of free-thought
against absolute power in the intellectual order, is contempo-
raneous with the struggle of the citizens for public liberty.
These two movements, it is true, were apparently foreign to
each other ; the philosophers had a very ill opinion of the
insurgent citizens, whom they treated as barbarians ; and
the citizens, in their turn, when they heard them spoken of,
regarded the philosophers as heretics. But the double pro-
gress is not the less simultaneous.

Quit the twelfth century ; take one of the establishments
which have played the most conspicuous part in the history
of m'nd in France, the university of Paris. No one is
ignorant of what have been its scientific labors, dating from
the thirteenth century ; it was the first establishment of the
kind in Europe. There was no other in the same age which
had so important and active a political existence. The Uni-
versity of Paris is associated with the policy of kings, and
with all the struggles of the French clergy against the court
of Rome, and those of the clergy against the temporal power;
ideas developed themselves, and doctrines were established in
its bosom ; and it strove almost immediately to propagate
them in the external world. It was the principles of the
University of Paris which served as the standard of the
reformers at the councils of Constance and Basle ; which
were the origin of, and sustained the Pragmatic Sanction of
Charles VII.

Intellectual activity and positive influence have for cen-
turies been inseparable in this great school. Let us pass to
the sixteenth century, and glance at the history of the
Reformation in France ; it has here a distinguishing charac-
ter ; it was more learned, or, at least, as learned as elsewhere,
and more moderate and reasonable. The principal struggle
of erudition and doctrine against the Catholic church was
sustained by the French Reformers ; it was either in France
or Holland, and always in French, that so many philosophical,
historical, and polemical works were written in this cause ;
it is certain, that at this epoch, neither in Germany nor in
England, was there so much spirit and learning employed ;

20 HISTORY OF

the French Reformation, too, was a stranger to the flight*
of the German anabaptists and the English sectarians ; it was
seldom it was wanting in practical prudence, and yet one
cannot doubt the energy and sincerity of its creed, since for
so long a period it withstood the most severe reverses.

In modern times, in the seventeenth and eigtheenth centu-
ries, the intimate and rapid union of ideas with facts, and
the development both of society and of man as an individual,
are so evident, that it is needless to insist upon them.

We see, then, four or five great epochs, and four or five
grand events, in which the particular character of French
civilization is shown. Let us take the various classes of our
society ; let us regard their manners and physiognomy, and we
shall be struck with the same fact. The clergy of France is
both learned and active, it is connected with all intellectual
works and all worldly affairs as reasoner, scholar, adminis-
trator ; it is, as it were, neither exclusively devoted to
religion, science, nor politics, but is constantly occupied in
combining and conciliating them all. The French philoso-
phers also present a rare mixture of speculation and practical
knowledge ; they meditate profoundly and boldly ; they seek
the pure truth, without any view to its application ; but they
always keep up a sympathy with the external world, and
with the facts in the midst of which they live ; they elevate
themselves to the greatest height, but without ever losing
sight of the earth. Montaigne, Descartes, Pascal, Bayle,
almost all the great French philosophers, are neither pure
logicians nor enthusiasts. Last summer, in this place, you
heard their eloquent interpreter1 characterize the genius of
Descartes, who was at the same time a man of science and a
man of the world. " Clear, firm, resolved, and daring, he
thought in his study with the same intrepidity with which he
fought under the walls of Prague ;" having an inclination
alike for the movement of life and for the activity «>f thought.
Our philosophers have not all of them possessed the same
genius, nor experienced the same adventurous destiny as
Descartes ; but almost all of them, at the same time *hat they
sought truth, have comprehended the world. Tb^y were
alike capable of observing and of meditating.

Finally, in the history of France, what is the pa 'dcular

1M. Villemain.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 2i

irait which characterizes the only class of men who have
there taken a truly public part, the only men who have at.
tempted to thoroughly bring the country within its adminis-
tration, and to give a legal government to the nation, the
French magistracy and the bar, the parliaments and all that
surrounds them ? Is it not essentially this mixture of learn-
ing and practical wisdom, this respect for ideas and facts, for
science and its application 1 Wherever pure knowledge ia
exercised, in erudition, philosophy, literature, or history,
everywhere you encounter the parliaments and the French
bar ; they take part, at the same time, in all affairs, both
public and private ; and they have had a hand in all the real
and positive interests of society.

From whatever point of view we regard France, we shall
discover this two-fold character. The two essential principles
of civilization are there developed in a strict correspondence.
There man has never been wanting in individual greatness ;
nor has his individual greatness been devoid of public im-
portance and utility. Much has been said, especially latterly,
of good sense as a distinguishing trait of French genius.
This is true; but it is not a purely practical good sense,
merely calculated to succeed in its enterprises ; it is an ele-
vated and philosophical good sense, which penetrates to the
roots of ideas, and comprehends and judges them in all their
bearings, while at the same time it attends to external facts.
This good sense is reason ; the French mind is at the same
time reasoning and reasonable.

To France, then, must be ascribed this honor, that her
civilization has reproduced more faithfully than any other the
general type and fundamental idea of civilization. It is the
most complete, the most veritable, and, so to speak, the most
civilized of civilizations, This it is has given her the first
rank in the disinterested opinion of Europe. France has
proved herself at once intelligent and powerful, rich in ideas,
and in the means of giving effect to those ideas. She has
addressed herself at once to the intellect of the nations, and
to their desire for social amelioration ; she has aroused at once
imagination and ambition ; she has manifested a capability
of discovering the truth, and of making it prevail. By this
double title, she has rendered herself popular, for this is the
double want of humanity.

We are, then, fully entitled to regard civilization in Franc*
00 having the first claim on our attention, as being the mo*

16

22 HISTORY O

important in itself, the most fruitful of consequences. In
studying it, we must earnestly regard it under the double
aspect I have indicated, of social development and of intel-
lectual development ; we must closely watch the progress of
ideas, of mind, of the interior individual man, and of his ex-
terior and general condition. Considering it upon this prin-
ciple, there is not in the general history of Europe any great
event, any great question which we shall not meet with in
our own. We shall thus attain the historical and scientific
object which we proposed to ourselves ; we shall be constantly
present at the spectacle of European civilization, without be-
ing ourselves lost in the number and variety of the scenes
and actors.

But we have before us, as I conceive, something more, and
something more important than a spectacle, or even than
study ; unless I am altogether mistaken, we seek something
beyond mere information. The course of civilization, and in
particular that of the civilization of France, has raised a great
problem, a problem peculiar to our own time, in which all
futurity is interested, not only our own future but that of hu-
manity at large, and which we, we of the present generation,
are, perhaps, especially called upon to solve.

What is the spirit which now prevails in the intellectual
world, which presides over the search after truth, in whatever
directio i truth is sought ? A spirit of rigorous reserve, of
strict, cautious prudence, a scientific spirit, a philosophical
spirit pursuing a philosophical method. It is a spirit which
carefully observes facts, and only admits generalization slowly,
progressively, concurrently with the ascertainment of facts.
This spirit has, for more than a half century past, manifestly
prevailed in the conduct of the sciences which occupy them-
selves in the material world ; it has been the cause of their
progress, the source of their glory ; and now, every day it
infuses itself more and more deeply into the sciences of the
moral world, into politics, history, philosophy. In every di-
rection the scientific method is extending and establishing
itself; in every direction the necessity is more and more felt
of taking facts as the basis and rule of our proceedings ; and
we all fully understand that facts constitute the subject matter
of science, and that no general idea can be of any real value,
unless it be founded upon, and supported throughout its pro-
gress by facts. Facts are now in the intellectual order, thf
power in authority.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 23

I

In the real order, in the social world, in the government,
in the public administration, in political economy, we perceive
a different tendency ; there prevails the empire of ideas, of
reasoning, of general principles, of what is called theory.
Such is evidently the feature of the great revolution which
has developed itself in our time, of all the labors of the
eighteenth century ; and the feature is not merely one cha-
racterizing a crisis, a period of transient agitation ; it is the
permanent, regular, calm characteristic of the social state
which is now establishing, or, at all events, announcing itself
in every direction — a social state, which has its basis on dis-
cussion and publicity, that is to say, on the empire of public
reason, on the empire of doctrines, of convictions common to
all the members of" the society. On the one hand, then, never
before have facts held so large a place in science ; on the
other, never before have ideas played so leading a part in the
outer world.

Matters were very different a hundred years ago : then, in
the intellectual order, in science properly so called, facts
were but slightly consulted, but little respected ; reason and
imagination gave themselves full career, and men yielded
without hesitation to the wildest impulses of hypothesis, dash-
ing on recklessly, with no other guide than the thread of de-
duction. In the political order, on the contrary, in the real
world, facts were all powerful, were admitted without a doubt
or a murmur, as the authority alike de jure and de facto.
Men complained, indeed, of particular facts, but scarcely ever
ventured to contest them ; sedition itself was more common
in those times than freedom of thought. He who should have
claimed for an idea, though in the name of truth itself, any
place in the affairs of this world, would have had reason to
repent of his temerity.

The course of civilization, then, has reversed the formei
order of things: it has established the empire of facts where
once the free movement of mind dominated, and raised ideas
to the throne once filled exclusively by facts.

This proposition is so true, that the result stated forms a
marked feature in the reproaches of which modern civilization
is made the object. Whenever the adversaries of that civili-
zation speak of the actual condition of the human mind, of
the direction of its labors, they charge it with being hard,
dry, narrow. This rigorous positive method, this scientific
spirit, cramps, say they, the ideas, freezes up the imagination,

24 HISTORY OF

takes from the understanding its breadth, its freedom, confines,
materializes it. When the question turns upon the actual
state of societies, upon what societies are attempting, are
effecting, these same men exclaim : " Out upon chimeras !
Place no faith in theories : it is facts alone which should be
studied, respected, valued ; it is experience alone which should
be believed." So that modern civilization is accused at once
of dryness and of dreamy reverie, of hesitation and of pre-
cipitation, of timidity and of temerity. As philosophers, we
creep along the earth ; as politicians, we essay the enterprise
of Icarus, and we shall undergo the same fate.

It is this double reproach, or rather this double danger,
which we have to repel. We are called upon, in fact, to solve
the problem which has occasioned it. We are called upon
to confirm, more and more, in the intellectual order, the em-
pire of facts — in the social order, the empire of ideas ; to
govern our reason more and more according to reality, and
reality according to our reason ; to maintain at once the strict-
ness of the scientific method, and the legitimate empire of the
intellect. There is nothing incongruous or inconsistent in
this, far from it ; it is, on the contrary, the natural, necessary
result of the position of man, as a spectator of the world, and
of his mission as an actor in its mighty drama. I take no-
thing for granted here, I make no comment ; I merely describe
what I see before me. We are thrown into the midst of a
world which we neither invented nor created ; we find it
before us, we look at it, we study it : we must needs take it
as a fact, for it subsists out of us, independently of us ; it is
with facts our mind exercises itself; it has only facts for
materials ; and when it comes to the general laws resulting
from them, the general laws themselves are facts like any
others. So much for our position as spectators. As actors,
we proceed in a different way : when we have observed ex-
ternal facts, our acquaintance with these developes in us ideas

hich are of a nature superior to them ; we feel ourselves
called upon to reform, to perfectionate, to regulate that which
is ; we feel ourselves capable of acting upon the world, of
extending therein the glorious empire of reason. This is the
mission of man : as spectator, he is subject to facts ; as actor,
he takes possession of them, and impresses upon them a more
regular, a more perfect form. I was justified, then, in say
ing that there is nothing incongruous, nothing self-contradic-
tory in the problem which we have to solve. It is quite true,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 2fi

however, that there is a double danger involved in this double
task : it is quite true, that in studying facts, the understand,
ing may be overwhelmed by them ; that it may become de-
pressed, confined, materialized ; it may conceive that there
are no other facts than those which strike us at first glance,
which present themselves directly, obviously before us, which
make themselves palpable to the senses ; a great and griev-
ous error : there are facts, facts so remote as to be obscure,
facts vast, sublime, most difficult to compass, to observe, to
describe, but which are none the less facts, and facts which
man is, none the less, absolutely called upon to study and to
know. If he fail to make himself acquainted with them, if
he forget them, the character of his thought will be inevitably
and prodigiously lowered, and all the learning which he may
possess will bear the impress of that abasement. On the
other hand, it is quite possible for intellectual ambition, in its
action upon the real world, to be carried away, to become ex-
cessive, chimerical ; to lose itself in its eagerness to extend
too far and too rapidly the empire of its ideas over external
things. But this double danger itself proves the double mis-
sion whence it originates ; and this mission must be accom-
plished, the problem must be solved, for the actual ^condition
of civilization lays it down with perfect clearness, and will
not permit it to be lost sight of. Henceforth, whosoever, in
the search after truth, shall depart from the scientific method,
will not be in a position to take the study of facts as the basis
of intellectual development ; and whosoever, in administering
the affairs of society, shall refuse the guidance of general
principles and ideas, of doctrines, will assuredly achieve no
permanent success, will find himself without any real power ;
for power and success, whether rational or social, now
wholly depend upon the conformity of our labors with these
two laws of human activity, with these two tendencies of
civilization.

This is not all ; we have still a far different problem to
6olve. Of the two which I have laid down, the one is sci-
entific and the other social ; the one concerns pure intelli-
gence, the study of truth ; the other applies the results of
this study to the external world. There is a third, which
arises equally from the present state of civilization, and the
solution of which is equally prescribed to us ; a moral prob-
lem which refers not to science, not to society, but to the in.

26 HISTORY OF

ternal development of each of us to the me/it, the worth of tae
individual man.

In addition to the other reproaches of which, as 1 have said,
our civilization is made the object, it is accused of exercising
a baleful effect upon our moral nature. Its opponents say.
that by its everlastingly disputative spirit, by its mania for
discussing and weighing everything, for reducing everything
to a precise and definite value, it infrigidates, dries up, con-
centres the human soul ; that the result of its setting up a
pretension to universal infallibility, of its assumption of a
superiority to all illusion, all impulse of the thought, of its
affecting to know the real value of all things, will be, that man
will become severally disgusted with all the rest of the world,
will become absorbed in self. Further, it is said, that owing
to the tranquil ease of life in our times, to the facility and
amenity of social relations, to the security which prevails
throughout society, men's minds become effeminate, enervated ;
and that thus, at the same time that we acquire the habit of
looking only to oneself, one acquires also a habit of requiring
all things for oneself, a disposition to dispense with nothing,
to sacrifice nothing, to suffer nothing. In a word, it is as-
serted that selfishness on the one hand, and captious effemi-
nacy on the other, the dry hardness of manners, and their
puerile enervation, are the natural matter-of-course results of
the actual condition of civilization ; that high-souled devotion
and energy, at once the two great powers and the two great
virtues of man, are wanting, and will be more and more
wanting, in the periods which we call civilized, and more es-
pecially in our own.

It were easy, I think, to repel this double reproach, and to
establish: 1, the general proposition, that the actual condi-
tion of civilization, considered thoroughly and as a whole,
by no means as a matter of moral probability, induces as its
results selfishness and effeminacy ; 2, the fact that neither
devotion nor energy have been found to be wanting, in time
of need, to the civilized members of modern times. But this
were a question which would carry us too far. It is true,
the actual state of civilization imposes upon moral devotion
and energy, as upon patriotism, as upon all the noble thought?
and feelings of man, an additional difficulty. These grea.
faculties of our nature have hitherto often manifested them
selves somewhat fortuitously, in a manner characterized by
no reflection, by no reference to motives; so to speak, at

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 27

random. Henceforth they will be bound to proceed only
upon the basis of reason ; legitimacy of motives, and utility
of results will be required of them. Doubtless, this is an
additional weight for nature to raise up ere she can manifest
herself in all her grandeur ; but she will raise it up. Nevei
yet has human nature been wanting to herself, never has she
failed of that which circumstances have required at her
hands ; the more has been asked of her, the more she has
given. Her revenue ever more than keeps pace With her
expenditure. Energy and devotion will derive from other
sources, will manifest themselves under other forms. Doubt-
less, we possess not fully as yet those general ideas, those
innate convictions which must inspire the qualities I speak
of; the faith which corresponds with our manners is as yet
weak, shadowy, tottering ; the principles of devotion and en-
ergy which were in action in past times are now without
efFect, for they have lost our confidence. It must be our task
to seek out until we discover principles of a character to take
strong hold of us, to convince our minds and to move our
hearts at one and the same time. These will inspire devotion
and energy ; these will keep our minds in that state of disin-
terested activity, of simple, unsophisticated steadfastness which
constitutes moral health. The same progress of events which
imposes the necessity of doing this upon us,. will supply us
with the means of doing it.

In the study, then, upon which we are about to enter, we
have to aim at far more than the mere acquisition of know-
ledge ; intellectual development cannot, may not remain an
isolated fact. We are imperatively called upon to derive
from it, for our country, new materials of civilization ; for
ourselves, a moral regeneration. Science is a beautiful
thing, undoubtedly, and of itself well worth all the labor
that man may bestow upon it ; but it becomes a thousand
times grander and more beautiful when it becomes a power ;
when it becomes the parent of virtue. This, then, is what
we have to do in the course of these lectures : to discover
the truth ; to realize it out of ourselves in external facts,
for the benefit of society ; in ourselves, to convert it into
a faith capable of inspiring us with disinterestedness and
moral energy, the force and dignity of man in this world.
This is our triple task ; this the aim and object of our labor ;
a labor difficult of execution and slow of Drogress, and

28 HISTORY OF

which success, instead of terminating, only extends. Bu,
in nothing, perhaps, is it given to man ever to arrive at the
goal he has proposed to himself; his glory is in advancing
towards it.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 29

SECOND LECTURE.

Necessity of reading a general history of France before we stuJy that
of civilization — M. de Sismondi's work — Why we should study th#
political state of a country before its moral state, the history of
society before that of man — The social state of Gaul in the 5th cen-
tury — Original monuments and modern works descriptive of that
subject — Difference between the civil and religious society of that
period — Imperial government of Gaul — The provincial governors —
Their official establishments — Their salaries — Benefits and defects
of the administration — Fall of the Roman empire — Gaulish society :
1. The senators ; 2. The curiales ; 3. The people ; 4. The slavts —
Public relations of these various classes — Decline and helplessness
of Gaulish civil society — Causes of this — The people attach them-
selves to the religious community.

Before entering upon the history of French civilization, 1
would engage those among you who propose to make a serious
study of the subject, to read with attention one of the larger
histories of France, which may serve, as it were, for a frame
in which to place the facts and ideas we shall together collect.
For I do not propose to relate to you the course of what are
more especially called events, which yet it is indispensable
for you to know. Of all the histories of France I could point
out to you, the best, beyond any question, is that of M. de
Sismondi. It is no part of my intention to enter here into a
discussion of the merits and defects of that work, but I will,
in a few words, indicate to you what you will more peculiarly
find there, and what I advise you more peculiarly to seek
there. Considered as a critical exposition of the institutions,
the political development, the government of France, the His-
loire des Frangais of M. de Sismondi is incomplete,1 leaving
in my opinion something to be desired. Speaking of the
volumes already published, I should say that its account of
the two epochs most important for the political destiny of
France, the reign of Charlemagne and that of St. Louis, is,
perhaps, among the feeblest portions of the work. As a

1 M.Guizot speaks of the first twelve volumes of the Paris edition.

30 HISTORY OF

history of intellectual development of ideas, it is aeficient, tfi
a certain extent, in depth of research, and in exactness as to
results. But, as a narrative of events, as a picture of the
revolutions and vicissitudes of the social state, of the mutual
relations of the various classes of society at different periods,
of the progressive formation of the French nation, it is a work
of the highest order, a work whence instruction of the most
valuable kind is to be derived. You may, perhaps, find occa-
sion to desire in it somewhat more impartiality, somewhat
greater freedom of imagination ; you may, perhaps, detect in
it, at times, too much of the influence upon the writer's mind
of coijtemporary events and opinions ; but, nevertheless, it is
a prodigious, a splendid work, infinitely superior t© all those
which preceded it, and one which, read with attention, will
admirably prepare you for the studies we are about to pursue.

It is part of my plan, whenever we approach a particular
epoch, or a crisis of French society, to point out to you the
original literary monuments which are extant with respect to
it, and the principal modern works which have treated of the
subject. You will thus be enabled to test for yourselves, in
the crucible of your own studies, the results which I shall
endeavor to lay before you.

You will remember that I proposed to consider civilization
in its aggregate, as a social development, and as a moral de-
velopment in the history of the mutual relations of man, and
in that of ideas ; I shall accordingly examine each epoch
under this double aspect. I shall commence in every case
with the study of the social state. I am quite aware that in
so doing, I shall not begin with the beginning : the social
state derives, among a number of other causes, from the
moral state of nations ; creeds, feelings, ideas, manners, pre-
cede the external condition, the social relations, the political
institutions ; society, saving a necessary and powerful reac-
tion, is that which men make it. Conformably with true
chronology, with the internal and moral chronology, we ought
to study man before society. But the true historic order, the
order in which facts succeed one another, and reciprocally
create each ocher, differs essentially from the scientific order,
from the order in which it is proper to study them. In reality,
facts develope themselves, so to speak, from within to without ;
causes inward produce effects outward. Study, on the con-
trary— study, science, proceed, and properly proceed, from
without to within. It is with the outward that its attention is

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 31

first occupied ; it is the outward which it first seizes upon,
and following which, it advances, penetrates on and on, until
by degrees it arrives within.

And here we come to the great question, the question so
often and so well treated, but not as yet, perhaps, exhausted,
the question between the two methods of analysis and synthe-
sis ; the latter, the primitive method, the method of creation ;
the other, the method of the second period, the scientific
method. If science desired to proceed according to the me-
thod of creation, if it sought to take facts in the order accord-
ing to which they reproduce each other, it would run a great
risk, to say the least, of missing the full, pure source of things,
of not embracing the whole broad principle, of arriving at only
one of the causes whence effects have sprung ; and thus in-
volved in a narrow, tortuous, fallacious path, it would wander
more and more remote from the right direction ; and instead
of arriving at the veritable creation, instead of finding the
facts such as they really are, such as they really produce one
the other, it would give birth to mere valueless chimeras,
grand, indeed, in appearance, but in reality, notwithstanding
the amount of intellectual wealth expended in their pursuit,
utterly frivolous and of no account.

On the other hand, were science, in proceeding from with-
out to within, according to its own proper method, to forget
that this is not the primitive productive method, that facts in
themselves subsist and develope themselves in another order
than that in which it views them, it might in time also forget
that it was preceded by facts, it might exclude from its re-
membrance the very foundation of things, it might be dazzled
with itself, it might fancy that it was reality ; and it would
thus speedily become a mere combination of appearances and
terms, as vain, as fallacious as the hypothesis and deductions
of the contrary method.

It is highly important not to lose sight of this distinction and
its consequences ; we shall meet with them again more that:
once on our way.

In a former lecture, on seeking in the cradle of European
uvilization for its primitive and essential elements, I found,
on the one side, the Roman world, on the other, the barbarians.
In commencing, therefore, in any quarter of Europe, the
study of modern civilization, we must first investigate the
state of Roman society there, at the moment when the Roman
empire fell, that is to say, about the close of the fourth and

32 HISTORY OF

the opening of the fifth century. This investigation is pecu-
liarly necessary in the case of France. The whole of Gaul
was subject to the Empire, and its civilization, more espe-
cially in its southern portions, was thoroughly Roman. In
the histories of England and of Germany, Rome occupies a
less prominent position ; the civilization of these countries, in
its origin, was not Roman, but Germanic ; it was not until 8
later period of their career that they really underwent the
influence of the laws, the ideas, the traditions of Rome. The
case with our civilization was different ; it was Roman from
its very outset. It is characterized, moreover, by this pecu-
liar feature, that it drew nourishment from both the sources
of general European civilization. Gaul was situated upon the
limits of the Roman world and of the Germanic world. The
south of Gaul was essentially Roman, the north essentially
Germanic. Germanic manners, institutions, influences, pre-
vailed in the north of Gaul ; Roman manners, institutions, in-
fluences, in the south. And here we already recognize that
distinctive character of French civilization, which I endea-
vored to demonstrate in my first lecture, namely, that it is the
most complete, the most faithful image of European civiliza-
tion in the aggregate. The civilization of England and of
Germany is especially Germanic ; that of Spain and Italy
especially Roman ; that of France is the only one which par-
ticipates almost equally of the two origins, which has repro-
duced, from its outset, the complexity, the variety of tho
elements of modern society.

The social state of Gaul, then, towards the end of the fourth
and the commencement of the fifth century, is the first object
of our studies. Before entering upon it, I will mention what
are the great original monuments, and what the principal mo-
dern works on the subject which I would advise you to
consult.

Of the original monuments, the most important, beyond all
doubt, is the Theodosian code. Montesquieu, though he does
not exactly say so, is evidently1 of opinion that this code con-
stituted, in the fifth century, the whole Roman law, the entire
body of Roman legislation. It constitutes nothing of the sort.
The Theodosian code is a collection of the constitutions of the
emperors, from Constantine to Theodosius the younger, and

1 Esprit des Loix, xxviii. chap. 4.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 3d

was published by the latter in 438. Independently of these
constitutions, the ancient Senatus Consulta, the ancient Pie-
biscita, the law of the Twelve Tables, the Pretorian Edicts,
and the opinions of the jurisconsults, constituted a part of the
lto:nan law. Just previously, by a decree of Valentinian
III. in 426, the opinions of five of the great lawyers, Papinian,
Ulpian, Paul, Gaius, and Modestinus, had expressly been in-
vested with the force of law. It were, however, quite accu-
rate to say that, in a practical point of view, the Theodosian
code was the most important law book of the Empire ; it is,
moreover, the literary monument which diffuses the greatest
light over this period.1

The second original document to which I would invite your
attention, is the Notitia Imperii Romani, that genuine impe.
rial almanac of the fifth century, giving lists of all the func-
tionaries of the empire, and presenting a complete review of
the whole of its administration, of all the relations between
the government and its subjects.2 The Notitia has been illus-
trated with the greatest learning by the jurisconsult Pancirolus;
I know of no work which contains so many remarkable and
curious facts as to the interior of Roman society.

I will refer you, for a third original source, to the great
collections of the acts of the councils. Of these there are
two ; the collections of the councils held in Gaul, which were
published by Pere Sirmond,3 with a supplementary volume
compiled by Lalande,4 and the general collection of councils
compiled by the Pere Labbe.5

Of modern works connected with the subject, I will first
mention those French productions which I think you may
consult with great advantage.

1. There is the Theorie des Lois poliliques de la Monarchic
Frangaise, a work very little known, published at the com-
mencement of the revolution.6 It was compiled by a woman,
Mademoiselle de Lezardiere, and consists of very little more

1 Six vols, folio, avec les Commentaires de J. Godefroy. Ritter
Leipsig, 1738.

2 The best edition is that printed in the 7th vol. of the Theiauntt
Antiquitatum Romanarum of Graevius.

3 Three vols folio. Paris, 1629.
*One vol. folio. Paris, 1660.

* Eighteen vols, folio. Paris, 1672.

* Id 1792 ; eight vols. 8vo. Parji.

34 HISTORY or

than original texts legislative and historical, illustrating tne
condition, the manners, the constitutions, of the Franks and
Gauls from the third to the ninth century ; but these texts
are selected, arranged, and translated with a skill and exact-
ness rarely to be met with.

2. You will permit me to point out to you, in the second
place, the Essais sur VHistoire de France that I myself have
published,1 inasmuch as in them I have more especially ap-
plied myself to retracing, under its different aspects, the state
of society in Gaul, immediately before and immediately after
the fall of the Roman empire.

As to ecclesiastical history, Fleury's appears to me the
best.

Those who are acquainted with the German, will do well
to read,

1. The History of the Roman Law in the Middle Ages, by
M. de Savigny,9 a work the purpose of which is to show that
the Roman law has never perished in Europe, but is to be
met with throughout the period extending from the fifth to the
thirteenth centuries, in a multitude of institutions, laws, and
customs. The moral state of society is not always accu-
rately appreciated in this work, nor represented with fidelity ;
but as to facts, its learning and critical acumen are of a supe-
rior character.

2. The General History of the Christian Church, by M.
Henke ;3 a work incompletely developed, and which leaves
much to be desired in reference to the knowledge and appre-
ciation of facts, but learned and judicious in the criticisms it
furnishes, and characterized by an independence of spirit too
seldom met with in works of this nature.

3. The Manual of Ecclesiastical History, of M. Gieseler,
the latest and most complete, upon this subject, of those
/earned summaries so extensively diffused in Germany, ana
which serve as guides when we are desirous of entering upon
any particular study.

You have probably remarked that I point out here two
classes of works ; the one relating to civil, the other to eccle-
siastical history. I do so for this reason ; that at the period
we speak of, there existed in the Roman world two very

1 One vol. 8vo. Paris. 2 Six vols. 8vo.

8 Six vols. b'vo. 4th ed. Brunswick, 1S00

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 35

different societies — the civil society and the religious society.
They differed not only in their object, not only in that they
were governed by principles and by institutions entirely dis-
similar, not only in that the one was old and the other young ;
there existed between them a diversity far more profound, far
more important. The civil society, to all outward appear-
ances, seemed Christian, equally with the religious society.
The great majority of the European kings and nations had
embraced Christianity ; but, at bottom, the civil society was
pagan. Its institutions, its laws, its manners, were all essen-
tially pagan. It was entirely a society formed by paganism ;
not at all a society formed by Christianity. Christian civil
society did not develope itself till a later period, till after the
invasion of the barbarians ; it belongs, in point of time, to
modern history. In the fifth century, whatever outward ap-
pearances may say to the contrary, there existed between
civil society and religious society incoherence, contradiction,
contest ; for they were essentially different both in their origin
and in their nature.

I would pray you never to lose sight of this diversity ; it is
a diversity which alone enables us to comprehend the real
condition of the Roman world at this period.

What then was this civil society, nominally Christian, but
in reality the pagan ?

Let us first consider it in its outward, most obvious aspect,
in its government, in its institutions, its administration.

The empire of the west was divided, in the fifth century
into two prefectures, that of Gaul and that of Italy. The
prefecture of Gaul comprised three diocesses — that of Gaul,
that of Spain, and that of Britain. At the head of the pre-
fecture was a pretorian-prefect ; at the head of each diocess
a vice-prefect.

The pretorian-prefect of Gaul resided at Treves. Gaul
was divided Into seventeen provinces, the affairs of each of
which were administered by a governor of its own, under the
general orders of the prefect. Of these provinces, six were
governed by consulares,1 the other eleven by presidents.1

i Viennensis, Lugdunensis 1 ; Germania Superior, Germania Infe-
rior, Belgica 1 and 2.

* Alpcs Maritimae, Alpes Pcnninae, Scquanensis 1 ; Acjuitanica 1
and 2 ; Novempopulonia, Narbonensis 1 and 2 ; Lugdunensis 2 and 3
Lugdunensis Senonensis.

36 HISTORY OP

As to tne mode of administration, there existed no impof
tant distinction between these two classes of governors ; they
exercised in reality the same power, differing only in rank
and title.

In Gaul, as elsewhere, the governors had two kinds of
functions :

1st. They were the emperor's immediate representatives,
charged, throughout the whole extent of the Empire, with the
interests of the central government, with the collection of
taxes, with the management of the public domains, the direc-
tion of the imperial posts, the levy and regulation of the armies
— in a word, with the fulfilment of all the relations between
the emperor and his subjects.

2d. They had the administration of justice between the
subjects themselves. The whole civil and criminal jurisdic-
tion was in their hands, with two exceptions. Certain towns
of Gaul possessed what was called jus Italicum — the Italian
law. In the municipia of Italy, the right of administering
justice to the citizens, at least in civil matters and in the first
instance, appertained to certain municipal magistrates, Duum-
viri, Quatuorviri, Quinquenvales, Mdiles, Praetor es, fyc. It
has been often stated that the case was the same out of Italy,
in all the provinces as a rule, but this is a mistake : it was
only in a limited number of these towns assimilated to the
Italian municipia, that the municipal magistrates exercised
any real jurisdiction ; and this in every instance subject to
an appeal to the governor.

There was also, subsequent to the middle of the fourth
century, in almost all the towns, a special magistrate, called
defensor, elected not merely by the curia or municipal body
but by the population at large, whose duty it was to defend
the interests of the people, even against the governor himself,
if need were. The defensor exercised in such matters the
jurisdiction in the first instance ; he also acted as judge in
that class of cases, which we now term police cases.

With these two exceptions, the governors alone adjudicated
all suits ; and there was no appeal from them except direct
to the emperor.

This jurisdiction of theirs was exercised in the following
manner : — In the first ages of the Empire, conformably with
ancient custom, he to whom the jurisdiction appertained,
praetor, provincial governor, or municipal magistrate, on a
case being submitted to him, merely determined the rule of

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCS. 37

law, the legal principle according to which it ought lo be
adjudged. He decided, that is to say, the question of law
involved in the case, and then appointed a private citizen,
called the judex, the veritable juror, to examine and decide
upon the question of fact. The legal principle laid down by
the magistrate was applied to the fact found by the judex,
and so the case was determined.

By degrees, in proportion as imperial despotism established
itself, and the ancient liberties of the people disappeared, the
intervention of the judex became less regular. The magis-
trates decided, without any reference to this officer, certain
matters which were called extraordinarice cogniliones. Dio-
cletian formally abolished the institution in the provinces ; it
no longer appeared but as an exception ; and Justinian testi-
fies, that in his time it had fallen completely into desuetude.
The entire jurisdiction in all cases then appertained to the
governors — agents and representatives of the emperor in all
things, and masters of the lives and fortunes of the citizens,
with no appeal from their judgments but to the emperor in
person.

In order to give you an idea of the extent of their power,
and of the manner in which it was exercised, I have drawn
up from the Notitia Imperii Momani — a list of the officers
of a provincial governor ; a list exactly similar to that which
we might at the present day derive from the Almanack Royal,
of the official establishment of a government office, or a pre-
fecture. They are the officers of the pretorian prefect whom
I am about to introduce to you, but the governors subordinate
to the pretorian prefect, the consulares, correctores, prat-
sides, exercised, under his superintendence, the same powers
with himself ; and their establishments were almost entirely
the same as his, only on a smaller scale.

The principal officers of a praetorian prefect were :

1. Princeps, or primiscrinius officii. He cited before
the tribunal of the prefect those who had business there : ho
drew up the judgments : it was upon his order that accused
persons were taken into custody. His principal business,
however, was the collection of taxes. He enjoyed various
privileges.

2. Cornicularius. — He made public the ordinances, edicts,
and judgments of the governor. His post was one of very
great antiquity ; the tribunes of the people had their cornicu.
larius (Val. Maximus, I., vi. c. 11). He was so entitled

38 HISTORY OF

because he carried with him, as a distinctive badge, a hoi a
of which he made use, in all probability, to impose silence on
the crowd when he was about to perform his official duty.
The prcBco, or herald, was under his direction, and he had a
large establishment of clerks. His period of office was only
a year. He was a species of recorder.

3. Adjutor, a supplementary officer, whose services appear
to have been due to all the other functionaries, when re-
quired ; his specific business was to arrest accused persons, to
superintend the infliction of the torture, &c. He had an office
of his own.

4. Commentariensis, the director of prisons, an officer
higher in rank than our jailers, but having the same func-
tions ; he had the internal regulation of the prisons, conducted
the prisoners before the tribunals, furnished them with pro-
visions when they were destitute, had the torture administered
to them, &c.

5. Actuarii vel ab actis. — These officers drew up contracts
for the citizens, and all such deeds as the law required to beai
a legal character, such as wills, grants, &c. They were the
predecessors of our notaries. As the actuarii attached to the
office of the pretorian prefect or of the prceses, could not be
everywhere, the decemvirs and other municipal magistrates
were authorized to act as their deputies.

6. Numerarii. — These were the keepers of the accounts.
The ordinary governors had two, called tabularii ; the prae-
torian prefects four: — 1. The Numerarius Bonorum, who
kept an account of the funds appertaining to the exchequer,
the revenues of which went to the comes rerum privatarum ;
2. The numerarius tributorum, who was entrusted with
the accounts of the public revenues which went to the
ararium, and to the account of the sacred donatives; 3. The
numerarius auri, who received the gold drawn from the
provinces, had the silver money he received changed into
gold, and kept the accounts of the gold mines within his
district ; 4. The numerarius operum publicorum, who kept
the accounts of the various public works, such as forts, walls,
aqueducts, baths, &c, all of which were maintained by a
third of the revenues of the cities, and by a land tax levied on
and according to occasion. These numerarii had under their
orders a large body of clerks.

7. Sub-adjuva ; an assistant to the adjutor.

8. Curator Epistolarum. — This was the secretary who had

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 39

ehdige of the correspondence ; he had a number of subordi
nates, called epistolares. ■

9. Regerendarius. — The officer charged to transmit to the
prefect the petitions of the subject, and to write the answers.

10. Exceptores. — They wrote out all the documents re-
lating to the judgments given by the prefects, and read thero
before his tribunal ; they were under the direction of a primi-
cerius. They may be assimilated to our registrars.

11. Singularii, or Singulares, Ducenarii, Centenarii, fyc. — ■
Officers commanding a sort of military police attached to the
service of the provincial governors. The singulares attended
these functionaries as a guard, executed their orders in the
province, arrested accused parties, and conducted them to
prison. They acted as collectors of the taxes ; the office of
the ducenarii (captains of two hundred men, or cohortales), of
the centenarii, the sexagenarii, was the same.

12. Primilipus. — The chief officer of these cohortales ; it
was his especial charge to superintend the distribution of pro-
visions to the soldiers, in the name of the pretorian prelect,
and to inspect the provisions previous to delivery.

It is obvious that only the more prominent employments
are indicated here, and that these officers must have had a
great many others under their direction. In the offices of the
praetor of Africa, there were 398 persons employed, in those
of the count of the East, 600. Independently of their number,
you perceive, from the nature of their functions, that the
jurisdiction of the provincial governors comprehended all
things, all classes, that the whole society had to do with them,
and they with the whole of society.

I will now direct your attention, for a moment, to the
salaries which these officers received ; you may derive from
this information some rather curious illustrations of the social
state of the period.

Under Alexander Severus, according to a passage in his
biographer Lampridius,1 the governors of a province received
twenty pounds of silver and one hundred pieces of gold,4 six
pitchers (phialas) of wine, two mules, and two horses, two
state suits (vestes forenses), and one ordinary suit (vestes
domesticas), a bathing tub, a cook, a .muleteer, and lastly (I
have to solicit your pardon for this detail, but it is too charac-

' Chap, xlii • About 150/.

40 HISTORY OF

teristic to be omitted), when they were not married, a con
cubine, quod sine his esse non possent, says the text. Whec
they quitted office, they were obliged to return the mules, the
horses, the muleteer, and the cook. If the emperor was
satisfied with their administration, they were allowed to retain
the other gifts he had bestowed upon them ; if he was dissatis-
fied, they were compelled to give him four times the value
of what they had received. Under Constantine, the part pay-
ment in goods still subsisted ; we find the governors of twc
great provinces, Asiana and Pontus, receiving an allowance
of oil for four lamps. It was not until the reign of Theodo-
sius II., in the first half of the fifth century, that this mode
of paying the governors was altogether discontinued. The
subordinate employes, however, continued, down to the time
of Justinian, to receive in the eastern empire a portion of
their salaries in provisions and other goods. I dwell upon
this circumstance because it furnishes a striking idea of the
inactive state of commercial relations, and of the imperfect
circulating medium of the Empire.

The facts I have stated, which are perfectly clear, make
equally evident the nature of the government under our con-
sideration ; an utter absence of independence on the part of
the various functionaries ; all of them subordinate one to the
other, up to the emperor, who absolutely disposes and decides
the fate of them all. No appeal for the subject from the
functionary, but to the emperor ; nothing like co-ordinate,
co-equal powers, destined to control and limit one another, is
to be met with. All proceeds straight upwards or down-
wards, on the principle of a sole, strict hierarchy. It is a
pure, unmitigated, administrative despotism.

Do not, however, conclude from what I have stated, that
this system of government, this administrative machinery, was
instituted for the sole behoof of absolute power, that it never
aimed at or produced any other effect than that of promoting
the views of despotism. In order to appreciate the matter
fairly, we must present to our minds a just idea of the state
of the provinces, and more especially of Gaul, at the moment
preceding that when the empire took the place of the republic.
There were two powers in authority, that of the Roman pro-
consul, sent to administer, for a temporary period, such or such
a province, and that of the old national chiefs, the governors
whom the country obeyed before it passed under the Roman
yoke. These two powers were, upon the whole, more iniqui-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 4l

tous, in my opinion, and more noxious in their operation, than
the imperial administration which superseded them. I can
conceive no affliction more fearful for a province than the go-
vernment of a Roman proconsul, a greedy tyrant, coming
there for a greater or less period, in the sole view of making
his fortune, and giving unchecked way for a time to all the
impulses of grasping self-interest, to all the caprices of abso-
lute power. I do not mean to say that these proconsuls were
every one a Verres or a Piso, but the great crimes of a period
enable us in their history to estimate the measure of iniquity
in that period ; and if it required a Verres to arouse the in-
dignation of Rome, we may fairly judge how far a proconsul
might go, so that he kept within the limits outstepped by the
more daring monster denounced by Cicero. As to the ancient
chiefs of the country, theirs was, I have no doubt, a govern-
ment altogether irregular, oppressive, barbarous. The civili-
zation of Gaul, when it was conquered by the Romans, was
very inferior to that of Rome : the two powers which held
sway there were, on the one hand, that of the priests, the
Druids ; on the other, that of the chiefs, whom we may assi-
milate with the more modern chiefs of clans. The ancient
social organization of the country part of Gaul had, in point
of fact, a close resemblance to that of Ireland or of the High-
lands of Scotland in later times ; the population clustered
round the more considerable personages, round the great landed
proprietors : Vercingetorix, for example, was probably a chief
of this description, the leader of a multitude of peasantry and
of petty landholders connected by personal considerations with
nis domains, with his family, with his interests. This system
may doubtless give birth to lofty and honorable sentiments,
it may inspire those who live under it with powerfully
marked habits and associations, with strong mutual attach-
ments ; but it is, on the whole, far from favorable to the pro-
gress of civilization. There is nothing regular, nothing com-
prehensive in it ; the ruder passions have full and unchecked
sway ; private warfare is incessant j manners make no ad-
vance ; the decision of all questions is entirely a matter of
individual or local interest j every feature in the system is an
obstacle to the increase of prosperity, to the extension of ideas,
to the rich and rapid development of man and of society.
When therefore the imperial administration came into opera-
lion in Gaul, however bitter may have been the resentment
md regret which naturally filled patriotic minds, we can en-

42 HISTORY OF

tertain no doubt that it was more enlightened, more impartial,
more guided by general views and by considerations of really
public interests, than the old national government had been.
It was neither mixed up with jealousies of family, city, or
tribe, nor fettered to savage and stagnant ideas and manners
by prejudices of religion or birth. On the other hand, the
new governors, invested with more permanent functions, con-
trolled, up to a certain point, by the imperial authority, were
loss grasping, less violent, less oppressive than the proconsuls
of the senate had been. We accordingly observe with the
progress of the first, second, and even the third centuries, a
progress in the prosperity and civilization of Gaul. The towns
grew rich, and extended themselves ; the freemen became
more and more numerous. It had been, amongst the ancient
Gauls, a custom, or rather a necessity, for the individual free-
men to place themselves under the protection of some great
man, to enrol themselves under the banner of a patron, as the
only mode of effecting security for themselves. This cus-
tom, without entirely disappearing, abated in the first ages of
imperial administration ; the freemen assumed a more- inde-
pendent existence, which proves that their existence was better
secured by the general operation of the laws, by the public
power. There was greater equality introduced among the
various classes, none of whom were now arbitrarily excluded
from the attainment of fortune and power. Manners were
softened, ideas expanded, the country became covered with
roads and buildings. Everything indicated a society in course
of development, a civilization in progress.

But the benefits of despotism are shortlived ; it poisons the
very springs which it lays open. If it display a merit, it is
an exceptional one ; if a virtue, it is created of circumstances ;
and once this better hour has passed away, all the vices of
its nature break forth with redoubled violence, and weigh
down society in every direction.

In proportion as the Empire, or more properly speaking, the
power of the emperor, grew weaker, in proportion as it found
itself a prey to external and internal dangers, its wants grew
greater and more urgent ; it required more money, more men,
more means of action of every description ; it demanded more
and more at the hands of the subject nations, and at the same
time did less and less for them in return. The larger rein-
forcements of troops were sent to the frontiers to resist the
barbarians, the fewer of course remained to maintain order

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 43

In the interior. The more money there was spent at Constan-
tinople or at Rome to purchase the services of auxiliaries, or
to bribe dangerous courtiers, the less had the emperor to ex-
pend upon the due administration of the provinces. Despot-
ism thus found itself at once more exacting and more feeble,
necessitated to take more from the people, and incapable of
protecting for them the little it left them. This double evil
had fully developed itself at the close of the fourth century.
Not only at this epoch had all social progress ceased, but a
retrograde movement was sensibly felt ; the empire was in-
vaded in every direction, and its interior swept and devastated
by bodies of barbarians ; the population fell off, more espe-
cially in the provinces ; in the towns, all public works were
put a stop to, all embellishments suspended ; the freemen
once more went in crowds to solicit the protection of some
powerful chief. Such are the incessant complaints of tne
Gaulish writers of the fourth and fifth centuries, of Salvienus,
for example, in his work De Gubernatione Dei, perhaps the
most vivid and most interesting picture that we have of the
period. In a word, in every direction we see manifesting
themselves unequivocal symptoms of the decline of the go-
vernment, of the desolation of the land.

At length the evil grew so great, that the Roman empire
found itself unable to go on ; it began by recalling its troops ;
it said to the provinces, to Britain, to Gaul : " I can no longer
defend you : you must take care of yourselves." Ere long
it ceased to govern them, as it had ceased to protect them :
its administrative officers withdrew as its armies had done.
This was the fact which was accomplished in the middle of
the fifth century. The Roman empire fell back in every
direction, and abandoned, either to the barbarians or to them-
selves, the provinces which it had taken so much pains to
conquer.

What, more especially in Gaul, was the society thus left to
itself, thus compelled to provide for itself? How was it con-
stituted ? What means, what strength had it with which to
protect itself ?

Four classes of persons, four different social conditions
existed at this period in Gaul. 1. The senators; 2. the
curiales ; 3. the people, properly so called ; 4. the slaves.

The distinct existence of the senatorial families is attested
by all the monuments of the period. We meet with tho
designation at every step, in the legislative documents, and in

44 HISTORY OF

the historians. Did it indicate families whose members b»
longed or had belonged to the Roman senate, or did it merely
refer to the' Ynunicipal senators of the Gaulish towns ? This
is a legitimate question, since the senate of each town, the
municipal body known under the name of curia, often also
called itself senate.

There can be little doubt, I think, that it meant families
which had belonged to the Roman senate. The emperors,
who filled up that senate just as they pleased, used to recruit
it from the provinces with members of the most distinguished
families in the principal cities. Those who had occupied high
local offices, who had acted, for instance, as provincial gover-
nors, were entitled to expect a seat in the Roman senate ; at
a later period, the same favor was granted to persons who
had been nominated to certain honorary charges ; and ulti-
mately the possession of a mere title, that of clarissimus,
which was conferred in the same way that the title of baron
or count is now, was sufficient to give its holder a seat in the
senate.

This quality gave certain privileges which raised the
senators to a position superior to that of the other citizens.
1, the title itself; 2, the right to be tried by a special tribunal :
when a senator had to be tried for a capital offence, the ma-
gistrate was obliged to associate with himself five assessors,
drawn by lot ; 3, exemption from torture ; 4, exemption from
filling municipal offices, which at this time had become a very
serious burden.

Such was the condition of the senatorial families. It were,
perhaps, extravagant to say that they formed a class of citi-
zens essentially distinct from the $est, for the senators were
taken from all classes of the population ; we find even freed-
men among them — and the emperor could at any time deprive
them, or any of them, of the privileges he had conferred.
But, at the same time, as these privileges were real and sub-
stantial, and moreover hereditary, at least in reference to
children born after the elevation of the father to the senatorial
dignity, we may fairly point to them as creating an essential
distinction in social relations, as manifesting the principle, of
at all events, the very decided appearance of a political aris-
tocracy.

The second class of citizens was that of the curiales or
decuriones, men of easy circumstances, members, not of the
Roman senate, but of the curia or municipal body of theft

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 45

own city, lhave, in my Essai sur VHisloire de France, drawn
up a summary of laws and facts relative to the curiales; and
in order to give an exact picture of their condition, I will, with
your permission, introduce this summary here :

The class of curiales comprised all such inhabitants of
towns, whether natives (jnunicipes) or settlers (incotce), as
possessed landed property to the extent of not less than
twenty-five acres (jugera), and were not included in any
way among the privileged persons exempt from curial
functions.

Persons belonged to this class either by origin ">r by nomi-
nation.

Every son of a curialis was himself a curialis, and bound
to fulfil all the duties inherent in that quality.

Eyery inhabitant of a town, trader or otherwise, who ac-
quired landed property to the extent of twenty-five acres and
upwards, was liable to bo claimed by the curia, and could not
refuse to join it.

No curialis was allowed by any personal and voluntary act
to relinquish his condition. They were prohibited from living
in the country, from entering the army, from accepting
offices which would relieve them from municipal functions,
until they had exercised all these functions, from that of sim-
ple member of the curia up to that of first magistrate of the
city. Then, and not till then, were they permitted to be-
come soldiers, public functionaries, and senators. The chil-
dren born to them before their elevation remained in the class
of curiales.

They were not allowed to become priests unless they trans-
ferred their property to some one who was willing to become
a curialis in their place, or to the curia itself.

The curiales were constantly endeavoring to relinquish
their condition, and we accordingly find a multitude of laws
prescribing the rigorous pursuit of all such as had fled, or
surreptitiously entered the army, or the order of priests, or the
senate, or into public functions, and ordering them, when dis-
covered, to be compelled to return to their curia.

The functions and duties of the curiales thus forcibly con.
fined within their curia, were as follow : —

1. To administer the affairs of the municipium, its revenuo
and its expenditure, either deliberatively as a private member
of the curia, or executively as a municipal magistrate. In
this double situation, the curiales were not only responsible

17

46 HISTORY OF

for their own individual conduct, but they were called upon o
provide for the wants of the town out of their own means, ii
the civic revenue was insufficient.

2. To collect the public taxes. Here also they were them,
selves responsible if they failed to levy the full amount im-
posed. Any lands subject to the land-tax which were aban-
doned by their possessors reverted to the curia, who were
bound to pay the tax in respect of them, until some one was
found who was willing to take the land and its ^abilities upon
himself. If no such person appeared, the tax continued to be
made up amongst the other proprietors.

3. No curialis could sell, without the permission of li,e
provincial governor, the property in respect of which he was
a curialis.

4. Heirs of curiales, not themselves members of the curia,
and the widow or inheriting daughter of a curialis who mar-
ried a man not a curialis, were obliged to resign a fourth of
their property to the curia.

5. Curiales without children could only dispose by will of
a fourth of their property. The other three-fourths went to
the curia.

6. They were not allowed to absent themselves from the
municipium, even for a limited time, without the permission
of the provincial governor.

7. If they quitted their curia without such permission, and
could not, after a certain interval, be found, their property
was confiscated for the benefit of the curia.

8. The burden of the impost designated Aurum Corona-
rium, which was a tribute paid to the prince on certain solemn
occasions, fell solely upon the curiales.

By way of compensating the curiales for these heavy in-
cumbrances, they were : —

1. Exempt from the torture, except in very grave cases.

2. Exempt from certain corporeal and ignominious punish-
ments, which were reserved for the lower classes.

3. After having gone through the whole series of munici-
pal offices, those who had managed to escape the ruinous risks
which had presented themselves at every stage of their pro-
gress, were exempt from serving any municipal office for the
future, enjoyed certain honors, and not unfrequently received
the title of comes.

4. Decayed decuriones were maintained at the expense of
the town.

CIVILIZATION IN FKANCE. 47

I need not point out to you how hard and oppressive this
condition was — into what a state it necessarily tended to re-
duce the burgher class in all the towns. We accordingly
find every indication that this class became, day after day,
less numerous. There are no documents from which we can
form any satisfactory idea of the number of curiales. A list
of the members of each curia, album curia, was, indeed, drawn
up every year; but these lists have disappeared. M. de
Savigny cites one, after Fabretti, the album of Canusium
(Canosa), a small town of Italy. It is *br the year 223, and
sets down the number of the curiales of tnat town at a hundred
and forty-eight. Judging from their extent and comparative
importance, the larger towns of Gaul, Aries, Narbonne, Tou-
louse, Lyons, Nismes, had far more than this number. There
can be no doubt, indeed, that such was the case in the earlier
periods ; but as I have said, the curiales became constantly
fewer and fewer, and at the epoch on which we are now
engaged, there were scarcely more than a hundred of them in
the very largest cities.

The third class of the Gaulish community consisted of the
people, especially so called — the plebs. This class compre-
hended, on the one hand, the petty landholders, whose pro-
perty was not sufficient to qualify them for the curia ; on the
other, the small tradespeople and the free artisans. I have
no observations to make with reference to the petty landholders
in this class ; they were probably very few in number ; but
with reference to the free artisans, it is necessary to enter
into some explanations.

You are all aware that under the republic and in the earlier
years of the empire, operative industry was a domestic pro-
fession, carried on by the slaves for the benefit of their mas-
ters. Every proprietor of slaves had whatever mechanical
production ho required manufactured in his own house ; he
had slave-blacksmiths, slave-shoemakers, slave-carpenters,
slave-ironworkers, &c. And he not only employed them in
making things for himself, but he sold the products of their
industry to freemen, his clients and others, who had no slaves
of their own.

By one of those revolutions which work on slowly and un-
seen until they become accomplished and manifest at a parti-
cular epoch, whose course we have not followed, and whose
origin we never trace back, it happened that industry threw
off the domestic menial character it had so long worn, and tha*

48 HISTORY OF

instead of slave artisans, the world saw free artisans, who
worked, not for a master, but for the public, and for their
own profit and benefit. This was an immense change in the
state of society, a change pregnant with incalculable results.
When and how it was operated in the Roman world, I know
not, nor has any one else, I believe, identified its precise date ;
but at the period we are now considering, at the commence-
ment of the fifth century, it was in full action ; there were in
all the large towns of Gaul a numerous class of free artisans,
already erected into corporations, into bodies formally repre-
sented by some of their own members. The majority of these
trade-corporations, the origin of which is usually assigned
to the middle ages, may readily be traced back, more espe-
cially in the south of Gaul and in Italy, to the Roman world.
Ever since the fifth century, we come upon indications of
them, more or less direct, at every epoch of history ; already,
at that period, they constituted in many towns one of the
principal, one of the most important portions of the popular
community.

The fourth class was that of slaves ; of these there were
two kinds. We are too much in the habit of attaching to the
word slave, one bare single idea, — of connecting with the term
one sole condition ; this is an entire misconception. We must
carefully distinguish, at the period now under our considera-
tion, between the domestic slaves and the predial or rural
slaves. As to the former, their condition was everywhere
very nearly the same ; but as to those who cultivated the soil,
we find them designated by a multitude of different names —
coloni, inquilini, rustici, agricoke, aratores, tributarii, origin-
arii, adscriptitii, each name, well nigh, indicating a difference
of condition. Some were domestic slaves, sent to a man's
country estate, to labor in the fields there, instead of working
indoors, at his town-house. Others were regular serfs of the
soil, who could not be sold except with the domain itself;
others were farmers, who cultivated the ground, in con-
sideration of receiving half the produce ; others, farmers of a
higher class, who paid a regular money rent ; others, a sort
of comparatively free laborers, farm-servants, who worked
for wages. Sometimes, moreover, these very different con-
ditions seem mixed up together under the general denomina-
tion of coloni, sometimes they are designated under various
names.

Thus, judging from appearances, and from existing terms,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 49

u political nobility, an upper burgher class or municipal no-
bility, the people especially so called, domestic or rural slaves,
in their different conditions, constituted Gaulish society, con-
stituted the strength which subsisted in Gaul, after the with-
drawal of Rome.

But what is the real value to be attached to these appear-
ances ? What was the real strength of this strength ? What
living and powerful society could the concurrences of these
various classes form 1

We are in the habit of giving to every privileged class the
name of aristocracy. I do not conceive that this name pro-
perly appertains to the senatorial families of which I have
just spoken. It was an hierarchical collection of function-
aries, but not an aristocracy. Neither privilege, nor wealth,
nor even with these the possession of power, are sufficient to
constitute an aristocracy. Permit me to call your attention
for a moment, to the true meaning of this term ; I shall not go
far in search of it ; I will consult, for the history of the word,
the language whence we have derived it.

In the more ancient Greek authors, the word apuw, apwros,
generally means the strongest, the person possessing the su-
periority in personal, physical, material strength. We find
the term thus employed in Homer, Hesiod, and even in some
of the choruses of Sophocles ; it came, perhaps, from the word
which designated the God Mars, the God of Strength, Ap«.

As we advance in the progress of Greek civilization, as we
approach the period when social development gave effect to
other causes of superiority than physical force, the word
apioros designates the great, powerful, the most considerable,
tlie most wealthy ; it is the title assigned to the principal
citizens, whatever the sources of their power and influence.

Going a little further, we come to the philosophers, to the
men whose work it was to elevate and purify ideas ; with
them the word aptoros is often used to convey a meaning of a
far more moral character ; it indicates the best, the most vir-
tuous, the most able man ; intellectual superiority. In the
eyes of these definers, the aristocratic government was the
government of the best, that is to say, the ideal of govern-
ments.

Thus, then, physical force, social preponderance, moral
superiority — thus, so to speak, and judging from the vicissi-
tudes Lu the meanings of the words, thus have these been ihe

50 HISTORY OF

gradations of aristocracy, the various states through which i»
has had to pass.

And, indeed, for an aristocracy to be real, for it to merit
its name, it must possess, and possess of itself, one or the
other of these characteristics ; it must have either a force of
its own, a force which it borrows from no one, and which
none can wrest from it, or a force admitted, proclaimed by the
men over whom it exercises this force. It must have either
independence or popularity. It must either have power, in
its mere personal right, as was the case with the feudal aris-
tocracy, or it must receive power by national and free elec-
tion, as is the case in representative governments. Nothing
resembling either of these characteristics is to be met with in
the senatorial aristocracy of Gaul ; it possessed neither inde-
Dendence nor popularity. Power, wealth, privilege, all it had
and exercised, was borrowed and precarious. Undoubtedly
the senatorial families occupied a position in society and in
the eyes of the people, for they were rich, and had filled pub-
lic offices ; but they were incapable of any great effort, in-
capable of carrying the people with them, or using them either
to defend or to govern the country.

Let us now turn to the second class, the curiales, and ex-
amine what the real extent of their strength was. Judging
from appearances, these had something beyond what the pre-
ceding class possessed ; among them, the presence of princi-
ples of liberty is evident. I have already endeavored to ex-
plain these in the following manner, in my Essai sur le regime
Municipal Romain au V. Siecle :

1. Every inhabitant of a town, possessor of a fortune suffi-
cient to secure his independence and the development of his
understanding, is a curialis, and as such called upon to take
part in the administration of civic affairs.

The right of curialship, then, is attached to the presumed
capacity of filling it, and not to any privilege of birth, and
without any limit as to numbers ; and this right is not a mere
right of election, but a right to deliberate upon and to partici-
pate directly in the administration of affairs, a right to discuss
matters and interests, the comprehension of which, and the
ability to discuss which, it may reasonably be supposed that
all persons above the very lowest in the scale of existence
possess. The curia is not a limited and select town council,
but an assembly of all such inhabitants as come within the
curial qualification.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 51

2. An assembly cannot act administratively ; there must
oe magistrates to do this. Such magistrates are all elected
by the curia, for a very limited period, and are responsible
with their fortunes for the integrity of their administration.

3. In great emergencies, when the fate of a city is in ques-
tion, or when it is proposed to elect a magistrate invested with
uncertain and more arbitrary powers, the curia itself does not
suffice ; the whole population is summoned to concur in these
solemn acts.

Who, at the aspect of such rights existing, would not ima-
gine he recognized a petty republic, in which the municipal
life and the political life were mixed up and confounded to-
gether, in which democracy of the most unequivocal descrip-
tion prevailed ? Who would imagine, for one instant, that a
town so governed formed part of a great empire, and was
connected by strict and necessary bonds with a distant and
sovereign central power ? Who would not expect to find here
all the impulsive manifestations of liberty, all the agitation,
all the faction and cabal, all the violence, all the disorder,
which invariably characterize small societies, inclosed and
self-governed within their own walls ?

Nothing of the sort was the fact ; all these apparent prin-
ciples were without life, and there were others existent, which
absolutely precluded their reanimation.

1. Such are the effects, such the exigencies of the central
despotism, that the quality of curialis becomes not a right
recognized in all those who are capable of exercising it, but a
burden imposed upon all who are capable of bearing it. On
the one hand the central government has relieved itself of the
duty of providing for any branch of the public service in
which it is not immediately interested, throwing this duty
upon the class of citizens in question ; on the other hand, it
employs this class of citizens in collecting the taxes which it
imposes on its own peculiar account, and makes them respon-
sible for the full amount. It ruins the curiales, in order to
pay its functionaries and its soldiers ; it grants its functiona-
ries and its soldiers all sorts of practical advantages and privi-
leges, as inducements to them to aid it in preventing the
curiales from saving themselves from ruin. Completely null
as citizens, the curiales only live to be stripped of all they
gain as men of labor and industry.

2. The magistrates elected by the curia are, in point of
fact, merely the imperial agents of despotism, for whoso

52 HISTORY OF

benefit they despoil their fellow-citizens, until some oppxrtu
nity or other occurs to. them of getting riJ of this hard obli.
gation.

3. Their election itself is valueless, for the imperial repre.
sentative in the province may annul it; a favor which they
have the greatest desire to obtain at his hands ; another cir-
cumstance putting them more firmly in his power.

4. Their authority is not real, for they cannot enforce it.
No effective jurisdiction is placed in their hands ; they take
no step which may not be annulled. Nay, more : despotism,
perceiving more and more clearly their ill-will to the task, or
their inability to execute it, encroaches more and more, by
itself or its immediate representatives, into the sphere of their
functions. The business of the curia gradually disappears
with its powers, and a day will come when the municipal
system may be abolished at a single blow, in the still subsist-
ing empire, " because," as the legislator will say, " all these
laws wander, as it were, vainly and without object around
the legal soil."1

Thus, then, it is seen, force, real life, were equally wanting
to the curiales, as to the senatorial families ; equally with
the senatorial families, they were incapable of defending or
of governing the society.

As to the people, I need not dwell upon their situation ; it
is obvious that they were in no condition to save and regene-
rate the Roman world. Yet we must not think them alto-
gether so powerless, so utterly null, as is ordinarily supposed.
They were tolerably numerous, more especially in the south
of Gaul, both from the. development of industrial activity
during the first three ages of Christianity, and from the cir-
cumstance of a portion of the rural population taking refuge
in the towns from the devastation of the barbarians. Besides,
with the progress of disorder in the higher ranks, the popular
influence had a tendency to increase. In times of regularity,
when the administration, its functionaries, and its troops were
on the spot, ere the curia had become altogether ruined and
powerless, the people remained in their ordinary state of in-
action, or passive dependence. But when all the various
masters of the society had fallen away or disappeared, when
the dissolution of things became general, the people, in their

i Nov. 46, rendered by the Emperor of the East, Leo the Philoso-
pher, towards the close of the ninth century

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 53

turn, grew to be something, and assumed, at all events, a
certain degree of activity and importance.

I have nothing to say about the slaves ; they were nothing
for themselves ; how, then, could they do anything for
society ? It was, moreover, the coloni who underwent well
nigh all the disasters of invasion ; it was they whom the bar-
barians pillaged, hunted, carried away captive, pell-mell with
their cattle. I may remark, however, incidentally, that under
the Empire the condition of the slaves was great'.y improved ;
this is clear from its legislation.

Let us now collect all these scattered features of Gaulish
civil society in the fifth century, and form a collective idea,
as near the fact as we can, of its aggregate.

Its government was monarchical, even despotic ; and yet
all the monarchical institutions and powers were falling, were
themselves abandoning their post. Its internal organization
seemed aristocratic; but it was an aristocracy without strength,
without coherence, incapable of playing a public part. A
democratic element, municipalities, free burghers, were still
visible ; but democracy was as enervated, as powerless, as
aristocracy and monarchy. The whole of society was in a
state of dissolution, was dying.

And here we see the radical vice of the Roman society,
and of every society where slavery exists on a large scale,
where a few masters rule over whole herds of people. In all
countries, at all times, whatever the political system which
prevails, after an interval more or less long, by the sole effect
of the enjoyment of power, of wealth, of the intellectual de-
velopment, of the various social advantages they enjoy, the
higher classes wear themselves out, become enervated, unless
they are constantly excited by emulation, and refreshed by
the immigration of the classes who live and labor below them.
See what has taken place in modern Europe. There has
been in it a prodigious variety of social conditions, infinite
gradations in wealth, liberty, enlightenment, influence, civili-
zation. And up all the steps of this long ladder, an ascend-
ing movement has constantly impelled each class and all
classes, the one by the other, towards greater development,
to which none was allowed to remain a stranger. Hence the
fecundity, the immorality, so to speak, of modern civilization,
thus incessantly recruited and renewed.

Nothing at all resembling this existed in the Roman
society ; there, men were divided off into two great classes,

54 HISTORY OF

separated from each other by an itnmense interval ; there
was no variety, no ascending movement, no genuine demo-
cracy ; it was, as it were, a society of officers, who did not
know whence to recruit their numbers, and did not, in point
of fact, recruit them. There was, indeed, from the first to
the third century, as I have just now said, a progressive
movement on the part of the lower classes of the people ; they
increased in liberty, in number, in activity. But the move-
ment was far too slow, far too limited, to enable the people by
reintegrating in time the superior classes, to save them from
their decline and fall.

Besides these, there became formed another society, young,
energetic, fruitful of results, — the ecclesiastical society. It
was around this society that the people rallied ; no powerful
bond united them to the senators, nor, perhaps, to the curiales ;
they assembled, therefore, around the priests and bishops.
Alien to pagan civil society, whose chiefs created therein no
place for it, the mass of the population entered with ardor
into the Christian society, whose leaders opened their arms to
it. The senatorial and curial aristocracy was a mere phan-
tom ; the clergy became the real aristocracy ; there was no
Roman people ; a Christian people arose. It is with them
we shall occupy ourselves in the next lecture

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 56

THIRD LECTURE.

Object of the lecture — Variety of the principles and forms of religious
society in Europe — Classification of the different systems, 1. Ac-
cording to the relations of the church in the state ; 2. According to
the internal constitution of the church — All these systems assign
their origin to the primitive church — Critical examination of these
pretensions — They have all a certain degree of foundation — Fluctu-
ation and complexity of the external situation and internal position
of Christian society from the first to the fifth century — Predominant
tendencies — Prevalent facts of the fifth century — Causes of libertv
in the church at this period — The election of bishops — Councils-
Comparison of religious with civil society — Of the chiefs of these
two societies — Letters of Sidonius Apollinaris.

The subject which is now about to occupy our attention, is
the state of religious society in the fifth century. I need not
remind you of the great part it has played in the history of
modern civilization: that is a fact perfectly well understood.
Nor is it in modern history that this fact first manifested
itself; the world has seen more than one striking example of
the power of the religious society, of its ideas, its institutions,
its government. But there is a fundamental difference to be
remarked. In Asia, in Africa, in antiquity, everywhere
before the organization of Europe, religious society presents
itself under a general and simple form ; this is the clear pre-
valence of a system, the domination of a principle : sometimes
the society is subordinate ; it is the temporal power which
exercises the spiritual functions and directs the worship, and
even the faith : sometimes it occupies the chief place ; it is
the spiritual power which rules the civil order. In both the
one case and the other, the position and organization of the
religious society are clear, simple, stable. In modern Europe,
on the contrary, it presents every possible variety of system ;
we find in it every possible principle ; it seems made up of
samples of all the forms under which it has appeared else-
where.

Let us endeavor, for the sake of greater perspicuity, to
disintricate and classify the different principles, the different
Bystems which have been, in various measure, adopted into

50 HISTORY OF

European religious society, the different constitutions i has
received.

Two great questions here present themselves : on the one
hand, the exterior situation of the religious society, its position
with reference to civil society, the relations, that is to say, of
church with state ; and on the other, its interior organization,
its internal government.

With both the one and the other of these questions, we must
connect the modifications of which religious society has been
the object in the particular respect.

I will first consider its external situation, its relations with
the state.

Four systems, essentially differing from one another, have
been maintained on this subject.

1. The state is subordinate to the church ; in the moral
point of view, in the chronological order itself, the church pre
cedes the state ; the church is the first society, superior, eter-
nal ; civil society is nothing more than the consequence, than
an application of its principles ; it is to the spiritual power
that sovereignty belongs of right ; the temporal power should
merely act as its instrument.

2. It is not the state which is in the church, but the church
which is in the state : it is the state which rules the land,
which makes war, levies taxes, governs the external destiny
of the citizens. It is for the state to give to the religious
society the form and constitution which best accord with the
interests of general society. Whenever creeds cease to be
individual, whenever they give birth to associations, these
come within the cognizance and authority of the temporal
power, the only veritable power in a state.

3. The church ought to be independent, unnoticed in the
state ; the state has nothing to do with her ; the temporal
power ought to take no cognizance of religious creeds ; it
should let them approximate or separate, let them go on and
govern themselves as they think best ; it has no right, no
occasion, to interfere in their affairs.

4. The church and the state are distinct societies, it is
true ; but they are at the same time close neighbors, and
are nearly interested in one another : let them live separate,
but not estranged ; let them keep up an alliance on certain
conditions, each living to itself, but each making sacrifices
for the other, in case of need, each lending the other is
support.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 57

In the internal organization of the religious society, the
diversity of principles and forms is even still greater.

And first, we see before us two leading systems : in the one,
power is concentrated in the hands of the clergy ; the priests
alone form a constituted body ; the ecclesiastical society
governs the religious society : in the other, the religious soci-
ety governs itself, or at least participates in the administration
of its affairs ; the social organization comprehends the body
of the faithful, as well as the priests.

Government in the hands of the ecclesiastical society solely
may be constituted in various ways. 1. Under the form of
pure monarchy ; there are several examples of this in the
history of the world. 2. Under the form of an aristocracy ;
where the bishops, for instance, each in his own diocese, or
in a collective assembly, govern the church in their own right,
without the concurrence of the inferior clergy. 3. Under a
democratic form, where, for instance, the government of the
church belongs to the whole body of the clergy, to assemblies
of priests all equal among themselves.

In cases where the society governs itself, the diversity of
forms is equally great. 1. The body of the faithful, the
laity, sit with the priests in the assemblies charged with the
general government of the church. 2. There is no general
government of the church ; each congregation forms a several
local, independent church, which governs itself; whose mem-
bers select their own spiritual chief, according to their parti-
cular views and purposes. 3. There is no distinct and
permanent spiritual government at all ; no clergy, no priests ;
teaching, preaching, all the spiritual functions are exercised
by the body of the faithful themselves, according to circum-
stances, according to inspiration ; there is constant change,
constant agitation.

I might combine in an infinity of ways these various forms,
mixing their elements together in various proportions, and
thus create a host of other diversified forms, but with my
utmost ingenuity I could devise no combination which has
not already been exhibited to the world.

And not only have all these principles been professed, not
only have all these systems been maintained each as the only
true and legitimate system, but all of them have been brought
.nto practical operation, all of them have existed.

Every one knows that in the twelfth and thirteenth centu.
ries the spiritual power claimed as its right, sometimes the

58 HISTORY OF

direct exercise, sometimes the indirect nomination of the tem
poral power. Every one sees that in England, where Parlia-
ment has disposed of the faith as of the crown of the country,
the church is subordinate to the state. What are popery,
Erastianism,1 episcopacy, presbyterianism, the independents,
the quakers, but applications of the doctrines I have pointed
out ? All doctrines have become facts : there are examples
vf all systems, and of all the so varied combinations of sys-
tems. And not only have all systems been realized, but they
have, every one of them, set up a claim to historical as well
as to rational legitimacy ; they have, every one of them, re-
ferred their origin to the earliest age of the Christian church ;
they have, every one of them, claimed ancient facts for their
own, as their own peculiar foundation and justification.

Nor are they wholly wrong any of them ; we find in the
first ages of the age, facts with which all of them are entitled
to claim a connexion. I do not mean to say that they are all
alike true, rationally, all alike authentic, historically, nor that
they all represent a series of different facts, through which
the church has necessarily passed. What I mean is simply,
that there is in each of these systems a greater or less pro-
portion of moral truth and of historical reality. They have
all played a part, have occupied a place, in the history of
modern religious history : they have all, in various measure,
contributed to the work of its formation.

I will view them successively in the first ages of the church ;
we shall have no difficulty in tracing them there.

Let us first consider the external situation of the church,
and its relations with civil society.

As to the system of a church, independent, unnoticed in
the state, existing and governing itself without the interven-
tion of the temporal power, this is evidently the primitive
situation of the Christian church. So long as it was con-
fined within a limited space, or disseminated only in small
and isolated congregations, the Roman government took no
notice of it, and allowed it to exist and regulate its affairs as
it thought proper.

This state of things terminated : the Roman empire took
cognizance of the Christian society ; I do not refer to the

1 The system in which the church is governed by the state, so
named from Erastus, a German theologian and physician of the 16th
century, who first maintained this principle with any distinguished
effect

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 59

peiiod when it took notice of it in the way of persecution, but
to that when the Roman world became Christian, when
Christianity ascended the throne with Constantine. The po-
sition of the church with reference to the state underwent
a great change at this epoch. It were incorrect to say that
it fell at this period under the government of the church,
that the system of its subordination to power then came into
operation. In general, the emperors did not pretend to regu-
late the faith ; they took the doctrines of the church as they
found them. The majority of the questions which, at a later
period, excited the rivalship of the two powers, had not as yet
arisen. Still, even at this period, we meet with a great
number of facts wherein the system of the sovereignty of the
state over the church might have sought, and has, indeed,
sought its origin. Towards the close of the third and the
commencement of the fourth century, for instance, the bishops
observed an extremely humble and submissive tone with the
emperors ; they were incessantly exalting the imperial ma-
jesty. Doubtless, had it attempted to assail the independence
of their faith, they would have defended themselves, as, in
point of fact, they often did defend themselves, with energy ;
but they were greatly in need of the emperors' protection so
recently extended to them. But just recognized and adopted
by the temporal power, they were anxious to treat it with the
utmost respect and consideration. Besides, they could do
nothing of themselves ; the religious society, or rather its
government, had at this epoch no means of carrying its will
into execution ; it had no institutions, no rules, no system ; it
was constantly obliged to have recourse to the intervention of
the civil government, the ancient and only organized authority.
This continual necessity for a foreign sanction gave religious
society an air of subordination and dependence, more apparent
than real ; at bottom, its independence and even its power
were considerable, but still, in almost all its affairs, in all
matters affecting the interest of the church, the emperor in-
terfered ; his consent and approbation were invariably solicited.
The councils were generally assembled by his order ; and
not only did he convene them, but he presided over them,
either in person or by deputy, and decided what subjects
should be discussed by them. Thus Constantine was present
in person at the council of Aries, in 314, and at the council
of Nicea, in 325, and, apparently at least, superintended the
deliberations. I say apparently ; for the mere presence of

60 HISTORY OF

the emperor at a council was a triumph for the church, a
proof of victory far more than of subjection. But however
this may have been, the forms, at all events, were those of
respectful subordination ; the church availed herself of the
power of the Empire, covered herself with its majesty ; and
Erastianism, independently of the national grounds upon
which it proceeds, has found, in the history of this epoch,
facts which have served as its justification.

As to the opposite system, the general and absolute sove-
reignty of the church, it is clear that it cannot be met with in
the cradle of a religious society ; it necessarily belongs to the
period of its greatest power, of its fullest development. Yet
one may already detect glimpses of it, and very distinct
glimpses, in the fifth century. The superiority of spiritual
over temporal interests, of the destiny of the believer as com-
pared with that of the mere citizen, the principle enunciated
by the religious society, was already recognized and admitted
by the civil society.

We accordingly find the language of the heads of the spi-
ritual society, erewhile so gentle, so reserved, so modest, now
becoming confident, bold, often even haughty ; whilst, on the
other hand, that of the chiefs of the civil society, of the supe-
riors themselves, despite the pomp still clinging round it3
forms, is in reality mild and submissive. At this period, in-
deed, the whole framework of temporal power was in a state
of rapid decay ; the Empire was expiring ; the imperial
power was day by day more and more nearly approaching
the condition of an utter, of a ridiculous nonentity. The
spiritual power, on the contrary, grew stronger and stronger,
and penetrated more deeply and widely into civil society ; the
church became more wealthy, her jurisdiction more extended ;
she was visibly progressing towards domination. The com-
plete fall of the Empire in the west, and the rise of the bar-
barous monarchies, contributed greatly to the exaltation of
her pretensions and of her power. The church had long been
under the emperors, obscure, feeble, a mere child, so to speak ;
she had thence acquired a sort of reserve in her intercourse
with them ; a habit of respect for their ancient power, their
name ; and it is quite possible that had the Empire continued
to exist, the church would never have completely emanci-
pated herself from this custom of her youth. What corrobo-
rates this supposition is the fact that such has been the case in
the eastern Empire ; that Empire lived on fc r twelve centu

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 61

ries id a state of gradual decay ; the imperial power became
little more than nominal. Yet the church there never attained,
never even sought to attain the sovereignty. The Greek
church remained, with the eastern emperors, in nearly the
same relation in which the Romish church stood with the
Roman emperors. In the west, the Empire fell ; kings co-
vered with furs took the place of princes clothed in purple ;
the church yielded not to these new comers the same conside-
ration, the same respect which she had paid to their predeces-
sors. Moreover, to contend successfully against their barba-
rism, she found herself under the necessity of stretching to
its utmost bent the spring of spiritual power : the exaltation
of popular feeling in this direction, was her means of safety
and of action. Hence the so rapid progress now of those
pretensions of hers to the sovereignty, which in the fifth cen-
tury were scarce perceptible.

As to the system of alliance between the two distinct and
independent societies, it is not difficult to recognize it at this
period ; there was nothing precise or fixed in the conditions
of the alliance ; the two powers never continued long upon
equal terms under them ; they kept each in its owa sphere,
and treated together whenever they happened to come in con-
tact.

We find, then, from the first to the fifth century, in germ
and in development, all the systems according to which the
relations between church and state may be regulated ; they
all of them derive their origin from facts dating from the cradle
of religious society. Let us pass on to the interior organiza-
tion of this society, to the internal government of the church ;
we shall arrive at the same result.

It is clear that this last form cannot be that of an infant
church ; no moral association begins with the inertia of the
mass of those associated, with the separation of the people and
the government. It is certain, accordingly, that at the out-
set of Christianity, the body of the faithful participated in the
administration of the affairs of the society. The presbyterian
jystem, that is to say, the government of the church by its
spiritual chiefs, assisted by the leading members of the body,
was the primitive system. There may be many questions
raised as to the titles, functions, and mutual relations of these
lay and ecclesiastical chiefs of the rising congregations ; but
as to the fact of their concurrence in the regulation of th©»r
common affairs, there can be no doubt.

•2 HISTORY OF

Equally unquestionable Is it that at this period the separate
societies, the Christian congregations in each town, were far
more independent of each other than they have been at any
subsequent time ; there is no doubt that they governed
themselves, perhaps not completely, but almost so, each for
itself, and apart from the rest. Hence the system of the
Independents, who insist that the religious society should
have no general government, but that each local congrega-
tion should be an entire and sovereign society in itself.

No doubt, again, that in these petty Christian societies of
early date, unconnected with one another, and often without
the means of preaching and teaching, no doubt that in the
absence of a spiritual leader instituted by the original founder
of ti.e faith, it often occurred that, under the influence of an
inward impulse, some individual member of the body, of
strong mind, and endowed with the gift of acting upon his
fellows, ai'ose and preached the word to the association to
which he belonged. Hence the system of the Quakers, the
system of spontaneous individual preaching, without any
order of priests, of regular and permanent clergy.

These are some of the principles, some of the forms of the
religious societies in the first age of the Christian church
It comprehended many others ; perhaps, indeed, those whicl"
I have mentioned were not the most powerful in their in-
fluence.

In the first place, it is incontestable that the first founders,
or, more correctly speaking, the first instruments in the foun-
dation of Christianity, the apostles, regarded themselves as
invested with a special mission received from on high, and
that they in turn transmitted to their disciples by the laying
on of hands, or in some other form, the right to teach and
;o preach. Ordination is a primitive fact in the Christian
church ; hence an order of priests, a distinct permanent clergy,
invested with peculiar functions, duties, and rights.

Let us turn to another primitive fact. The particular con-
gregations were, it is true, isolated ; but the tendency of them
all was to unite, to live under one common discipline as
under one common faith ; it was the tendency, the aim,
natural to every society in progress of self-formation ; it is
the necessary condition of its extension, of its firm establish-
ment.

Approximation, assimilation of the various elements, move-
ment towards unity, such is the regular course cf creation.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 63

The first propagators of Christianity, the apostles or theii
disciples, preserved, moreover, over the most distant congre-
gations a certain amount of authority, a remote but effica-
cious superintendence. They took care to form and to main-
tain ties not only of moral brotherhood, but of organizations
between the particular churches. Hence a constant tendency
toward a general government of the churches, an identical
and permanent constitution.

It appears to me perfectly clear that in the minds of the
first Christians, in their common and simple feeling, the
apostles were regarded as superior to their disciples, and tne
immediate disciples of the apostles as superior to their suc-
cessors ; a superiority purely moral, not established as an
institution, but real and admitted. In it we have the first
germ, the religious germ of the episcopal system. That
system derives also from another source. The towns into
which Christianity had made its way, were very unequal in
population, in wealth, in importance ; and the inequality in
intellectual development, in moral power, was as great as
the material inequality. There was, consequently, an ine-
quality likewise in the distribution of influence among the
spiritual heads of the congregations. The chiefs of the
more important, of the more enlightened towns, naturally
took the lead and exercised an authority, at first moral, then
institutional, over the minor congregations within a certain
circle around them. This was the political germ of the
episcopal system.

Thus, at the same time that we recognize in the primitive
state of the religious society the association of lay-members
with the priests in the government, that is to say, the Presby-
terian system ; the isolation of the particular congregations,
that is to say, the system of the Independents ; free, sponta-
neous, casual preaching, that is to say, the system of the
Quakers : on the other hand, we see rising up in opposition to
the system of the Quakers, an order of priests, a permanent
clergy ; in opposition to the system of the Independents, a
general government of the church ; in opposition to the Pres-
byterian system, the principle of inequality among the priests
themselves, the Episcopal system.

How have these principles, so various, so contrary to each
other, become developed ? To what causes have been owing
he abasement of one, the elevation of another 1 And, first,
how was the transition from a government, shared by the body

04 HISTORY OF

of the faithful, to a government vested in the clergy alone, ac
complished ? By what progress did the religious society pass
under the empire of the ecclesiastical society 1

In the revolution by which this change was effected, the
ambition of the clergy, personal interests, human passions, had
a large share. I do not seek to under-estimate its proportion.
It is quite undeniable that all these causes contributed to the
result which now occupies our attention ; but yet, had there
been only these causes at work, the result would never have
been realized. I have already observed, and it is a remark 1
repeat on all available occasions, that no great event is accom-
plished by causes altogether illegitimate. Beneath these, or at
their side, there are always legitimate causes in operation,
good and sound reasons why an important fact should be ac-
complished. We have here a fresh example of this.

It is, I believe, a clear principle — a principle generally
established — that participation in power presupposes the moral
capacity to exercise it ; where the capacity is wanting, par-
ticipation in power comes to an end, as a matter of course .N
The right to exercise it continues virtually to reside in human
nature ; but it slumbers, or rather rests only in germ, in per-
spective, until the capacity needed developes itself, and then it
awakens and developes itself with the capacity.

You will remember what I said in our last lecture, as to the
state of Roman civil society in the fifth century. I endea-
vored to describe its profound decay. You saw the aris-
tocratic classes perishing away, their numbers immensely re-
duced, their influence gone — their virtue gone.

Whosoever amongst them possessed any energy, any moral
activity, entered into the body of the Christian clergy. There
remained, in point of fact, only the mere populace, the plebs
romana, who rallied around the priests and the bishops, and
formed the Christian people.

Between this people and its new chiefs, between religious
society and ecclesiastical society, the inequality was extremely
great ; an inequality not only in wealth, in influence, in social
situation, but in information, in intellectual and moial develop-
ment. And the more Christianity, by the mere fact of its con-
tinuous duration, developed itself, extended itself, elevated
itself, the more this inequality increased and manifested itself.
The questions of faith and doctrine became, year after year,
more complex and more difficult of solution ; the rules of
church discipline, her relations with civil society, in like

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 65

manner grew more extensive and complicated ; so that in
order to take part in the administration of its affairs, there
vvas requisite, from epoch to epoch, a greater and still greater
development of mind, of learning, of character ; in a word,
moral conditions more and more elevated, more and more dif-
ficult to be met with ; and yet, such was the general disorder
in society, such the universal calamity of the period, that the
moral condition of the people, instead of growing better, and
of a higher character, fell lower and lower every day.

We have here, after having made every allowance for the
part taken in the change by human passions and personal in-
terests, we have here, I say, the true cause which transferred
religious society to the empire of ecclesiastical society, which
took all power from the body of the faithful and gave it to the
clergy alone.

Let us inquire how this second revolution, of which we
have seen the origin, was worked out. How, in the very
bosom of ecclesiastical society, power passed from the priests
to the bishops.

We have here an important distinction to observe : the po-
sition of the bishops in their diocese, and in relation to the
general government of the church, was, in the fifth century,
no longer what it had been. Within his diocese, the bishop
did not govern by his sole authority ; he required the concur-
rence and assent of his clergy. This, indeed, was not an
absolute institution: the fact was not regulated in any fixed
manner, nor according to permanent forms ; but the existence
of the fact is manifested by every document connected with
urban or diocesan administration. The words, cum assensu
clericorum, constantly recur in the monuments of the period.
In questions, however, concerning the general government,
whether of the ecclesiastical province, or of the church at
large, the case was different ; the bishops alone attended the
councils, as representatives of this government ; when simple
priests appeared there it was as delegates of their bishops.
The general government of the church at this period was
entirely episcopal.

You must not, however, attach to the words which havo
just occurred, the meaning which they assumed at a later pe-
riod : you must not imagine that each bishop went to the
councils solely on his own account, in virtue of his o f/n right.
He went there as the representative of his clergy. The idea
'hat the bishop, the natural chief of his priests, should speak

66 HISTORY OF

and act everywhere on their behalf, and in their name, was a
this period prevalent in all minds, in the minds of the bishops
themselves, and limited their power, while it practically served
as a ladder whereby they ascended higher and higher, and
gradually emancipated themselves from control.

Another cause, and one perhaps still more decisive, limited
the councils to the bishops alone ; this was the small number
of priests, and the consequent inconvenience which would
have arisen from their too frequent absence from their posts.
To judge merely Irom the great part which they play, and,
permit me the expression, from the noise which they make in
the fifth century, one is disposed to imagine the priests a very
numerous body. Such was not at all the case : we have posi-
tive indications, historical proofs, which show the contrary.
In the commencement of the fifth century, for instance, we
meet with a question as to the number of the priests at Rome ;
and we find it mentioned, as an illustration of the peculiar
wealth and importance of that city, that she possessed eighty
churches and seventy-seven priests.

The indirect proofs we have supply the same conclusions ;
the acts of the councils of the fourth and fifth centuries are
full of canons prohibiting a simple clerk from going into any
other diocese than his own to be ordained ; a priest from quit-
ting his diocese to perform duty elsewhere, or eyen from tra-
velling at all without the consent of his bishop. \ All sorts of
means were adopted for keeping the priests in their own im-
mediate district ; they were watched with a care amounting
to the oppressive, so limited was their number, so anxious
were the other bishops to get possession of them. After the
pstablishment of the barbarian monarchies, the Frank or Bur-
gundian kings, the rich and more notable chiefs, were con-
stantly endeavoring to seduce from each other those compa-
nions, those leudes, those anstrustions, who constituted their
immediate train, their select guard : the barbarian laws are
full of enactments intended to check these attempts. We find
the kings constantly undertaking, in their mutual treaties, not
to invite to their courts, nor even to receive, their respective
leudes. The ecclesiastical legislation of the fourth and fifth
centuries exhibits similar regulations with respect to the
priests, doubtless, on the same grounds.

1 See the canons of the councils of Aries, in 314 ; of Turin, in 397
»f Aries, in 450 ; of Tours, in 461

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 67

It was therefore a very serious affair for a priest to quit on
a distant mission the church to which he was attached ; it was
difficult to replace him — the service of religion suffered in his
absence. The establishment of the representative system, in
church as in state, presupposes a sufficient body of men to
admit of one easily supplying the place of another upon occa-
sion, and of their moving about without inconvenience to them-
selves or to the society. Such was not the case in the fifth
century ; and in order to have procured the attendance at
councils of the priests, indemnification and coercive measures
might perhaps have been necessary, as they were for a long
time necessary in England, to bring the citizens to parliament.
Everything, therefore, tended to transfer the government of
the church to the bishops ; and, accordingly, in the fifth cen-
tury, the episcopal system was almost in full operation.

As to the system of pure monarchy, the only one upon
which we have not as yet remarked, because it is a system
which facts have not as yet presented to us, it was very far
from dominating at this epoch, or even from claiming to do-
minate ; and the most practised sagacity, the most ardent
aspirations of personal ambition, could not then have foreseen
its future destinies. Not that but we see, even thus early,
the papacy increasing daily in consideration and influence ;
it is impossible to read with impartiality the monuments of
the period, without perceiving that, from every part of Europe,
applications were constantly being made to the bishop of
Rome for his opinion, nay, his decision, in matters of faith,
of discipline, in the trials of bishops, in a word, upon all the
great occasions wherein the church is interested. Very
often, indeed, it was merely an opinion for which he was asked ;
and when he had given it, those of the interested parties who
disapproved of his judgment, refused to abide by it; but, on
the other hand, it was supported by a more or less powerful
party, and, as a general result, his preponderance became
more and more decided after every one of their appeals.
There were two causes which more especially contributed to
produce these references to the bishop of Rome : on the one
hand, the patriarchate principle still held sway in the church j
above bishops and archbishops, with privileges more nominal
than real, but still generally admitted in theory, there was a
patriarch presiding. The east had several patriarchs, thfc
patriarch of Jerusalem, the patriarch of Antioch, the patri-
irch of Constantinople, of Alexandria. In the west there

88 HISTORY OF

Was but one patnarch, the bishop of Rome ; and this circum
stance had a great share in the exclusive elevation of the
papacy. The tradition, moreover, that St. Peter had been
bishop of Rome, and the idea that the popes were his suc-
cessors, already strongly possessed the minds of the western
Christians.

We thus clearly trace, in the first five ages, the historical
foundations of all the systems which have been cited or ap-
plied, both as to the internal organization, and as to the exter-
nal position of the religious society. These systems are far
from being of the same importance ; some of them have only
appeared, in passing, as mere transitory, accidental circum-
stances ; the others have remained for a long time in germ,
Save developed themselves slowly and deliberately ; they are
of different dates, and, as I have said, of very various import-
ance ; but they are all connected with some fact, they can all
cite some authority.

When we seek what principles prevailed amidst this variety
of principles, what great results were accomplished in the
fifth century, we discover the following facts : —

1. The separation of the religious society and of the eccle-
siastical society : a result more especially due to the extreme
intellectual and social inequality which existed between the
people and the Christian clergy.

2. The predominance of the aristocratic system in the in-
terior organization of the ecclesiastical society : the interven-
tion of simple priests in the government of the church became
less and less frequent, less and less influential ; power con-
centrated itself more and more in the hands of the bishops.

3. Finally, as to the relations of the religious society with
the civil society of the church, with the state, the system in
force was that of alliance, of intercourse between powers
distinct, but in perpetual contact with each other.

These are the three great features which characterize the
state of the church at the commencement of the fifth century.
At the bare statement of them, in their general appearance
alone, it is impossible not to perceive the germs of danger,
on the one hand, in the bosom of the religious society, to the
liberty of the body of the faithful, and in the bosom of the
ecclesiastical society to the liberty of the body of the clergy.
The almost exclusive predominance of the priests over the
faithful, and of the bishops over the priests, gave clear pre-
sage of the abuses of power and of the disorders of revolu.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 69

tions. The men of the fifth century, however, though they
might well have conceived such fears, had no notion what-
ever of them ; the Christian society of that period was wholly
absorbed in regulating itself, in constituting itself a fixed and
determinate body ; it required, beyond all things, order, law,
government ; and despite the dangerous tendency of some of
the principles which then prevailed, the liberties, both of the
people in the religious society, and of the simple priests in
the ecclesiastical society, were not without reality and secur-
ity. •

The first consisted in the election of the bishops, a fact
which I need not seek to establish, for it is perfectly self-
evident, to any one who but glances over the monuments of
the period. This election was conducted neither according
to general rules, nor with permanent forms ; it was altogether
irregular, various, and influenced by fortuitous circumstances.
In 374, the bishop of Milan, Auxentius, an Arian in his
opinions, being dead, his successor was about to be elected in
the cathedral.

The people, the clergy, the bishops of the province, were
all there, and all very animated ; the two parties, the orthodox
and the Arians, each wished to nominate a bishop. The
tumult ended in a violent confusion. A governor had just
arrived at Milan, in the name of the emperor ; he was a young
man named Ambrose. Informed of the tumult, he repaired
to the church in order to quiet it ; his words, his air, were
pleasing to the people. He had a good reputation : a voice
arose in the midst of the church — according to tradition, the
voice of a child ; it cried, " Let Ambrose be nominated
bishop !" And, forthwith, Ambrose was nominated bishop ;
he afterwards became Saint Ambrose.

This is an example of the manner in which episcopal elec-
tions were still made at the end of the fourth century. It is
true they were not all so disorderly and sudden ; but these
characteristics did not shock or astonish any one, and the day
following his elevation, Saint Ambrose was acknowledged by
all to be properly elected. Would you wish that we should
look to a posterior epoch, to the end of the fifth century, for
example ? I open the collection of the letters of Sidonius
Apollinarius, the most curious, and, at the same time, the most
authentic monument of the manners of that time, especially
the manners of religious society ; Sidonius was bishop of
Clermont ; he himself collected and revised his letters ; what

18

70 HISTORY OF

we find there written is exactly what he wished to bequeath
to posterity. Here is a letter which he addressed to hia
friend Domnulus.

" SIDONIUS TO HIS DEAR DOMNULUS ; HEALTH.

" Since you desire to know what our father in Christ,
the Pontiff Patient,2 with his customary piety and firmness,
has dene at Chalons, I can no longer delay causing you
to share our great joy. He arrived in this town, partly
preceded and partly followed by the bishops of the province,
assembled, in order to give a chief to the church of this city,
so troubled and unsteady in its discipline since the retire-
ment and death of bishop Paul.

" The assembly found various factions in the town, all those
private intrigues which can never be formed but to the detri-
ment of public welfare, and which were excited by a trium-
virate of competitors. One of them, destitute of all virtue,
made a parade of his antique race ; another, like a new Apicius,
got himself supported by the applause and clamors of noisy
parasites, gained by the agency of his kitchen ; a third engaged
himself by a secret bargain, if he attained the object of his
ambition, to abandon the domains of the church to the pillage
of his partisans. Saint Patient and Saint Euphronius,3 who,
setting aside all aversion and all favor, were the first to
maintain firmly and rigidly the most sound views, were not
long in learning the state of things. Before manifesting
anything in public, they first held counsel in secret with the
bishops their colleagues ; then, braving the cries of a mob
of furies, they suddenly nominated, without his having formed
any desire or having any idea of being elected, a pious man
named John, commendable from his honesty, charity, and
mildness. John had first been a reader, and had served at
the altar from his infancy ; after much time and labor, he
became an archdeacon. . . . He was, therefore, a priest only
of the second order, and amidst these furious factions no
one exalted by his praise a man who asked nothing ; but
neither did any one dare to accuse a man who merited only
eulogies. Our bishops have proclaimed him their colleague.

1 Book IV.. Letter 25 a Bishop of Lyons.

* Bishop of Autun.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 7i

to the great astonishment of the intriguers, to the extreme
confusion of the wicked, but with the acclamations of good
men, and without any person daring or wishing to oppose
him."

Just now we were at a popular election ; here is one equally
irregular and unforeseen, brought about at once, in the midst
of the people, by two pious bishops. Here is a third, if pos-
sible, still more singular. Sidonius himself is at once the
narrator and actor of it.

The bishop of Bourges was dead : such was the ardor ol
the competitors and their factions, that the town was thrown
into disorder by them, and could find no means of coming tc
a decision. The inhabitants of Bourges thought of address-
ing themselves to Sidonius, illustrious throughout Gaul for
his birth, wealth, eloquence, and knowledge, long since in-
vested with the highest civil functions, and recently nomi-
nated bishop of Clermont. They begged him to" choose
them a bishop, almost in the same way as, in the infancy of
the Greek republics, the people, tired of civil storms and its
own powerlessness, sought a foreign sage to give them laws.
Sidonius, rather surprised at first, nevertheless consented,
assured himself of the concurrence of the bishops, who would
have to ordain the person whom he alone had the charge of
electing, and repairing to Bourges, assembled the people in the
cathedral. I will cite the letter in which he gives an account
of the whole affair to Perpetuus, bishop of Tours, and sends
him the discourse which he pronounced in this assembly •
they are both rather lengthy ; but this mixture of rhetoric and
religion, these literary puerilities amidst the mast animateo
scenes of real life, this confusion of the bel esprit and of the
bishop, make this singular society better known than all the-
dissertations in the world ; this society at once old and young
in decline and in progress : I shall only here and there omit a
passage without interest.

SIDONIUS TO THE LORD POPE PERPETUUS : HEALTH

" In your zeal for spiritual reading, you go so far as to
wish to become acquainted with writings which are not iD
any way worthy of your attention, or of exercising your judg.

1 Book VII.. Letter 9.

72 HISTORY OF

ment. You thus ask me to send you the discourse which 1
delivered in the church to the people of Bourges, a discourse
to which neither the divisions of rhetoric, nor the movements
of the oratorical art, nor grammatical figures, have lent
fitting elegance or regularity ; for on this occasion I was
unable to combine, according to the general usage of orators,
the grave testimonies of history, the fictions of poets, the
flashes of controversy. The seditions, cabals, and differences
of parties, hurried me away ; and if the occasion furnished
me with ample materials, affairs did not allow me time to
rweditate upon them. There was such a crowd of competitors,
that two benches could not accommodate all the candidates
for a single see ; all were pleasing to themselves, and each
displeasing to the rest. We could not even have done any-
thing for the common good, if the people, more calm, had
not renounced its own judgment in order to submit itself to
that of the bishops. A few priests whispered in a corner,
but in public not a sound of disapprobation was heard from
them, for the greater part dreaded their own order no less
than the other orders. . . . Accept, then, this sheet : I have
dictated it, Christ is witness, in two watches of a summer
night ; but I much fear that in reading it you will think more
of it than I propose.

" THE DISCOURSE.

" Dearly beloved, profane history reports that a certain
philosopher taught his disciples patience in keeping silence,
before he disclosed to them the art of speaking, and that for this
purpose all novices observed a rigorous silence for five years,
amid the discussion of their co-disciples ; so that the most
prompt minds could not be praised until a suitable time
had elapsed for them to be understood. With regard to my-
self, my weakness is reserved for a very different condition, I
who, before having filled with any man the more humble func-
tion of disciple, see myself obliged to undertake with you
the task of doctor.1 . . . But since it is your pleasure in your
error, to wish that I, devoid of wisdom, should seek for
you, with the aid of Christ, a bishop full of wisdom, and
in whose person all kinds of virtues are to be united, know

» Sidonius had just been nominated bishop; towards the end of 471.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 78

that your agreement in this desire, while it does me great
honor, also imposes upon me a great burden. . . .

"And first, it is necessary, that you should know what
torrents of injuries await me, and to what hayings of human
voices the crowd of pretenders will give way against you. . .
If I should nominate one from among the monks, if he
were even comparable with Paul, with Auton, Hilarius, or
Macarius, already do I feel resounding round my ears the
noisy murmurs of an ignoble crowd of pigmies who complain,
saying : f he they have nominated, fills the functions, not of
a bishop, but of an abbot ; he is far more fitted to intercede
for souls with the celestial judge, than for bodies before the
judges upon earth.' Who will not be profoundly irritated,
at seeing the most sincere virtues represented as vices ? If
we select an humble man, they will call him abject ; if
we select one of a proud character they will treat him as
haughty ; if we propose a man with but little enlightenment,
his ignorance will bring ridicule upon him ; if, on the con-
trary, he is a scholar, his learning will be called puffed up
pride ; if he be austere, they will hate him as cruel ; if he be
indulgent, they will accuse him of too great facility ; if simple,
they will disdain him as a beast ; if full of penetration,
they will reject him as cunning ; if he be exact, they will
call him peddling ; if easy, they will call him negligent ; if he
has an astute mind, they will declare he is ambitious ; if
tranquil in his manner, they will reckon him lazy ; if sober,
they will take him to be avaricious ; if he eat in order to
nourish himself, they will accuse him of gormandizing ; if he
fast regularly, they will tax him with ostentation. . . . Thus,
in whatever manner one lives, good conduct and good quali-
ties will always be abandoned to the keen tongues of slander,
which resemble hooks with two barbs. And moreover, the
people in its stubbornness, the priests in their indocility, are
with difficulty brought under monastic discipline.

" If I nominate a priest, those who have been ordained after
him will be jealous, those who have been ordained before him
will defame him ; for among them there are some (and be it
said without offence to others) who think that the length of the
duration of priesthood is the only measure of merit, and who
consequently wish, that in the election of a prelate we should
proceed not with a view to the common welfare, but accord-
ing to age . . .

" If, bv change, I were to point out to you a man who had

74 HISTORY OF

filled military offices, 1 should soon hear these words : " Sido
nius, because he has passed from the secular functions to the
spiritual, will not take a man from the religious order for a
bishop ; proud of his birth, raised to the first rank by the in-
signia of his dignities, he scorns the poor in Christ.' It is for
this reason that I at once make the declaration which I owe,
not so much to the charity of good people, as to the suspicions
of the wicked. In the name of the Holy Spirit, our Almighty
God, who, by the voice of Peter, condemned Simon the ma-
gician for having thought that the grace of the Holy Ghost
could be bought with gold, I declare that, in the choice of the
man whom I believed most worthy, I have not been influenced
by either money or favor ; and that, after having examined
as much and even more than was necessary, the individual,
the time, the province, and the town, I have judged that he
who was the best suited to be given to you, is the man whose
life I shall review in a few words.

" Simplicius, blessed of God, answers to the wishes of the
two orders both by his conduct and profession; the republic
may find in him much to admire, the church much to cherish.
If we would bear respect to birth (and the Evangelist himself
has proved to us that this consideration must not be neglected,
for Luke, in beginning the eulogy of John, reckons it a great
advantage that he descended from a sacerdotal race), the rela-
tions of Simplicius have presided in the church and in the tri-
bunals ; his family has been illustrious in bishops and pre-
lates ; so that his ancestors have always been in possession of
the power of carrying out the laws, both human and divine . . .
If we look to his age, he has at once all the activity of youth
and the prudence of age ... If charity be desired, he has
shown it in profusion to the citizen, the priest, and the pilgrim,
to the common people as to the great ; and his bread has been
more frequently and the rather tasted by him who gave nothing
in return. If the fulfilment of a mission be necessary, more
than once has Simplicius presented himself for your town,
before kings covered with ermine and before princes adorned
with purple. . . I had almost forgotten to speak of a thing
which, notwithstanding, should not be omitted. Formerly, in
those ancient times of Moses, according to the Psalmist, when
it was necessary to elevate the ark of the covenant, all Israel,
in the desert, heaped the produce of its offerings at the feet of
Beseleel. Afterwards, Solomon, in order to construct the
temple of Jerusalem, put in motion the whole force of th«

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 7ft

people, although he had united the gifts of the queen of the
southern country of Saba to the riches of Palestine, and to the
tributes of the neighboring kings. Simplicius, young, a sol-
dier, unaided, still under the paternal roof, though already a
father, has also constructed you a church ; he was arrested in
his pious work, neither by the attachment of old men to their
property, nor by consideration for his young children ; and
still his modesty is such that he has kept silence upon this
subject. And in fact, if I do not deceive myself, this man
is a stranger to all popular ambition ; he seeks not the favoi
of all, but only that of good men ; he does not lower himself
to an imprudent familiarity, but he attaches a high value to
solid friendships. . . . Lastly, he should especially be desired
for a bishop, because* he is not in the least desirous of it; he
iabors not to obtain the priesthood, but to deserve it.

" Some one will, perhaps, say to me, But how, in so short a
time, have you learned so much concerning this man ? I will
answer him : I knew the inhabitants of Bourges before know-
ing the town. I have learnt much of them on my road, in the
military service, in the relations of money and affairs, in their
travels and mine. One also learns much of things from pub-
lic opinion, for nature does not confine fame to the narrow
limits of a particular country.

" The wife of Simplicius descends from the family of the
Palladii, who have occupied professorships of letters and
served altars, with the approbation of their order ; and as the
character of a matron should only be called back succinctly
and with modesty, I shall content myself with affirming that
this lady worthily responds to the merit and honors of the two
families, whether of that where she was born and has grown
up, or of that into which she has passed by an honorable
choice. Both bring up their sons worthily and with all wis-
dom, and the father, in comparing them with himself, finds a
new subject of happiness that his children already surpass
himself.

" And since you have sworn to acknowledge and accept my
declaration upon the subject of this election, in the name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Simplicius is ho
whom I declare bishop of our province, and sovereign pontiff
of your town. With regard to yourselves, if you adopt my
decision concerning the man whom I have been speaking of
approve it conformably to your first engagements."

It is needless to add more ; these three examples are full)

76

HISTORY OF

sufficient thoroughly to explain what the election of nishops
was in the fifth century. Without doubt it possessed none of
the characteristics of a veritable constitution ; devoid of rules,
of permanent and legal forms, abandoned to the chance of
circumstances and passions, it was not one of those powerful
liberties before which a long future opens itself, but, for the
time being, it was a genuine reality ; it led to a great move-
ment in the interior of cities ; it was an efficacious guarantee.

There was a second, the frequent holding of councils. The
general government of the church, at this epoch, was com-
pletely in the hands of the councils — general, national, pro-
vincial councils. They there discussed questions of faith and
discipline, the actions of bishops, all the great or difficult
affairs of the church. In the course of the fourth century, we
find fifteen councils, and in the fifth century twenty-five ;x and
these are only the principal councils, those of which written
notices have been left ; there were certainly besides a large
number of local councils, of short duration, which have left no
monument, of which even the recollection is lost.

An indirect evidence shows the importance of councils at
this epoch. Every one knows that, in England, in the origin
of representative government, at the time of the formation of
the House of Commons, many statutes were made, prescribing

1 List oftheprincipxl Councils of the Fourth Century.

Date.

Place.

Present.

314

346
353
355
356
358
358
360
362
374
385
380
386
387
397

Aries ....

Cologne . .
Aries ....
Poitiers ....
Beziers . .
Vaison ....
Place unknown .
Place unknown .
Paris ....
Valencia . . .
Bordeaux . . .
Tr6ves ....
Place unknown .
Nimes ....
Turin . ...

C 33 bishops, 14 priests, 25 deacons,

I 8 "eaders or exorcists.

14 bishops, 10 delegate priests

The bishops of Gaul.

Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
21 bishops.

r

The bishops of Gaol. h

!

15

)

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE.

77

the regular and frequent holding of parliaments. The same
fact appears, at the fifth century, with regard to councils
Many canons — among others, those of the council of Orange,
held in 441 — enact that a council, shall never separate with-
out indicating the following council and that, if the misfortunes
of the times prevent them from holding a council twice a
year, according to the canons, all possible precautions shall
be taken to insure that no long period shall elapse with-
out one.

Thus the two great guarantees of liberty in society, election
and discussion, existed, in fact, in the ecclesiastical society
of the fifth century — disordered, it is true, incomplete, preca-
rious, as after times have clearly proved, for the time being,
real and powerful, at once the cause and the evidence of the
movement and ardor of mind.

List of the principal Councils of the Fifth Century.

Date.

406
419
429
439
441
442
444
451
452
452
453
454
455
460
461

463
465
470
472
474
475
475
495
496
499

25

Place.

Toulouse . .
Valencia . .
Place uncertain
Riez . . .
Orange . .
Vaison . . .
Place uncertain
Place uncertain
Aries . . .
Narbonne . .
Angers. . .
Bourges •. .
Aries . . .
Lyons . . .
Tours . . .

Aries . . .
Vannes . . .
Chalons-sur-Saone
Bourges . .
Vienne . ,
Aries . .

Lyons
Lyons
Reims
Lyons

Present.

The bishops of Gaul.
Ibid.

13 bishops, 1 delegate priest.
16 bishops, 1 priest.

44 bishops.

The bishops of Narbonnensis prima.

8 bishops.

The bishops of Gaul.

13 bishops.

8 bishops, 1 delegate priest

1 bishop, subscribed afterwards.

19 bishops.

6 bishops.

The bishops of the Lyonnese.

30 bishops

8 bishops.

78 HISTORY OF

Now, let us put this state of the religious society by the
side of the civil society which I endeavored to picture in our
last meeting. I shall not stay to deduce the consequence?
of this comparison ; they hasten before the eyes, and alreadj
must be recognized. I shall recapitulate them thus :

In the civil society, there is no people nor government ;
the imperial administration is fallen, the senatorial aristocracy
is fallen, the municipal aristocracy is fallen ; everywhere
there is dissolution ; power and liberty are struck by the
same sterility, the same nullity. In religious society, on the
contrary, a very animated people and a very active govern-
ment show themselves. The causes of anarchy and tyranny
are numerous, but liberty is real, and power also. Every-
where, the germs of a very energetic popular activity, and a
very strong government, develope themselves. It is, in a word,
a society replete with the future, a stormy future, charged
with good and with evil, but powerful and fertile.

Do you wish that we should prosecute this comparison any
further ? We have hitherto considered only general facts, the
public life, so to speak, of the two societies. Do you wish
that we should penetrate into the domestic life, into the inte-
rior of houses 1 that we should seek how, on the one side, men
of note in civil society, and on the other the chiefs of the re-
ligious society, are employed, how they pass their time ? It
is worth while to address this question to the fifth century,
because its answer cannot bu/i be instructive.

At the end of the fourth and in the fifth century, there
was in Gaul a large number of important and honored men,
long invested with the great charges of the state, semi-
pagans, semi-Christians, — that is, having taken no part, and
not wishing to take any part in religious matters ; men of
mind, literati, philosophers, full of desire for study and in-
tellectual pursuits ; rich, and living in magnificence. Such,
at the end of the fourth century, was the poet Ausonius, count
Df the imperial palace, questor, pretorian-prefect, consul, and
who possessed much beautiful property in Saintonge and near
Bourdeaux ; such, at the end of the fifth century, was To-
nance Ferreol, prefect of Gaul, in great credit with the kings
of the Visigoths, and whose domains were situated in Lan-
guedoc and Rouergue, upon the borders of the Gardon, and
near Milhau ; Eutropius, also prefect of the Gauls, a plato-
nist by profession, who lived in Auvergne ; Consencius, of
Narbonne, one of the richest citizens of the south, and whose

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 7&

country house, called Octaviana, situated upon the road to
Beziers, passed for the most magnificent in the province.
These were the great lords of Roman Gaul ; after having
occupied the superior posts of the country, they lived upon
their estates far from the mass of the population, passing their
time in the chase, or fishing, in amusements of all kinds ;
they had fine libraries, often a theatre, where they played the
dramas of some Rhetor, their client : the rhetorician, Paul,
had his comedy, the Delirius, played at the house of Auso-
nius, composed himself the music for the interludes, and pre-
sided at the representation. At these entertainments were
combined intellectual discussions, literary conversation ; the
merits of the ancient authors were canvassed j their works
examined, commented upon ; the guests made verses upon all
the petty incidents of life. In this way passed time, agreea-
ble, smooth, varied, but enervated, egoistical, sterile ; stranger
to all serious occupation, to all powerful and general interest.
And I speak here of the most honorable remnant of the Ro-
man society, of men who were neither corrupt, profligate, nor
debased, who cultivated their intellect, and who were disgusted
with the servile manners and the decay of their age.

See what was the life of a bishop ; for example, of Saint
Hilary, bishop of Aries, and of Saint Loup, bishop of Troyes,
at the commencement of the fifth century.

Saint Hilary arose very early in the morning : he always
dwelt in the town ; from the time that he arose, any one who
wished to see him was received. He heard complaints, ad-
justed differences, performed the office of a justice of the
peace. He afterwards repaired to the church, performed ser-
vice, preached, taught, sometimes many hours consecutively.
Retu-ned home, he took his repast, and while this lasted he
heard some pious reading ; or else he dictated, and the people
often entered freely, and listened. He also performed manual
labor, sometimes spinning for the poor, sometimes cultivating
the fields of his church. Thus passed his day, in the midst
of the people, in grave, useful occupations, of a public interest,
which, every hour, had some result.

The life of Saint Loup was not exactly the same ; his.
manners were more austere, his activity less varied ; he lived
severely ; and the rigidity of his conduct, the assiduity of his
prayers, were incessantly celebrated by his contemporaries.
Thus he exercised more ascendency by his general example
than by his action3 in detail. He struck the "imagination of

80 history or

men to such a point, that according to a tradition, the tiuth of
which is of little importance — true or false, it equally show:
contemporaneous opinion — Attila, in quitting Gaul, carried
Saint Loup with him to the banks of the Rhine, supposing
that so sainted a man would protect his army. Saint Loup
was besides of a cultivated mind,~and took an active interest
in intellectual development. He was solicitous in his diocese
about schools and pious reading ; and when it was necessary
to go and contend against the doctrines of Pelagius in
Britain, it was upon his eloquence, as well as that of Saint
Germain d'Auxerre, that the council of 429 confided for sue-
cess.

What more need be said ? the facts speak clearly ; between
the great lords of the Roman society and the bishops, it is
not difficult to say where the power was, to whom the future
belonged.

I will add one fact, indispensable to the completion of this
picture of Gaulish society in the fifth century, and of its sin-
gular state.

The two classes of men, the two kinds of activity which I
have just placed before your eyes, were not always as distinct,
as separate as one would be tempted to believe, and as their
difference might cause it to be supposed. Great lords,
scarcely Christians, ex-prefects of Gaul, men of the world
and of pleasure, often became bishops. They ended, even,
by being obliged so to do, if they wished to take any part in
the moral movement of the epoch, to preserve any real im-
portance, to exercise any active influence. This is what hap-
pened to Sidonius Apollinaris, as to many others. But, in
becoming bishops, they did not completely lay aside their
habits, their tastes ; the rhetorician, the grammarian, the man
of wit, the man of the world and of pleasure, did not always
vanish under the episcopal mantle ; and the two societies, the
two kinds of manners sometimes showed themselves singularly
mixed up together. Here is a letter from Sidonius, a curious
example and monument of this strange alliance. He writes
to his friend Eriphius :

" SIDONIUS TO HIS DEAR ERIPHIUS J HEALTH.

" You are always the same, my dear Eriphius ; neither
the chase, the town, nor the fields attract you so strongly,
that the love of letters cannot still detain you. You direct

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 81

me to send you the verses which I made at the request
of your father-in-law,1 that respectable man who, in the
society of his equals, was equally ready to command or to
obey. But as you desire to know in what place and upon
what occasion those verses were made, to the end better to
understand this valueless production, lay the blame only on
yourself if the preface be longer than the work.

" We were met at the sepulchre of Saint Just,2 illness pre.
venting you from joining us. Before day, the annual pro-
cession was made, amidst an immense populace of both sexes,
that could not be contained in the church and the crypt,
although surrounded by immense porticoes ; after the monks
and priests had performed morning service, alternately sing-
ing the psalms with great sweetness, each retired — not very
far, however — to the end that all might be ready for tierce,
when the priests should celebrate the divine sacrifice. The
narrow dimensions of the place, the crowd which pressed
around us, and the large quantity of lights, had choked us ;
the oppressive vapor of a night still bordering upon summer,
although cooled by the first freshness of an autumnal dawn,
made this inclosure still warmer. While the various classes
of society dispersed on all sides, the chief citizens assembled
round the tomb of the consul Syagrius, which was not at the
distance of an arrow-shot.

" Some were seated under the shade of an arbor formed
of stakes covered with the branches of the vine ; we were
stretched upon the green turf embalmed with the perfume of
flowers. The conversation was sweet, cheerful, pleasant ;
moreover (and this was far more agreeable), there was no
question either of power or tributes ; no word which could
compromise, nor person who could be compromised. Who-
soever could in good terms relate an interesting history, was
sure to be listened to with earnestness. Nevertheless, no
continuous narration was made, because gaiety frequently
interrupted the discourse. Tired at length of this long
repose, we desired to do something else. We soon separated
into two bands, according to ages ; one party loudly demanded
the game of tennis, the others a table and dice. For myself,
I was the first to give the signal for tennis, because I love it,

1 Philimathius.

1 Bishop of Lyons, towards the end of the fourth century. His ffet«
is celebrated on the 2d of September.

82 HISTORY 01'

as you know, as much as books. On the other side, my
brother Dominicius, a man full of kindness and cheerfulness,
seized the dice, shook them, and struck with his dice-box, as
if he had sounded a trumpet, to call players to him. As to
us, we played a good deal with the crowd of scholars, so as to
reanimate by this salutary exercise the vigor of our limbs
stiffened by too long repose. The illustrious Philimathius
himself, as says the poet of Mantua,

" Ausus et ipse manu juvenum tentare laborem,"

constantly mixed with the players at tennis. He succeeded
very well at it when he was younger, but now, as he was
often driven from the middle, where people were standing, by
the shock of some running player ; as at other times, if he
entered the arena, he could neither make way nor avoid the
ball, and as frequently overthrown, he only raised himself
with pain from the unlucky fall, he was the first to leave the
scene of the game, heaving sighs, and very much heated :
this exercise had swollen the fibres of the liver, and he expe-
rienced poignant pains. I left off at once, charitably to cease
at the same time as he,, and thus save our brother from feel-
ing embarrassed at his fatigue. We then seated ourselves
again, and soon he was forced to ask for water to bathe his
face ; they brought him some, and at the same time a napkin
covered with hair, which had been washed and was by chance
suspended from a cord, held by a pulley before the folding-
door of the house of the porter. While he leisurely dried his
cheeks, he said to me : ' I wish you would dictate for me a
quatrain upon the cloth that has rendered me this office,'
' Be it so,' I answered. " But,' added he, ' let my name be
contained in these verses.' I replied, that what he asked was
feasible. ' Well !' he replied, ' dictate them.' ' I then said
to him, with a smile : ' Know, however, that the muses will
soon be irritated if I attempt to meddle with their choir amidst
so many witnesses.' He then answered very briskly, and
yet with politeness (for he is of great readiness of imagination
and an inexhaustible fund of wit) : ' Rather take care, lord
Solius, that Apollo does not become far more irritated, if you
attempt to seduce his dear pupils in secret and alone.' You
may imagine the applause excited by this prompt and well-
turned answer. Then, and without further delay, I called
his secretary, who was there already, tablets in hand, and I
dictated to him a quatrain to this effect :

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 83

" ' Another morning, whether in going out of the hot bath, o/
when the chase has heated his brow, may the handsome Phi
limathius still find this linen to dry his dripping face, so thai
the water may pass from his forehead into this fleece as into
the throat of a drinker !'

" Scarcely had your Epiphanius written these verses when
they announced to us that the hour was come when the bishop
came forth, when we immediately arose."

Sidonius was then bishop, and doubtless many of those
who accompanied him to the tomb of Saint Just and to that
of the consul Syagrius, who participated with him in the cele-
bration of divine service, and at the game of tennis, in the
chanting of the psalms, and in the taste of trifling verses,
were bishops like him.

We are now at the end of the first question which we laid
down ; we have considered the social state of civil and reli-
gious, Roman and Christian Gaul, at the fifth century. It
remains for us to study the moral state of the same epoch, the
idears, the doctrines, the sentiments which agitated it ; in a
word, the internal and intellectual life of men. This will
form the subject of the next lecture.

84 HISTORY OF

FOURTH LECTURE

Object of the lecture — What must be understood by the moral state of
a society — Reciprocal influence of the social state upon the moral
state, and of the moral state upon the social state — At the fourth
century, civil Gaulish society alone possessed institutions favorable
to intellectual development — Gaulish schools— Legal situation of the
professors — Religious society has no other mediums of development
and influence than its ideas — Still one languishes, and the other
prospers — Decline of the civil schools — Activity of the Christian
society — Saint Jerome, Saint Augustin, and Saint Paulin of Nola—
Their correspondence with Gaul — Foundation and character of
monasteries in Gaul — Causes of the difference of the moral state of
the two societies — Comparative view of the civil literature and tht
Christian literature in the fourth and fifth centuries — Inequality of
the liberty of mind in the two societies — Necessity for religion lend
ing its aid to studies and letters.

Before entering into the examination of the moral state of
Gaulish society at the end of the fourth and at the commence-
ment of the fifth century, I must be allowed to say a few
words as to the nature of this part of my task. These words,
moral state, have, in the eyes of some people, a somewhat
vague appearance. I would wish to determine their meaning
with precision. Moral sciences, now-a-days, are accused of
a want of exactitude, of perspicuity, of certainty ; they are
reproached as not being sciences. They should, they may
be sciences, just the same as ")hysical sciences, for they also
exercise themselves upon facts. Moral facts are not less
real than others : man has not invented them : he discovered
and named them ; he takes note of them every moment of his
life ; he studies them as he studies all that surrounds him, all
that comes to his intelligence by the interposition of his
senses. Moral sciences have, if the expression be allowed,
the same matter as other sciences ; they are, then, not by
any means condemned by their nature to be less precise or
less certain. It is more difficult, I grant, for them to arrive
at exactitude, perspicuity, precision. Moral facts are, on the
one hand, more extended and more exact, and, on the other,
more profoundly concealed, than physical facts ; they are at
once more complex in their development, and more simple in

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 85

tl««ir origin. Hence arises a much greater difficulty of ob-
serving them, classifying them, and reducing them to a
science. This is the true source of the reproaches of which
the moral sciences have often been the subject. Mark their
singular fate : they are evidently the first upon which the
human race occupied itself; when we go back to the cradle
of societies, we everywhere encounter moral facts, which,
under the cloak of religion or of poetry, attracted the atten-
tion, and excited the thought of men. And yet, in order to
succeed in thoroughly knowing them, scientifically knowing
them, all the skill, all the penetration, and all the prudence
of the most practised reason is necessary. Such, therefore,
is the state of moral sciences, that they are at once the first
and the last in the chronological order ; the first, the necessity
which works upon the human mind ; the last, that it succeeds
in elevating to the precision, clearness, and certainty, which
is the scientific character. We must not, therefore, be as-
tonished nor affrighted by the reproaches which they have
incurred ; they are natural and legitimate : let it be known
that neither the certainty nor the value of the moral sciences
are in the least affected by them ; and thence let this useful
lesson be drawn, that, in their study, in the observation and
description of moral facts, it is necessary, if possible, to be
still more nice, exact, attentive, and strict, than in anything
else. Profiting by the lesson, I commence by determining
with precision, what I intend to convey by these words — the
moral state of society.

We have hitherto been occupied with the social state of
Gaul, that is, the relations of men among themselves, and their
external and natural condition. This done, the social rela-
tions described, are the facts, whose aggregate constitutes the
life of an epoch, exhausted 1 Certainly not : there remains
to be studied the internal, the personal state of men, the state
of souls, tnat is, on one side, the ideas, doctrines, the whole
intelrectual life of man ; on the other, the relations which
connect ideas with actions, creeds with the determinations of
the will, thought with human liberty.

This is the two-fold fact which constitutes, in my opinion,
the moral state of a society, and which we have to study in the
Gaulish society of the fifth century.

According to a very general opinion, I might dispense with
insisting long upon this inquiry. It has often been said thai
the moral state depends upon the social state, that the rela

86 HISTORY OF

lions of men between themselves, the principles 01 customs
which preside in these relations, decide their ideas, their sen-
timents, their internal life ; that governments and institutions
make the people. This was a dominant idea in the last cen-
tury, and was produced, under different forms, by the most
illustrious writers of the age, Montesquieu, Voltaire, the
economists, the publicists, &c. Nothing is more simple :
the revolution that the last century brought forth was a social
revolution ; it was far more occupied in changing the respect-
ive situation of men, than their internal and personal disposi-
tion ; it desired rather to reform society than the individual.
Who will be surprised that it was everywhere preoccupied
with what it sought, with what it did — that it was too much
taken up with the social state ? Yet there were circumstan-
ces which might have served to have warned it : it labored
to change the relations, the external condition of men ; but
what were the instruments, the fulcrum of its work 1 ideas,
sentiments, internal and individual dispositions : it was by the
aid of the moral state that it undertook the reform of the
social state. The moral state, then, must be acknowledged
to be, not only distinct from, but, to a certain point, indepen-
dent of the social state ; it should be seen that situations,
institutions are not all, nor do they decide all, in the life of
nations ; that other causes may modify, contend with, even
surmount these ; and that if the external world acts upon
man, man in his turn acts upon the world. I would not, that
it should be thought that I reject the idea which I combat ; far
from it ; its share of legitimacy is great : no doubt but that
the social state exercised a powerful influence upon the moral
state. I do not so much as wish that this doctrine should be
exclusive ; the influence is shared and reciprocal : if it be
correct to say that governments make nations, it is no less
true that nations make governments. The question which is
here encountered is higher and greater than it appears : it is
a question whether events, the life of the social world, are, as
the physical world, under the empire of external and neces-
sary causes, or whether man himself, his thought, his will,
concur to produce and govern them ; a question what is the
share of fatality and that of liberty in the lot of the human
race. A question of immense interest, and which I shall
one day perhaps have occasion to treat in the manner which
it merits ; at present, I can only assign it its place, and I con
tent myself by claiming for liberty, for man himself, a place

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 87

a great place, among the authors of events in the creation of
history.

I return to the inquiry into the moral state of civil society
and religious society in Gaul, in the fourth and fifth centuries.

If institutions could do all, if laws supplied and the means
furnished to society could do everything, the intellectual state
of Gaulish civil society at this epoch would have been far supe-
rior to that of the religious society. The first, in fact, alone
possessed all the institutions proper to second the development
of mind, the progress and empire of ideas. Roman Gaul was
covered with large schools. The principal were those of
Treves, Bordeaux, Autun, Toulouse, Poitiers, Lyons, Nar-
bonne, Aries, Marseilles, Vienne, Besanc.on, &c. Some were
very ancient ; those of Marseilles and of Autun, for example,
dated from the first century. They were taught philosophy,
medicine, jurisprudence, literature, grammar, astrology, all
the sciences of the age. In the greater part of these schools,
indeed, they at first taught only rhetoric and grammar ; but
towards the fourth century, professors of philosophy and law
were everywhere introduced.

Not only were these schools numerous, and provided with
many chairs, but the emperors continually took the profes-
sors of new measures into favor. Their interests are, froi««
clonstantine to Theodosius the younger, the subject of fre-
quent imperial constitutions, which sometimes extended,
.sometimes confirmed their privileges ; here are the principal
of these :

1. Constantinus1 Augustus to Volusianus (in 321). — "We
order that physicians, grammarians, and the other learned
professors be for the future, they and the property they pos-
sess in their respective cities, exempt from all muhicipai
charges, but that, nevertheless, they may be capable of being
invested with the Jionores." We forbid them to be harassed
by law, or that any wrong be done them. If any one annoys
them, let him be prosecuted by the magistrates, to the end
that they themselves may be spared that trouble, and let
him pay one hundred thousand pieces to the excnequer ; if a

i Probably praetorian prefect.

» There was a distinction made in the Roman cities and municipal^
ties between the munera, municipal functions of an inferior claw,
which conferred no privileges ; and the honores, superior functions,
regular magistracies, to which certain privileges were attached

88 HISTORY OF

slave offend them let him be whipped by his master before
him he has offended ; and if the master has consented to the
outrage, let him pay twenty thousand pieces to the exchequer,
and let his slave remain in pledge till the whole sum be
delivered. We order to be paid to the said professors
their salaries; and as they must not be charged with
onerous functions, we allow them to have the honores confer,
red upon them when they desire, but we do not oblige them
to it."1

2. Constantinus Augustus to the people (in 133). — "Con-
firming the good deeds of our divine predecessors, we order
that physicians and professors of letters, as well as their wives
and children, be exempt from all public functions and charges ;
that they be not included in the service of the militia, nor
obliged to receive guests, or to acquit themselves of any
charge, to the end that they may have more facility to instruct
many people in the liberal studies and the above-mentioned
professions."2

3. Gratianus Augustus to Antonius, pretorian prefect of
the Gauls (in 376). — " In the heart of the great cities which,
in all the diocese confided to your Magnificence, flourish
with illustrious masters, let the best preside over the edu-
cation of youth (we mean the rhetoricians and grammarians
in the Attic and Roman tongues), let the orators receive from
the exchequer twenty-four rations;3 let the less consider-
able number of twelve rations be, according to usage, ac-
corded to Greek and Latin grammarians. And to the end
that the cities which enjoy metropolitan rights may select
famous professors, and as we do not think that each city
should be left free to pay its rhetoricians and masters ac-
cording to its inclination, for the illustrious city of Treves
we wish to do something more ; accordingly, let thirty rations
be there granted to the rhetoricians, twenty to the Latin
grammarian, and twelve to the Greek grammarian, if a ca-
pable one can be found."4

Valentinian, Honorius, Theodosius II. issued many similar
decrees. After the Empire was divided among many masters,

' Cod. Theod., 1. III., tit. 3, 1. i. 2 Ibid. 1. 3.

3 Annona, a certain measure of wheat, oil, and other provisions,
probably what was necessary for the daily consumption of a single per«

•Oil, !]pipt)iriov.

* Cod. Theod., XIII., tit. 3, b. 11.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. f!J

each of them concerned himself rather more about the pros-
perity of his states and the public establishments which were
in them. Thence arose a momentary amelioration, of which
the schools felt the effects, particularly those of Gaul, under
the administration of Constantius Clorus, of Julian, and of
Gratian.

By the side of the schools were, in general, placed other
analogous establishments. Thus, at Treves there was a grand
library of the imperial palace, concerning which no special
information has reached us, but of which we may judge by the
details which have reached us concerning that of Constan-
tinople. This last had a librarian and seven scribes constantly
occupied — four for Greek, and three for Latin. They copied
both ancient works and new works. It is probable that the
same institution existed at Treves, and in the great towns of
Gaul.

Civil society, then, was provided with means of instruction
and intellectual development. It was not the same with
religious society. It had at this epoch no institution espe-
cially devoted to teaching ; it did not receive from the state
any aid to this particular aim. Christians, as well as others,
could frequent the public schools ; but most of the professors
were still pagans, or indifferent in religious matters, and, in
their indifference, had sufficient ill-will towards the new
religion. They therefore attracted very few Christians.
The sciences which they taught, grammar and rhetoric, pagan
by origin, dominated by the ancient pagan mind, had besides
but little interest for Christianity. Lastly, it was for a long
time in the inferior classes, among the people, that Chris-
tianity was propagated, especially in the Gauls, and it was
the superior classes which followed the great schools. More-
over, it was hardly until the commencement of the fourth
century that the Christians appeared there, and then but few
in number.

No other source of study was open to them. The establish-
ments which, a little afterwards, became, in the Christian
church, the refuge and sanctuary of instruction, the monas-
teries, were hardly commenced in the Gauls. It was only after
the year 360 that the two first were founded by St. Martin —
one at Liguge, near Poitiers, the other at Marmoutiers, neat
Tours ; and they were devoted rather to religious contemplation
than to teaching.

Any great school, any special institution devoted to the

90 HISTORY OF

service and to the progress of intellect, was at that time,
therefore, wanting to the Christians ; they had only their own
ideas, the internal and personal movement of their thought
It was necessary that they should draw everything from
themselves ; their doctrines, and the empire of their doctrines
over the will — the desire which they had to propagate them-
selves, to take possession of the world — that was their whde
power.

Still, the activity and intellectual strength of the two soci-
eties were prodigiously unequal. With its institutions, its
professors, its privileges, the one was nothing and did nothing
— with its single ideas, the other incessantly labored and
seized everything.

All things, in the fifth century, attest the decay of the civil
schools. The contemporaneous writers, Sidonius Apollinaris
and Mamertius Claudianus, for example, deplore it in every
page, saying that the young men no longer studied, that pro-
fessors were without pupils, that science languished and was
being lost. They attempted, by a multitude of petty expedients,
to escape the necessity of long and vigorous studies. This was
a time of abbreviators of history, philosophy, grammar, and
rhetoric ; and they evidently proposed to themselves not to
propagate instruction in the classes who would not study, but
to spare the labor of science to those who could, but would not,
devote themselves to it. It was especially the young men of
the superior classes who frequented the schools ; but these
classes, as has been seen, were in rapid dissolution. The
schools fell with them ; tne institutions still existed, but they
were void — the soul had quitted the body.

The intellectual aspect of Christian society was very dif-
ferent. Gaul, in the fifth century, was under the influence
of three spiritual chiefs, of whom none lived there : Saint
Jerome1 residing at Bethlehem, Saint Augustin2 at Hippo,
Saint Paulin3 at Nola : the latter only was a Gaul by birth.
They truly governed Gaulish Christianity ; it was to them
that it addressed itself on all occasions, to receive ideas, solu-
tions, councils. Examples abound. A priest, born at the foot
of the Pyrenees, and who was called Vigilantius, travelled to
Palestine. He there saw Saint Jerome, and engaged with him
ill controversy concerning some questions of ecclesiastical

» Born in 331, died in 420. 3 Born in 354, died in 430

» Born in 354, died in 431.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 9i

doctrine or discipline. Upon his return to the Gauls, he wrote
concerning what he regarded as abuses. He attacked the
worship of martyrs, their relics, the miracles worked at their
tombs, frequent fasts, austerities, even celibacy. Scarcely was
his work published, than a priest named Reparius, who lived
in his neighborhood, probably in Dauphiny or Savoy, ac-
quainted Saint Jerome with it, giving hirn an account at largo
of the contents of the book, and of its danger, as he said.
Saint Jerome immediately answered Reparius, and his answer
is a first refutation, which promises a second more in detail.
Reparius and another neighboring priest, Didier, immediately
sent to Bethlehem by a third priest, Sisinnius, the writings of
Vigilantius ; and in less than two years after the commence-
ment of the contest, Saint Jerome sent into the Gauls a com-
plete refutation, which rapidly spread there. The same fact
took place almost at the same moment between Gaul and St.
Augustin, upon the subject of the heresy of Pelagius con-
cerning free-will and grace ; there was the same care on the
part of the Gaulish priests to inform the grand bishop of
everything; the same activity on his part to answer their
questions, to remove their doubts, to sustain, to direct their
faith. Every heresy which threatened, every question which
arose, became, between the Gauls on one side, and Hippo,
Bethlehem, and Nola on the other, the occasion of a long and
rapid succession of letters, messages, journeys, pamphlets.
It was not even necessary that a great question should arise,
that general and pressing religious interest should be involved.
Simple Christians, and women, were pre-occupied with certain
ideas, certain scruples ; light was wanting to them ; they had
recourse to the same doctors, the same remedies. A woman
of Bayeux, Hedibie, and at the same time a woman of Cahors,
Algasie, drew up, in order to address them to Saint Jerome,
the one twelve, the other eleven questions concerning philo-
sophical, religious, historical matters : they asked him the
explanation of certain passages of the Holy Scriptures; they
wished to know from him what were the conditions of moral
perfection, or what conduct should be pursued in certain cir-
cumstances of life. In a word, they consulted him as a family
spiritual director ; and a priest named Apodemus set out from
the heart of Brittany, charged to carry these letters into the
neart of Palestine, and to bring back the answers. The sarm
activity, the same rapidity of circulation reigned in the interior
of Gaulish Christianity. Saint Sulpicius Severus, the com-

U2 HISTORY OF

panion and friend of Saint Martin of Tours, wrote a Life of
that Saint while still living. It spread everywhere, in Gaul,
in Spain, and in Italy ; copies of it were sold in all the great
towns ; bishops sent for it with eagerness. Whenever a reli-
gious desire, doubt, or difficulty was manifested, doctors labor-
ed, priests travelled, writings circulated. And this was no
easy thing, this quick and vast correspondence. Physical
means were wanting ; the roads were few and perilous ; ques-
tions had far to be carried, and long to wait for an answer ;
active zeal — immovable, inexhaustible patience — was neces-
sary ; lastly, that perseverance in moral wants was necessary
which at all times is a rare virtue, and which can alone supply
the imperfection of institutions.

Nevertheless, institutions began to rise, and to be regulated
among the Christians of Gaul. The foundation of the greater
portion of the large monasteries of the southern provinces
belongs to the first half of the fifth century. That of Saint
Faustin at Nimes, and another in his diocese, has been
attributed to Saint Castor, bishop of Apt, about 422. Abou'
the same time, Cassienus founded at Marseilles that of Saim
Victor ; Saint Honoratus and Saint Caprais that of Lerins,
the most celebrated of the age, in one of the isles of Hyeres ;
rather later arose that of Condat or Saint Claude in Franche-
Comte, that of Grigny in the diocese of Vienne, and many
others of less importance. The primitive character of the
Gaulish monasteries was entirely different from that of the
eastern monasteries. In the east, the monasteries were chiefly
for the purposes of solitude and contemplation ; the men who
retired into the Thebaid desired to escape pleasures, tempta-
tions, and the corruption of civil society ; they wished to aban-
don themselves, far from social intercourse, to the transports
of their imagination, and to the rigors of their conscience. It
was not until a later period that they drew near each other
in places where at first they had been dispersed, and anchorites
or solitaries became cenobites, Koivofiiol, living in common. In
the west, despite the imitation of the east, monasteries had a
different origin ; they began with life, in common with the
desire, not of isolation, but of union. Civil society was a prey
to all kinds of disorders ; national, provincial, or municipal, it
was dissolving on all sides ; a centre and an asylum was en-
tirely wanting to men who wished to discuss, exercise them-
selves, live together ; they found one in the monasteries ; thus
monastic life, In its rise, had neither the contemplative nor

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 93

solitary character ; on the contrary, it was highiy social and
active ; it kindled a focus of intellectual development ; it
served as the instrument of fermentation and propagation of
ideas. The monasteries of the south of Gaul were philoso-
phical schools of Christianity ; it was there that intellectual
men meditated, discussed, taught ; it was from thence that
new ideas, daring thoughts, heresies, were sent forth. It was
in the abbeys of Saint Victor and of Lerins that all the great
questions of free-will, predestination, grace, original sin, were
the most warmly agitated, and where the Pelagian opinions,
for fifty years, found the greatest nourishment and support.

It will be seen that the intellectual state of religious society,
and that of civil society, cannot be compared ; on one side,
all is decay, languor, inertia ; on the other, all is movement,
eagerness, ambition, progress. What are the causes of such
a contrast ? It is necessary to know from whence so striking
a difference arose, how it continued, why each day it was
aggravated : by this only shall we arrive at a full knowledge
and comprehension of their moral state.

There were, I believe, two great causes for the fact which
I have just described : 1st. the very nature of the subjects,
questions, intellectual labors with which the two societies
occupied themselves : 2d. the very unequal freedom of minds
in one and the other.

Civil literature, if I may, use the expression, presents at
this epoch in Gaul only four kinds of men and of works :
grammarians, rhetoricians, chroniclers, and poets ; poets
not on a large scale, but on a small one, makers of epithala-
miums, inscriptions, descriptions, idyls, eclogues. These are
the subjec/s upon which what remained of the Roman mind
exercised itself.

Christian literature was entirely different. It abounded in
philosophers, politicians, and orators ; it agitated the most im-
portant questions, the most pressing interests. I shall now
place before you, always taking heed to confine myself to
Gaul, some proper names and some titles, a comparative view
of the principal writers and works of the two literatures. You
yourselves will deduce the consequences.

I do not here pretend to give a biographical or literary
enumeration, however far from complete. I only point out
the most eminent names and facts.

Among the grammarians with whom civil literaturo was
crowded, I shall name, 1st. Agroetius or Agritius, professor

19

94 HISTORY OF

at Bordeaux about the middle of the fourth century, by whom
we have a remaining treatise, or fragment of a treatise, on
the property and varieties of the Latin tongue ; Latin syno-
nymes, for example, temperantia, temperatio and temperies ;
•percussus and perculsus ; the author rests upon examples drawn
from the best authors — Cicero, Horace, Terence, Livy, &c. —
for the distinctions which he establishes. 2d. Urbicus, also
professor at Bordeaux, celebrated chiefly for his profound
knowledge of the Greek language and literature. 3d. Ursulus
and Harmonius, professors at Treves. Harmonius collected
the poems of Homer, adding thereto notes on false readings,
interpretations, &c.

By the side of the grammarians are the rhetoricians, whose
business was not only with teaching eloquence, but with
writing discourses, panegyrics on all the chief circumstances
of life, upon the occasion of fetes, civil solemnities, the death
or accession of an emperor, &c. Twelve of these bravuras
of vain eloquence have been specially preserved and collected.
The four principal panegyrists are — first, Claudius Mamertinus,
author of an eulogy on the emperor Maximian, delivered at
Treves, the 20th of April, 292, the day on which the foundation
of Rome was celebrated ; secondly, Eumenius, professor of
eloquence at Autun, author of four discourses delivered from
297 to 31 1, in the presence and in honor of Constantius Chlorus,
and of Constantine ; thirdly, Naparius, professor at Bordeaux,
author of a panegyric on Constantine ; fourthly, Claudius
Mamertinus, perhaps the son of the first, author of a discourse
delivered in 362 before Julian.

Among the Gaulish and pagan chroniclers of this epoch, the
most distinguished is Eutropius, who wrote his abridgment of
Roman history about the year 370.

I might extend the list of poets at pleasure, but it will not
be complained of that I only name three of them. The
mos. fertile, the most celebrated, and incontestably the most
spiritual and elegant, is Ausonius, who was born at Bordeaux
about 309, and died upon one of his estates in 394, after
having filled the highest public offices, and composed — first,
one hundred and forty epigrams ; secondly, thirty-eight epi-
taphs ; thirdly, twenty idyls ; fourthly, twenty-four epistles ;
fifthly, seventeen descriptions of towns, and a multitude of
small poems upon such subjects as the professors of Bordeaux
the persons and incidents of his family, the twelve Cffisars
the seven wise men of Greece, &c, &c.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 9fl

An uncle of Ausonius, named Arborius, of Toulouse, hat
left a small poem, addressed to a young girl too finely dressed
Ad virginem nimis cuttam.

A poet of Poitiers, Rutilius Numatianus, who lived foi
some time at Rome, and who returned to his country about
the year 416, upon his return wrote a poem entitled Itinera^
Hum, or de Reditu ; a curious work enough for details of
places, manners, and for the anger of the poet against the
invasion of society by the Jews and the monks. He was
evidently a pagan.

I pass to the Gaulish Christian society at the same epoch.

The first name that I meet with is that of Saint Ambrose ;
although he passed his life in Italy, I reckon him as a Gaul,
for he was born at Treves, about the year 340. His works
have been collected in two volumes folio. They contain
thirty-six different works — religious treatises, commentaries
upon the Bible, discourses, letters, hymns, &c. The most
extensive, and also the most curious, is entitled De Officiis
Ministrorum (concerning the duties of ministers of the
church).

At a future period I shall, perhaps, return to this work in
detail ; at present I only wish to explain its character. You
would be tempted to believe, from the title, that it was a
treatise upon the particular duties of priests, and on the man-
ner in which they should acquit themselves of their duties.
You would be deceived ; it is a complete moral treatise, in
which the author, while on the subject of priests, passes in
review all human duties ; he there sets down and resolves a
multitude of questions of practical philosophy.

By the side of Saint Ambrose I shall place Saint Pauiin,
born, like him, in Gaul (at Bordeaux, about the year 353),
and who died, like him, a bishop, in Italy (at Nola, in' 431).
Many of his works, among others his book against the pagans,
are lost ; all that remains of him are some letters and poems ;
but letters, at this period, had a very different importance)
from what they have in modern times. Literature, properly
so called, held but little place in the Christian world ; men
wrote very little for the sake of writing ; for the mere pleas-
ure of manifesting their ideas ; some event broke forth, a
question arose, and a book was often produced under the form
of a letter to a Christian, to a friend, to a church. Politics,
religion, controversy, spiritual and temporal interests, general
and special councils — all are met with in the letters of this

96 HISTORY OF

time, and they are among the number of its most curious
monuments.

I have already named Saint Sulpicius Severus, of Tou-
louse1 (or of some other town of Aquitaine, for his origin is
not known with certainty), and his Life of Saint Martin, of
Tours. He moreover wrote a Sacred History, one of the
first essays at ecclesiastical history attempted in the west ; it
reaches from the beginning of the world up to the year 400,
and contains many important facts which are not found
elsewhere.

Nearly at the same time, or rather later, the monk Cassie-
nus,11 a provincial by birth, as it would appear, though he
lived for a very long time in the east, published at Marseilles,
at the request of Saint Castor, bishop of Apt, his Institutions
and his Conferences, works written for the purpose of making
the western world acquainted with the origin, principles,
practices, and ideas of the eastern monks. It was at this
period, as you have heard, that most of the earlier monaste-
ries in southern Gaul were founded by the co-operation of
Cassienus himself; so that these books of his were prepared
to meet an actual and practical want.

It recurs to me that before Cassienus I should have men-
tioned Saint Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, one of the most active,
most upright, and most eminent chiefs of the Gaulish church,
who wrote a number of works, all of them of limited extent,
but all highly important in their time. They are, in fact,
for the most part, mere pamphlets upon the various questions
which were then engaging attention. After Christianity had
grown beyond its infancy, the more eminent bishops had two
parts to play at one and the same time-^-that of philosopher
and that of statesman. They possessed the empire over
ideas, or, at all events, the preponderating influence in the
intellectual order ; and they had also to administer the tem-
poral affairs of the religious society. They were called up-
on concurrently to fulfil two missions — to mediate and to act,
to convince and to govern. Hence the prodigious variety,
and hence also the haste, which very often characterize their
writings. These, in general, were works got up altogether
for the occasion — pamphlets intended, now to solve a question
of doctrine, now to discuss a matter of business, to enlighten

1 Born about 355, died about 420.

■ Born about 360, died about 440. 3 Died about 368.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 97

a soul, or oppose a civil disorder, to answer a heresy, or to
obtain a concession from the government. The works of
Saint Hilary are more especially impressed with this
character.

A monk, who was possibly acquainted with Saint Hilary,
since he lived for some time with St. Martin of Tours, Eva-
grius, wrote two dialogues, entitled — the one, Conference
between Theophilus, a Christian, and Simon, a Jew — the other,
Conference between Zacheus, a Christian, and Apollonius, a
■philosopher — curious monuments of the manner in which a
Christian monk of the end of the fourth century framed in
his mind the question, on the, one hand, between Judaism and
Christianity; and on the other, between Christianity and
philosophy.

A little later than this, a priest of Marseilles, Salvienus, a
native of Treves, wrote his treatise On Avarice, a treatise on
religious morality, and his book, which I have already men-
tioned, De Gubernatione Dei, a work remarkable both as a
picture of the social state and manners of the period, and as
an attempt to acquit Providence from any share in the mise-
ries of the world, the blame of which he entirely throws
upon mankind themselves.

The Pelagian schism gave rise to a vast number of works,
among which, however, I will only mention those of Saint
Prosper of Aquitaine, and especially his poem, Against In-
grates, one of the happiest efforts of philosophical poetry that
ever emanated from the bosom of Christianity. His Chronicle,
which extends from the origin of the world to the year 455, is
not without importance.

While the question of free will and of grace was agitating
the whole church, and more especially that of Gaul, that of
the immateriality of the soul was being more quietly discussed
in the Narbonnese, between Faustus,1 bishop of Riez, who
maintained that the soul is material, and Mamertius Claudie-
nus,' priest of Vienne, and brother of the bishop Saint Ma-
mertius, who defended the contrary opinion. The letter in
which Faustus sets forth his views, and the treatise of Ma-
mertius Claudienus, entitled On the Nature of the Soul, are
amongst the most curious monuments of the state of the human
mind in the fifth century, and I therefore propose to make
you acquainted with them in detail at a future period.

' Died in 490. * Died about 473.

98 HISTORY OF

Of the Christian literature of this period, I will cite I ut on«
more name, that of Gennadius, priest at Marseilles, who, in
his work entitled, Treatise on Illustrious Men, or Ecclesiasti-
cal Authors, from the middle of the fourth century to the end of
the fifth, has given us more information on the literary history
of the period than we find anywhere else. When you com-
pare these two lists, dry and incomplete as they are, of authors
and of works, do not the names, the titles alone, explain the
difference in the intellectual state of the two societies ? The
Christian writers address themselves at once to the highest
interests of thought and of life ; they are active and potent
at once in the domain of intellect, and in that of reality ; their
activity is rational, and their philosophy popular ; they treat
of things which alike stir up the soul of the anchorite in his
solitude, and of nations in their cities. The civil literature,
on the contrary, has no reference to questions either of prin-
ciple or of passing events, to either the moral wants or the
household sentiments of the masses ; it is entirely a literature
of convention and luxury, of coteries and of schools, wholly
and solely devoted, from the very nature of the subjects
which engage its attention, to the passing entertainment of
the nobles and the wits.

This is not all ; we find another and a far different cause
for the diversity of the moral condition of the two societies ;
liberty, that is to say, liberty of mind, was entirely wanting
to the one, while in the other it was real and powerful. *

Indeed, it was impossible but that liberty should be wholly
wanting to the civil literature ; that literature belonged to
civil society, to the old Roman world ; it was its image, its
amusement ; it bore all its characteristics, — decay, sterility,
fertility, servility. The very nature, however, of the subjects
upon which it exercised itself, rendered the presence of these
characteristics very endurable. It kept entirely apart from
all the great moral questions, from all the real interests of
life, that is to say, from every career in which freedom of
mind is indispensable. Grammar, rhetoric, minor poetry,
very readily adapt themselves to servitude. To compile Latin
synonymes like Agracius — to criticise, like Arborius, a girl
over dressed — or even to celebrate, like Ausonius, the beauties
of the Moselle, required neither freedom nor, in truth, even
movement of mind. This subordinate literature has more
than once prospered extremely well under despotism, and ia
the decline of society.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 99

In the very heart of the schools, there was an entire absence
of liberty ; the whole of the professors were removable at
any time. The emperor had full power, not only to transfer
them from one town to another, but to cancel their appoint,
ment whenever he thought fit. Moreover, in a great many
of the Gaulish towns, the people themselves were against
them, for the people were Christians, at least in a great
majority, and as such had a distaste for schools which were
altogether pagan in origin and intention. The professors,
accordingly, were regarded with hostility, and often mal-
treated ; they were, in fact, quite unsupported except by the
remnant of the higher classes, and by the imperial authority,
which still maintained order, and which having heretofore
often persecuted the Christians solely in compliance with the
clamorous demands of the people, now, in the fourth century,
protected the pagans against the people, either from an abstract
desire to preserve order, from deference to the wishes of dis-
tinguished citizens, themselves pagans or indifferent about
the matter, or out of that respect for old institutions, old
principles, which an old government ever retains. You may
thus readily perceive, in how dependent, powerless, pre-
carious, painful a position the professors were placed. That
of the students was scarcely any better. They were the
object of a multitude of inquisitorial, vexatious, police regula.
tions, against which they had no practical security. I will
read to you an edict of Valentinian, which will give you a
clear idea of their situation ; the edict itself only refers to the
students of the school at Rome, but the other schools of the
empire were conducted upon analogous rules and principles :

" Valentinian, Valerius, and Gratian, to Olybrius, Prefect of
Rome (370).

" 1. All persons coming to study at Rome, must imme-
diately upon their arrival lay before the master of the census1
letters from the provincial governors who have given them
permission to travel, setting forth their place of abode, their
age, their name, condition, and description. 2. They must de-
clare, also, at the same time, what studies they intend more
especially to pursue. 3. They must let the census office know,

• A magistrate, some of whose functions were analogous with those
*f otir prefect of police

100 HISTORY OF

from time to time, their place of abode in Rome, so that tha
officers of that department may see to their following out the
studies which they have indicated as the object of their pur-
suit. 4. The aforesaid officers are charged to take care that
the students conduct themselves at the lectures in a becoming
manner, avoiding all occasion of gaining an ill reputation, and
taking no part in any of those private associations among
themselves, which we regard as very little short of crimes ;
they are not to visit the theatre too frequently, not to indulge
in overfeasting and revelry. Any student Who shall forget
the dignified demeanor due from him who pursues the liberal
arts, shall be publicly beaten with rods, put on board some
vessel, and, ignominiously expelled the city, be sent back
whence he came. They who apply themselves assiduously to
their studies, may remain in Rome until their twentieth year ;
should they then omit to return home of their own accord, let
the prefect have them removed, whether they will or no.
And that these regulations may be properly attended to, your
High Sincerity will forthwith direct the chief officers of the
census department to have drawn up, every month, a report
upon the said students, setting forth how many there are, who
they are, whence they came, their general character, and who
of them, their time in Rome being completed, have to be sent

back to Africa, or other provinces Let a copy of these

reports be annually sent to us, that, thereby made acquainted
with the merits and acquirements of the students, we may
judge how far any of them are necessary or desirable for our
service."1

Some of these precautions may very possibly have been, in
certain cases, necessary and proper ; but it is at the same time
quite clear that in the system of which they were a leading, a
dominant feature, in the schools of whose discipline they formed
the basis, there was no liberty.

In Christian literature, on the contrary, liberty manifests
itself in full luxuriance ; the activity of mind, the diversity of
opinion publicly declared, are of themselves sufficient to prove
the fact of this liberty. The human mind does not spread its
wings so broadly, so energetically, when it is loaded with
irons. Liberty, besides, was inherent in the intellectual situ-
ation of the church : she was laboring at the formation of her

1 Cod. Theod., 1. xiv., t. far., 1 i.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 101

doctrines, which, as to a great number of points, she had not
as yet promulgated or fixed. From time to time, some ques-
tion was raised by an event, by a polemical writing ; it was
then examined and discussed by the chiefs of the religious
society ; and the decision formed, the belief adopted, the dogma
was in due time proclaimed. It is evident that, in such a
period as this, there must exist liberty, precarious, perhaps,
and transitory, but still real, and, to a considerable extent,
practical.

The state of the legislation against heresy was not as yet
mortal to it ; the principle of persecution, the idea that truth
had a right to govern by force, occupied men's minds, but it
did not yet dominate in facts. Civil power began to lend a
strong hand to the church against the heretics, and to be
severe against them ; they were exiled, certain functions were
interdicted them, they were despoiled of their property ; some
even, as the Priscillianists, in 385, were condemned to death :
the laws of the emperors, especially those of Theodosius the
Great, were full of menaces and provisions against heresy ; the
course of things, in short, evidently tended to tyranny ; civil
power, however, still hesitated to make itself the instrument
of doctrines; the greatest bishops, Saint Hilary, Saint Am-
brose, Saint Martin, still cried out against all capital condem-
nation of heretics, saying that the church had no right to
employ other than spiritual arms. In a word, although the
principle of persecution was in progress, and in very threat-
ening progress, liberty was still stronger : a dangerous and
tempestuous liberty, but active and general ; a man was a
heretic at his peril ; but he might be one if he pleased ; and
men might sustain, they did sustain, their opinions, for a long
period, with energy, with publicity. It will suffice to glance
at the canons of the councils of this epoch in order to be con-
vinced that liberty was still great: with the exception of two
or three great general councils, these assemblies, particularly
in Gaul, scarcely concerned themselves with anything more
than discipline ; questions of theory, of doctrine, appeared
there rarely and only upon great occasions; it was more
especially the government of the church, her situation, the
rights and duties of priests, that they tieated of and decided
upon : a proof that, in numerous points diversity of ideas wai
admitted and debate still open.

Thus, on one side, the very nature of the labors, and on
the other the situation of minds, fully ex»Ujft»*bfo«tellectual

rVT" Tr/C* ER'S C?L'EGE
SA Jk AiBAHA. CAL1FCRNIA

102 HISTORY OF

superioiity of the religious society over the civil society;
the one state was earnest and free, the other servile and
frivolous : what is there to add ?

But one final observation, one, however, which is not without
importance, and which, perhaps, fully explains why civil
literature was on the point of death, while religious literature
lived and prospered so energetically.

For the culture of mind, for the sciences, for literature, to
prosper by themselves, independently of all near and direct
interest, happy and peaceable times are requisite, times of
contentment and good fortune for men. When the social
state becomes difficult, rude, unhappy, when men suffer much
and long, study runs a great risk of being neglected and
of declining. The taste for pure truth, the appreciation of the
beautiful, apart from all other desire, are plants as delicate as
they are noble ; they must have a pure sky, a brilliant sun, a
soft atmosphere ; amid storms they droop the head and fade.
Intellectual development, the labor of mind to attain truth,
will stop unless placed in the train, and under the shield, of
some one of the actual, immediate, powerful interests of hu-
manity. This is what happened at the fall of the Roman
empire : study, literature, pure intellectual activity, were
unable alone to resist disasters, sufferings, universal dis-
couragement ; it was necessary that they should be attached
to popular sentiments and interests ; that they should cease
to appear a luxury, and should become a need. The Christian
religion furnished them with the means ; by uniting with it,
philosophy and literature were saved the ruin which menaced
them ; their activity had then practical, direct results ; they
showed an application to direct men in their conduct, towards
their welfare. It may be said without exaggeration that
the human mind proscribed, beaten down with the storm,
took refuge in the asylum of churches and monasteries ; it
supplicatingly embraced the altars, and entreated to live
under their shelter and in their service, until better times
permitted it to re-apoear in the world and to breathe the free
air.

I shall not go any further into this comparison of the moral
state of the two societies in the fifth century ; we know
enough of it, I think, to understand them both clearly. It is
now necessary to enter deeper into the examination of the
religious society, alone living and fertile ; it is necessary to
seek to discover what questions occupied it, what solutions

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. l\)3

were proposed to it, what controversies were powerful
and popular, what was their influence upon the life and
actions of mankind. This will be the subject of our next
lectures.

J 04 HISTORY OF

FIFTH LECTURE.

Of the principal questions debated in Gaul in the fifth century — Of
Pelagianism — Of the method to follow in its history — Of the moral
facts which gave place to this controversy : 1st, of human liberty ;
2d, of the impotency of liberty, and the necessity for an external
succor ; 3d, of the influence of external circumstances upon liberty ;
4th, of the moral changes which happen in the soul without man
attributing them to his will — Of the questions which naturally arose
from these facts — Of the special point of view under which we
should consider them in the Christian church in the fifth century
— History of Pelagianism at Rome, in Africa, in the East, and in
Gaul — Pelagius — Celestius — Saint Augustin — History of semi-Pela-
gianism — Cassienus — Faustus — Saint Prosper of Aquitaine — Of pre-
destination— Influence and general results of this controversy.

In the last lecture, I attempted to picture, but only under
its general features, the comparative moral state of civil so-
ciety and of religious society in Gaul at the fifth century.
Let us enter deeper into the examination of religious society,
the only one which furnishes ample matter for study and
reflection.

The principal questions which occupied the Gaulish Chris-
tian society in the fifth century were — 1st, Pelagianism, or
the heresy of Pelagius, the principal opponent of which was
Saint Augustin ; 2d, the nature of the soul, debated in the
south of Gaul between bishop Faustus and the priest Mamer-
tius Claudienus ; 3d, various points of worship and of disci-
pline, rather than of doctrine, such as the worship of the
martyrs, the value to be attached to fastings, austerities,
celibacy, &c. ; these, as you have seen, were the objects to
which Vigilantius applied his writings ; 4th, the prolongation
Df the struggle of Christianity against Paganism and Juda-
ism, the theses of the two dialogues of the monk Evagrius,
between the Jew Simon and the Christian Theophilus, and the
Christian Zacheus, and the philosopher Apollonius.

Of all these questions, Pelagianism was by far the most
important : it was the great intellectual controversy of the
church in the fifth century, as Arianism had been in the

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 103

fourth. It is with its history that we are now about tc occupy
ourselves.

Every one is aware that this controversy turned upon the
question of free-will and of grace, that is to say, of the rela-
tions between the liberty of man, and the Divine power, of
the influence of God upon the moral activity of men.

Before proceeding with the history of this affair, I will in-
dicate the method upon which I propose to proceed.

The mere statement of the question will show you that it
was one not peculiar either to the fifth century or to Christi-
anity, bat that it is a universal problem common to all times
and all places, and which all religions, all systems of philo-
sophy, have propounded to themselves, and have endeavored
to solve.

It has, therefore, manifest reference to primitive, universal,
moral facts, facts inherent in human nature, and which ob-
servation may discover there. I will, in the first place, seek
out these facts ; I will endeavor to distinguish in man in
general, independently of all considerations of time, place, or
particular creed, the natural elements, the first matter, so to
speak, of the Pelagian controversy. I shall bring these facts
to light, without adding anything thereto, without retrenching
anything therefrom, without discussing them, solely applied
to prove and describe them.

I shall then show what questions naturally flowed from
natural facts, what difficulties, what controversies, arose out
of them, independently of all particular circumstances of time,
place, or social state.

This done, and, if I may so express myself, the general
theoretical side of the question once thoroughly established,
I shall determine under what special point these moral facts
should be considered at the fifth century, by the defenders of
the various opinions in debate.

Finally, after having thus explained from what sources
and under what auspices Pelagianism was born, I shall recount
its history ; I shall attempt to follow, in their relations and
their progress, the principal ideas which it suscitated, in order
properly to understand what was the state of mind at the
moment when this great controversy arose, what it did therein,
and at what point it left it.

I must request your most scrupulous attention, especially
in th« examination of the moral facts to which the question
attaches itself: they are difficult properly to understand, to ex-

106 HISTORY OF

press with precision ; I should wish nothing should be wanting
to them in clearness and certainty, and I have hardly time ta
indicate them in a cursory manner.

The first, that which forms the foundation of the whole
quarrel, is liberty, free-will, the human will. In order to
understand this fact exactly, it must be disengaged from all
foreign element, and strictly reduced to itself. It is, I believe,
for want of this care that it has been so often but ill compre-
hended ; men have not placed themselves in front of the fact
of liberty, and of that alone ; they have seen and described it,
so to speak, mixed up with other facts which occupy a very
close position to it in moral life, but do not the less essentially
differ from it. For example, they have made human liberty
to consist in the power to deliberate and choose between mo-
tives of action : the deliberation and judgment which proceed
therefrom have been considered as the essence of free-will.
It is nothing of the kind. These are acts of intellect, and not
of liberty ; it is before the intellect that the different motives
of action, interests, passions, opinions, &c, appear : the in-
tellect considers., compares, estimates, weighs, and finally judges
them. This is a preparatory work, which precedes the act
of will, but does not in any way constitute it. When the de-
liberation has taken place, when man has taken full cognizance
of the motives which presented themselves to him, and of their
value, then comes an entirely new fact, entirely different, the
fact of liberty ; man takes a resolution, that is to say, com-
mences a series of facts which have their source in himself,
of which he looks upon himself as the author, which arise
because he wishes it, and which would not arise unless he
wished it, which would be different if he desired to produce
them differently. Remove all recollection of intellectual
deliberation, of motives known and appreciated ; concentre
your thought and that of the man who takes a resolution at
the very moment that it occurs to him, when he says: "I will,
I will do so," and ask yourself, ask him, if he could not will
and do otherwise. Of a surety, you will answer — he will
answer, " Yes." Here the fact of liberty is shown : it
resides complete in the resolution which man takes after
deliberation : it is the resolution which is the proper act of
man, which subsists by him, and by him alone ; a simple act,
independent of all the facts which precede it, or surround it ;
Identical in the most diverse circumstances ; always the same;
whatever may be its motives and its results.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 107

Man sees this act just as he produces it ; he knows himself
to be free, he is conscious of his liberty. Tie conscience is
that faculty which man possesses of contemplating what passes
within him, of being present at his own existence, of being as
it were a spectator of himself. Whatever may be the facts
which are accomplished within man, it is by the fact of con-
science that they are shown to him ; the conscience attests
liberty, the same as sensation, as thought ; man sees, knows
himself free, as he sees, as he knows himself thinking, reflect-
ing, judging. People have often attempted, even now they
attempt to establish, between these various facts, some sort of
inequality of clearness, of certainty : they rise against whal
they call the assumption of introducing the facts of conscience,
unknown and obscure facts, into science ; sensation, percep-
tion, say they, these are clear, proved : but the facts of con-
science, where are they ? what are they ? I do not think there
is any need to insist long on this point : sensation, perception,
are facts of conscience as well as liberty ; man sees them in the
same manner, with the same degree of light, and of certainty.
He may lend his attention to certain facts of conscience,
rather than others, and forget or misunderstand those which
he regards not : the opinion to which I have this moment
made allusion is proof of this : but when he observes himself
in a complete manner, when he is present without losing any
part of it, at the spectacle of his internal life, he has little
trouble in being convinced that all the scenes pass upon the
same stage, and are known to him on the same principle and
in the same manner.

I desire that the fact of human liberty, thus reduced to its
proper and distinctive nature, should remain fully present to
your thought ; for its confusion with other facts, bordering
upon, but different from it, was one of the chief causes of
trouble and debate in the great controversy with which we
have to occupy ourselves.

A second fact, equally natural, equally universal, played a
considerable part in this controversy.

At the same time that man felt himself free, that he saw
in himself the faculty of commencing, by his will alone, a
series of facts, he also acknowledged that his will was placed
under the empire of a certain law which, according to the
occasions to which it applied itself, took different names, moral
law, reason, good sense, &c. He is free ; but, in his own thought,
his freedom is not arbitrary ; he may use it in a senseless,

108 HISTORY OF

unjust, guilty manner ; and each time that he uses it, a certain
rule must preside at it. The observation of this rule is his
duty, the task of his liberty.

He will soon see that he never fully acquits himself of this
task, nor acts perfectly according to reason, moral law ; that,
always free, that is to say, morally capable of conforming
himself to this rule, he, in fact, does not accomplish all that
he ought, or even all that he can. Upon every occasion, when
he scrupulously interrogates himself, and sincerely answers
himself, he is forced to say : " I might have done so and so,
if I had chosen ;" but his will was enervated, backward ; it
went neither to the end of its duty, nor of its power.

This fact is evident, one of which all may give witness ;
there is even this singularity, that the feeling of this weakness
of the will becomes often so much the more clear, so much
the more pressing, as the moral man is developed and per-
fected : the best men, that is, those who have best conformed
their will to reason, to morality, have often been the most
struck with their insufficiency, the most convinced of the pro-
found inequality between the conduct of man and his task,
between liberty and its law.

Hence arises a sentiment which is found under various
forms, in all men ; the feeling of the necessity of an external
support, of a fulcrum for the human will, a power which ma\
be added to its present power, and sustain it at need. Man
seeks on all sides to discover this fulcrum, this aiding
power ; he demands it in the encouragements of friendship, in
the councils of the wise, in the example, the approbation of
those like himself; in the fear of blame ; there is no one but
has every day, in his own conduct, a thousand proofs to cite
of this movement of the soul, eager to find beyond itself an
aid to its liberty, which it feels at once to be real and insuffi-
cient. And as the visible world, the human society, do not
always answer to his desire, as they are afflicted with the same
uusufficingness which is seen in his own case, the soul goes
beyond the visible world, above human relations, to seek this
fulcrum of which it has need : the religious sentiment de-
velopes itself; man addresses himself to God, and invokes his
aid. Prayer is the most elevated, but not the only form,
under which the universal sentiment of the weakness of hu-
man will, this recourse to an external and allied power, is
manifested.

And such is the nature of man, that when he sincerely

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 109

asks this support, he obtains it, that his merely seeking it is
almost sufficient to secure it. Whosoever, feeling his will
weak, sincerely invokes the encouragement of a friend, the
influence of wise counsels, the support of public opinion, or
addresses himself to God by prayer, soon feels his will
fortified, sustained, in a certain measure, and for a certain
time. This is a fact of daily experience, and which is easy
of verification.

Here is a third whose importance should not be forgotten :
I mean the influence of circumstances independent of maw
upon the human will, the empire of the external world upon
liberty. No one denies the fact, but it is necessary to estimate
it with exactness, for, if I do not deceive myself, it is generally
ill-comprehended.

I just now distinguished liberty from the deliberation which
precedes it, and which is accomplished by the intellect. Now
the circumstances independent of man, whatsoever they be,
the place, the time when the man was born, habits, manners,
education, events, influence in no way the act of liberty,
such as I have endeavored to describe it ; it is not reached
nor modified by them ; it always remains identical and com-
plete, whatever the motives which it call forth. It is upon
these motives, in the sphere where intellect displays itself,
that external circumstances exercise and exhaust their power.
The age, the country, the world, in the heart of which life
passes away, infinitely vary the elements of the deliberation
which precedes the will : in consequence of this variation,
certain facts, certain ideas, certain sentiments, in this intel-
lectual labor, are present or absent, near or at a distance,
powerful or weak ; and the result of this deliberation, that is
to say the judgment formed upon the motives, is greatly
affected by it. But the act of the will which follows it remains
essentially the same : it is only indirectly, and by reason of
the diversity of the elements introduced into the deliberation,
that the conduct of men undergoes this influence of the
external world. One illustration, I hope, will make me
fully understood. In accordance with the customs of his
tribe, to fulfil what he regards as a duty, a savage reluctantly
kills his aged and infirm father: a European, on the contrary,
supports his parent, tends him, devotes himself to the alleviation
of his old age and infirmities ; nothing assuredly can be more
different than the ideas which, in the two cases, constitute the
groundwork of the deliberation which precedes the action,

110 HISTORY Of

and the results which accompany it : nothing more unequa,
than the legitimacy, the moral worth of the two actions in
themselves, but as to the resolution, the free and personal
act of the European, and of the savage, are they not alike,
if accomplished with the same intention, and with the same
degree of effort ?

Thus the influence of circumstances independent of the
will, upon the motives and the consequences of free action, is
immense, but that is the only field in which it exercises itself'
the lower fact placed between deliberation and exterior action,
the fact of liberty, remains the same, and accomplishes itself
in like manner amidst the most varying elements.

I now come to the fourth and last of the great moral facts,
a knowledge of which is indispensable, before we can com-
prehend the history of Pelagianism. There are many others
which I might enumerate ; but these are of minor importance,
obvious results of those which I here describe, and I have no
time to enter into an account of them.

There are certain changes, certain moral events, which
accomplish and manifest themselves in man without his being
able to refer their origin to an act of his will, or being able
to recognize their author.

This assertion may at first glance surprise some of you ; I
will endeavor to illustrate it by analogous facts, which occur
more frequently within the domain of intelligence, and are
more readily apprehended.

There is no one who at some time or other of his life after
laboriously seeking some idea, some reminiscence, has not
fallen asleep in the midst of the search without having suc-
ceeded in it> and next morning, on awaking, found the desired
object fully present to his mind. There is no scholar to whom
it has not occurred to have retired to rest without having ac-
quired the lesson he has been studying, and to have arisen
next morning and learned it without the least difficulty. I
might show many other illustrations of the same description :
I select these as the simplest and most incontestable.

I deduce from them this consequence : independently of the
voluntary and deliberate activity of the will, a certain interior
and spontaneous labor accomplishes itself in the understand-
ing of man, a labor which we do not direct or control, of
which we have no opportunity of observing the progress, and
yet a real and productive labor.

There is, after all, nothing strange in this : every one of

HISTORY OF 111

us brings with him into the world an intellectual nature of
his own. Man, by the operation of his will, directs and
modifies, exalts or debases his moral being, but he does not
create it ; he has received it, and received it endowed with
certain individual dispositions, with a spontaneous force.
The inborn diversity of men in the moral point of view, as
in the physical, is beyond dispute. Now, in the same way
that the physical nature of each man developes itself sponta-
neously and by its own virtue, so, in the same way, though in
a very unequal degree, there is operated in his intellectual
nature, set in motion by his relations with the external world,
or by his will itself, a certain involuntary, imperceptible de-
velopment, and, to use an expression, which I only avail
myself of because it figuratively expresses the idea I wish to
convey, a sort of vegetation, bearing naturally, and in due
course, its fruits.

That which takes place in the intellectual order, happens
in like manner in the moral order. Certain facts occur in
the interior of the human soul which it does not refer to itself,
which it does not recognize as the work of its own will ; there
are certain days, certain moments, in which it finds itself in
a different moral state from that which it was last conscious
of under the operation of its own will. It cannot trace back
the progress of the change to its source ; it had nothing to do
with it, it took place without its concurrence. In other words,
the moral man does not wholly create himself; he is con-
scious that causes, that powers external to himself, act upon
him and modify him imperceptibly ; in his moral life, as in
his future destiny, there are points utterly inexplicable to him,
of which he knows nothing.

Nor is it necessary, to convince himself of this fact, that he
should turn to those great moral revolutions, those sudden,
marked changes, which the human soul, undoubtedly, may at
times experience, but which ever receive a high coloring
from the imagination of the narrators, and of which it is diffi-
cult to form an adequate appreciation. It is only necessary
to look into oneself, to discover there more than one example
>f these involuntary modifications. There is no one, who, on
observation of his internal life, will not easily recognize that
the vicissitudes, the development of his moral being, are not
all the result, either of the action of his will, or of the ex.
ternal circumstances that are known to him.

Such are the principal moral facts connected with the

112 CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE.

Pelagian controversy, such as human nature, simple, universal
nature, communicates them to us, apart from the historical
details, the particular circumstance of Pelagianism itself.
You at once see, that from these facts alone, still apart from
all special and accidental elements, there results a multitude
of questions, the groundwork of many a grave discussion.
And, in the first place, we may question the reality of the
facts themselves : all of them, indeed, are not equally exposed
to this danger ; the fact of human liberty, for instance, is
more evident, more irresistible, than any of the rest ; yet even
this has been denied, as all things may be denied, seeing that
there are no bounds to the vast field of error.

Admit the facts, acknowledge them fully : then comes the
question, whether we may not be mistaken as to the place
which each occupies, or to the part which each plays in the
moral life ; we may have measured inexactly their extent, their
importance ; we may have given too large or too small a part
to liberty, to external circumstances, to the weakness of the
will, to unknown influences, &c.

Again, altogether different explanations of the facts them-
selves may be suggested. In reference, for example, to the
involuntary, imperceptible changes which occur in the moral
state of man ; it may be said that these are assignable to some
want of due attention on the part of the soul, to its not re-
membering all that passes within itself, to its having forgotten
some act of the will, some resolution, some impression, which
has produced consequences, the thread of which it has not
followed, the development of which it has not observed. Or,
to explain these obscure, doubtful facts of the moral life, re-
course may at once be had to a direct, special action, of God
upon man, to a permanent relation between the action of God
and the activity of man. Or, finally, attempts may be made
to reconcile these facts together in various ways ; to reduce
them into a system upon such or such a principle, to refer
them to such or such a general doctrine upon the nature and
destiny of man and of the world. Thus, in a variety of ways,
an infinity of questions may arise ; from the nature alone of
the facts under consideration, taken in themselves and in their
generality, they are a fruitful subject of discussion.

And how much wider still the field of controversy, when
particular, local, temporary causes vary still more the point
of view under which we regard these questions, modify the
Cognizance which the human mind takes of them, diverting

HISTORY OF 113

its inquiries into one direction rather than .nto another, giv-
ing greater or less prominence, greater or less effect to this
or to that fact. This, which always happens, happened of
course in the fifth century. I have endeavored to reascend
with you to the natural and purely moral sources of the Pe-
lagian controversy : it is now necessary that we should con-
sider its historical origins ; they are no less necessary to the
proper comprehension of it.

In the bosom of the Christian church, the moral facts which
1 have described were, as a matter of inevitable course, con-
sidered in various points of view.

Christianity was an essentially practical revolution, not a
mere scientific, speculative reform. Jts prominent aim was
to change the moral state, to govern the life of men ; and not
only that of particular men, but of whole nations, of the entire
human race.

This was a prodigious innovation. The Greek philosophy,
%t least since the period when its history becomes clear and
certain, was essentially scientific, was applied far more to the
research of truth than to the reformation and direction of
manners. There were only two of its schools which took a
somewhat different direction. It entered into the formal
plan of the stoics, and of the new Platonists, to exercise a
moral influence, to regulate the conduct, as well as to en-
lighten the understanding ; but their ambition in this respect
was limited to a small number of disciples — to a sort of in-
tellectual aristocracy.

It was, on the contrary, the special and characteristic design
of Christianity to effect a moral reformation, a universal re-
formation— to govern throughout the world, in the name of
its doctrine, the will and the life of men.

As an almost inevitable consequence, among the moral
facts which constitute our nature, the chiefs of the Christian
society would apply themselves especially to give prominence
to those which are more peculiarly calculated to exercise
a reforming influence, to bring about with greater prompti-
tude practical effects. Towards these would the attention
of the great bishops, of the fathers of the church, be drawn ;
for from them they derived the means of impelling Chris-
tianity onward in its career, and of accomplishing their own
mission.

Again, the fulorum of the moral Christian reformation was
religion ; it was religious ideas, the relations of man with the

114 HISTORY OF

Divinity, of the present with the future life, that constituted
her force. Her chiefs accordingly would, among moral
facts, prefer and favor those whose tendency is religious
which belong to the religious part of our nature, and are, so
to speak, placed on the limits of present duties, and of future
hopes, of morality and of religion.

The wants of Christianity, and its means of action for
effecting moral reform, and governing men, varied necessarily
with time and place : it had to address itself in the human
soul now to one fact, now to another ; to-day, to one condition
of things — to-morrow, to another. It is evident, for instance,
that at various times, from the first to the fifth century, the
task of the chiefs of the religious society was not uniformly
the same, and could not be accomplished by the same means.
The predominant fact of the first century was the struggle
against paganism — the necessary efforts to overthrow an
order of things odious to the state of men's souls — the work,
in a word, of revolution, of war. There was incessant ne-
cessity for appealing to the spirit of liberty, of examination,
to the energetic display of the will ; this was the moral fact
which Christian society of this period invoked and displayed
constantly, on all occasions.

In the fifth century things were in a different situation.
The war was at an end, or nearly so — the victory achieved.
The Christian leaders had now to regulate the religious
society, to promulgate its articles of faith, to order its dis-
cipline, to constitute it, in a word, on the ruins of that pagan
world over which it had triumphed. These vicissitudes are
to be met with in all great moral revolutions. I need not
give you further instances of it. You perceive that at this
period it was no longer the spirit of liberty which it was
necessary constantly to invoke. That which was now to be
cultivated in its turn, was a disposition in the people favour-
able to the establishment of rule, of order ; to the exercise of
power.

Apply these considerations to the jmtural and moral facts
which I have pointed out as the sources of the Pelagian con-
troversy, and you will easily distinguish those whose develop-
ment the chiefs of the church were more especially called
upon to promote in the fifth century.

There was another cause which modified the point of view
under which they considered our moral nature. The facts
which relate to human liberty, and the problems which arise

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 115

out of those facts, are not isolated facts or isolated problems ;
they are closely connected with other facts, with other pro.
blems still more general and complex j for instance, with the
question of the origin of good and evil, with the question
of the general destiny of man, and its essential relations with
the designs of God as to the world. Now, upon these higher
questions, there already existed in the church determinate
doctrines, fixed propositions, accepted solutions ; so that
when new questions arose, the chiefs of the religious society
nad to adapt their ideas to the general ideas, to the established
opinions. Hence for them this complicated situation : certain
facts, certain moral problems attracted their attention ; they
might have examined and judged them as philosophers, with
all the freedom of their minds, apart from all external consi-
derations, from all but the scientific point of view ; but then
they were invested with an official power ; they were called
upon to govern their people, to regulate their actions, and to
direct their will. Hence a practical political necessity, which
weighed down upon the philosophic operation and turned it
aside. Nor was this all ; philosophers and politicians, they
were at the same time compelled to the functions of pure
logicians, to conform implicitly on all occasions to the conse-
quences of certain principles, of certain immutable doctrines.
They thus, as it were, played three parts at once, underwent
at once three yokes ; they had to consult at one and the same
time the nature of things, practical necessity, and hope.
Whenever a new question arose, whenever they were called
upon to take cognizance of moral facts to which they had not
as yet applied particular attention, they had to think and to
act in this triple character, to fulfil this triple mission.

This, however, was not, in the religious society, the po-
sition of all its members ; there were many Christians who
did not regard themselves as called upon, on the one hand, to
direct the moral government of the church, nor as bound, on
the other, to follow out, through all its consequences, its
system of doctrines. Among the numbers so situated, there
could not fail to arise men who assumed the right of observ-
ing and of acquiring for themselves such or such moral facts,
without taking much heed to their practical influences, or
to their place in, and connexion with, a general system ; men
with minds less capacious, less powerful than those of the
great chiefs of the church, but who, having fuller career in a
less crowded field, imposing upon themselves a simpler and

116 HISTORY OF

more easy task, might very well arrive at more precise an«
definite knowledge upon particular points. Thus arose the
heresiarchs.

Thus arose Pelagianism. You are by this time, I hope,
acquainted " with the great preliminary, and, as it were, ex-
ternal circumstances which influenced its destiny ; you have
before you : 1, the principal natural facts upon which the
dispute turned ; 2, the questions which naturally arose out of
those facts ; 3, the special point of view under which these
facts and these questions were considered in the fifth cen-
tury by the leaders of the religious society, and by the active
and investigating minds which spring up in its bosom. Thus
possessed of the guiding thread, the illuminating torch, we
may now advantageously proceed to the history of the Pela-
gian controversy itself.

The controversy arose early in the fifth century. The
question of free will, and of the action of God upon the
human soul, had, indeed, already occupied the attention of
the Christians, as is attested by the letters of St. Paul, and
by many other monuments ; but the facts brought forward
had been either accepted or rejected, as the case might be,
almost without discussion. Towards the close of the fourth
century, men began to examine them more closely ; and some
of the chiefs of the church already began to entertain some
uneasiness on the subject. " We must not," says St. Augus-
tin himself, " we must not discourse much of grace to men
who are not yet Christians, or thoroughly confirmed Chris-
tians ; for it is a knotty question, and one which may give the
faith much trouble."

About the year 405, a British monk, Pelagius (this is the
name given him by the Greek and Latin writers ; his real
name, it appears, was Morgan), was residing at Rome.
There has been infinite discussion as to his origin, his moral
character, his capacity, his learning ; and, under these various
heads, much abuse has been lavished upon him ; but this
abuse would appear to be unfounded, for, judging from the
most authoritative testimony, from that of St. Augustin him-
self, Pelagius was a man of good birth, of excellent education,
of pure life. A resident, as I have said, at Rome, and now a
man of mature age, without laying down any distinct doc-
trines, without having written any book on the subject, Pela-
gius began, about the year I have mentioned, 405, to talk
much about free will, to insist urgently upon this moral fact.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 117

Lo expound it. There is no indication that he attacked anv
person about the matter, or that he sought controversy ; he
appears to have acted simply upon the belief that human
liberty was not held in sufficient account, had not its due
share in the religious doctrines of the period.

These ideas excited no trouble in Rome, scarcely any
debate. Pelagius spoke freely ; they listened to him quietly.
His principal disciple was Celestius, like him a monk, or so
it is thought at least, but younger, more confident, of a more
daring spirit, and more determined to prosecute the conse-
quences of his opinions to the end.

In 411, Pelagius and Celestius are no longer at Rome;
we find them in Africa, at Hippo and at Carthage. In the
latter town, Celestius put forth his ideas : a controversy was
immediately begun between him and the deacon Paulinus,
who accused him of heresy before the bishop. In 412 a
council was assembled ; Celestius appeared there, and vigo-
rously defended himself; he was excommunicated, and, after
having in vain essayed an appeal to the bishop of Rome,
passed into Asia, whither Pelagius, it seems, had preceded
him.

Their doctrines spread ; they found in the islands of the
Mediterranean, among others in Sicily and at Rhodes, a fa-
vorable reception; they sent to Saint Augustin a small work
of Celestius, entitled Definiliones, which many people were
eager to read. Hilary, a Gaul, wrote to him about it with great
uneasiness. The bishop of Hippo began to be alarmed ; he
saw in these new ideas error and peril.

At first, wnong the facts relative to the moral activity of
man, that of free will was almost the only one with which
Pelagius and Celestius seemed to be occupied. Saint Au-
gustin was of the same belief as they, and had more than
once proclaimed it; but other facts, in his opinion, ought to
occupy a place by the side of this one; for example, the in-
sufficiency of the human will, the necessity for exterior aid,
and the moral changes which happen in the soul, without her
being able to claim them. Pelagius and Celestius seemed to
count these nothing : this was the first cause of the contest be-
tween them and the bishop of Hippo, whose greater mind con-
sidered moral nature under a greater number of aspects.

Besides, Pelagius, by the almost exclusive importance which
he gave to free-will, weakened the religious side of the Chris-
tian doctrine, and strengthened, if I may use the expression,

20

118 HISTORY OF

the human side. Liberty is the fact of man: ne appears there
alone. In the insufficiency of the human will, on the con-
trary, and in the moral changes whica it does not claim, there
is a place for Divine intervention. Now, the reforming power
of the church was essentially religious : it could not but lose,
under the practical point of view, from a theory which placed
in the first rank a fact with which religion had nothing to do,
and left in the shade those in which its influence found occa-
sion for exercise.

Saint Augustin was the chief of the doctors of the church,
called upon more than any other to maintain the general
system of her doctrines. Now, the ideas of Pelagius and of
Celestius seemed to him in contradiction with some of the fun-
damental points of the Christian faith, especially with the doc-
trine of original sin and of redemption. He attacked them,
therefore, in a triple relation : as a philosopher, because their
knowledge of human nature was, in his eyes, narrow and in-
complete ', as a practical reformer, and charged with the go-
vernment of the church, because, according to him, they weak-
ened his most efficacious means of reformation and government ;
as a logician, because their ideas did not exactly agree with
the consequences deduced from the essential principles of the
faith.

You see, from that time, what a serious aspect the quarrel
took : everything was engaged in it, philosophy, politics, and
religion, the opinions of Saint Augustin and his business, his
self-love and his duty. He entirely abandoned himself to it,
publishing treatises, writing letters, collecting information,
which came to him from all parts, prodigal of refutations, and
of counsels, and carrying into all his writings, all his proceed-
ings, that mixture of passion and mildness, of authority and of
sympathy, extent of mind and logical rigor, which gave him
so rare a power.

Pelagius and Celestius, on their side, did not remain inac-
tive ; they had found powerful friends in the east. If Saint
Jerome fulminated against them at Bethlehem, John, bishop
of Jerusalem, zealously protected them : he convoked, on their
account, an assembly of the priests of his church. Orosius,
the Spaniard, a disciple of Saint Augustin, and who happened
to be in Palestine, repaired thither, and stated all that had
passed in Africa upon the subject of Pelagius, as well as the
errors of which he was accused. On the recommendation of
bishop John, Pelagius was called ; they asked him if he really

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 119

taught what Augustin had refuted. " What is Augustin to
me V answered he. Many present were shocked. Augustin
was then the most celebrated and most respected doctor of the
church. They desired to expel Pelagius, and even to excom-
municate him ; but John turned aside the blow, caused Pela-
gius to be seated, and interrogated him, saying, " It is I who
am Augustin here ; it is me that thou shalt answer." Pela-
gius spoke Greek, his accuser Orosius spoke only Latin ; the
members of the assembly did not understand him ; they sepa-
rated without deciding anything.

A short time afterwards, in the month of December. 415, a
council was held in Palestine, at Diospolis, the ancient Lydda,
composed of fourteen bishops, and under the presidency of
Eulogius, bishop of Caesarea. Two Gaulish bishops, exiles
from their sees, Heros, bishop of Aries, and Lazarus, bishop
of Aix, had addressed to him a new accusation against Pela-
gius. They were not present at the council, alleging illness,
and probably informed that he was little favorable to them.
Pelagius appeared there, still protected by the bishop of Jeru-
salem : they interrogated him concerning his opinions ; he
explained them, modified them, adopted all that the council
presented to him as the true doctrine of the church, recounted
what he had already suffered, spoke of his relations with many
holy bishops, with Augustin himself, who, two years previously,
had written him a letter intended to contest some of his ideas,
but full of benevolence and mildness. The accusation of
Heros and of Lazarus was read, but only in Latin, and by the
interposition of an interpreter. The council declared itself
satisfied ; Pelagius was acquitted and declared orthodox.

The report of this decision soon arrived in Africa, from
Africa into Europe, from city to city. As soon as Saint Au-
gustin was informed of the results of the council of Diospolis,
although he had not yet received its acts, he put everything
in motion to resist their effects.

About the same time an incident occurred in Palestine which
threw a gloomy hue over the cause of Pelagius. He remained
at Jerusalem, and there had professed his ideas with a greater
degree of assurance. A violent commotion broke out at Beth-
lehem against Saint Jerome and the monasteries which were
formed near him : serious excesses were committed, houses
were pillaged, burnt, a deacon killed ; and Jerome was obliged
to seek safety in a tower. The Pelagians, it is said, were the
authors of these disorders: nothing proves this, and I am ra«

120 HISTORY OF

ther inclined to doubt it ; still there was room for suspicion ,
it was generally believed, and a great clamor arose ; Saint
Jerome wrote to the bishop of Rome, Innocent L, about it, and
Pelagianism was seriously compromised.

Two solemn councils sat this year (416) in Africa, at Car-
thage and at Milevum ; sixty-eight bishops were present at
the one, sixty-one at the other. Pelagius and his doctrines
were there formally condemned ; the two assemblies informed
the pope of their decision, and Saint Augustin wrote to him
privately, with four other bishops, giving him a more detailed
account of the whole affair, and induced him to examine Pe-
lagius in order to proclaim truth and anathematise error.

On the 27th January, 417, Innocent answered the two coun-
cils, to the five bishops, and condemned the doctrines of Pela-
gius.

He did not deem himself beaten ; two months afterwards,
Innocent died ; Zosimus succeeded him ; Celestius returned to
Rome ; he obtained from the new pope a new examination, at
which he probably explained his opinion, as Pelagius had at
Diospolis ; and on the 21st September, 417, Zosimus informed
the bishops of Africa, by three letters, that he had scrupulously
employed himself in this affair ; that he had heard Celestius
himself, at a meeting of priests held in the church of Saint
Clement ; that Pelagius had written to him to justify himself;
that he was satisfied with their explanations, and had rein-
stated them in the communion of the church.

Hardly had these letters arrived in Africa, when a new
council met at Carthage (in May, 418); two hundred and three
bishops1 were present at it ; in eight express canons it con-
demned the doctrines of Pelagius, and addressed itself to the
emperor Honorius in order to obtain from him, against the
heretics, measures which might place the church under shelter
from peril.

From 418 to 421, appeared many edicts and letters of the
emperors Honorius, Theodosius II., and Constantius, which
banished Pelagius, Celestius, and their partisans, from Rome,
and all towns where they should attempt to propagate their
fatal errors.

Pope Zosimus did not long resist the authority of the coun-
cils and of the emperors ; he convoked a new assembly, in order

1 According to others?, two hundred and fourtsen.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 121

to hear Celestius again ; but Celestius had quitted Rome, and
Zosimus wrote to the bishops of Africa that he had condemned
the Pelagians.

The quarrel continued yet some time ; eighteen bishops of
Italy refused to subscribe to the condemnation of Pelagius ;
they were deprived of their sees, and banished into the east.
The triple decision of the council, the pope, and the emperor,
gave a death-blow to this cause. After the year 418, we
discover, in history, no trace of Pelagius. The name of
Celestius is sometimes met with until the year 427 ; it then
disappears. These two men once off the scene, their school
rapidly declined. The opinion of Saint Augustin, adopted
by the councils, by the popes, by the civil authority, became
the general doctrine of the church. But the victory had yet
to cost her some struggles ; Pelagianism dying, left an heir ;
the semi-Pelagians engaged in the struggle which the Pela.
gians could not maintain.

In the south of Gaul, in the heart of the monasteries of
Saint Lerins and of Saint Victor, where boldness of thought
then took refuge, it appeared to some men, among others to
Cassienus, the monk of whom I have already spoken, that
the fault of Pelagius was in being too exclusive, and not
holding sufficient account of all the facts relative to human
liberty, and to its relation with the Divine power. The in-
sufficiency of the human will, for example, the necessity for
exterior relief, the moral revolutions which operate in the
soul, and are not its work, were, he felt, real, important facts,
that should neither be disputed nor even neglected. Cassienus
admitted them fully, loudly, thus giving to the doctrine of
free-will something of the religious character which Pelagius
and Celestius had so much weakened. But, at the same time,
he disputed, more or less openly, many of the ideas of Saint
Augustin ; among others, his explanation of the moral refor-
mation and progressive sanctification of man. Saint Augustin
attributed them to the direct, immediate, special action of God
upon the soul, to grace, properly so called, a grace to which
man had not title of himself, and which proceeded from
absolutely gratuitous gift, from the free choice of the Divinity.

Cassienus allowed more efficacy to the merits of man him-
self, and maintained that his moral amelioration was partly
the work of his own will, which drew upon him divine sup-
port, a"d produced, by a natural concatenation, although often

122 HISTORY OF

unseen, the internal changes by which the progress of sane
tification made itself known.

Such, between the semi-Pelagians and their redoubtable
adversary, was the principal subject of controversy : it com-
menced about the year 428, upon letters from Prosper of
Aquitaine and from Hilary, who had hastened to inform Saint
Augustin that Pelagianism was again rising under a new
form. The bishop of Hippo immediately wrote a treatise
entitled : De Prczdestinatione Sanctorum et de dono perseve-
rantice. Prosper published his poem Against Ingrates ; and
the war of pamphlets and letters regained all its activity.

Saint Augustin died in 430 ; Saint Prosper and Hilary
alone remained charged with prosecuting his work. They
went to Rome, and had the semi-Pelagians condemned by
pope Celestin. However modified this doctrine was, it was
but little favorable in the church ; it reproduced a heresy
already vanquished ; it weakened, although to a less degree,
the religious influence of morality and of government ; it was
in discord with the general course of ideas, which tended to
give the greater share to the Divine intervention on every
occasion ; it would have fallen almost without resistance, if a
directly contrary doctrine, that of the predestinarians, had not
appeared and lent.it a few moments' power and credit.

From the writings of Saint Augustin upon the impotence
of human will, the nullity of its merits, and the perfectly
free and gratuitous nature of Divine grace, some refractory
logicians deduced the predestination of all men, and the irre-
vocability of the decrees of God as to the eternal lot of every
one. The first manifestations of this doctrine in the fifth
century are obscure and doubtful ; but from the time that it
appeared, it shocked the good sense and moral equity of most
Christians. Accordingly, the semi-Pelagians took up the
combat, and presented their ideas as the natural counterpoise
of such an error. Such was especially the characteristic
which was labored to be impressed upon semi-Pelagianism,
about the year 445, by Faustus, bishop of Riez, whom I have
already named, and of whom, at a later period, I shall speak
more particularly ; he presented himself as a kind of media-
tor between the Pelagians and the predestinarians. " It is
necessary," said he, " in the question of the grace of God
and the obedience of man, to keep to the middle path, and
incline neither to the right nor to the left." According to
him, Pelagius and Saint Augustin were both of them too

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 123

exclusive : one allowed too much to human liberty and not
enough to the action of God ; the other was too forgetful of
human liberty. This species of compromise at first obtained
much favor in the Gaulish church ; two councils met, one at
Aries, in 472, the other at Lyons, in 473, formally condemned
the predestinarians, and charged Faustus t6 publish a treatise
which he had written against them, entitled, Of Grace and oj
the Liberty of the Human Will, even ordering him to add some
further developments. This, however, was but a day's res-
pite for semi-Pelagianism, a glimmer of fortune ; it was not
long in again falling into discredit.

While still living, Saint Augustin had been accused of
advocating the doctrine of predestination, the total abolition
of free-will, and he had energetically defended himself from
it. He deceived himself, I think, as a logician, in denying a
consequence which inevitably resulted from his ideas, on the
one hand, concerning the impotence and corruption of the
human will — on the other, concerning the nature of the Divine
intervention and fore-knowledge.

But the superiority of Saint Augustin's mind saved him,
on this occasion, from the errors into which logic had nearly
brought it, and he was inconsistent precisely because of his
lofty reason. Allow me to dwell a moment on this moral
fact, which alone explains the contradictions of so many fine
geniuses : I shall take an example near to us all, and one of
the most striking. Most of you, of course, have read the
Conlrat Social of Rousseau ; the sovereignty of number, of
the numerical majority is, as you know, the fundamental
principle of the work, and Rousseau, for a long time, follows
out the consequences of it with inflexible rigor ; a time ar-
rives, however, when he abandons them, and abandons them
with great effect ; he wishes to give his fundamental laws,
his constitution, to the rising society ; his high intellect warned
him that such a work could not proceed from universal suf-
frage, from the numerical majority, from the multitude : " A
God," said he, " must give laws to men.". ... It is not magis-
tracy, it is not sovereignty. ... It is a particular and superior
function, which has nothing in common with the human em-
pire.1 And hereupon he sets up a sole legislator, a sage ;
thus violating his principle of the sovereignty of number, in

1 Control Sociaf, b. ii., ch. vii.

124 HISTORY OF

order to turn to an entirely different principle, to the sovft
reignty of intellect, to the right of superior reason.

The Control Social, and almost all the works of Rousseau,
abound in similar contradictions, and they are, perhaps, the
clearest proof of the great mind of the author.

It was by an inconsistency of the same kind that Saint
Augustin resolutely repelled the predestination which had
been imputed to him. Others, afterwards, acute dialecticians,
unhesitatingly went on to this doctrine and settled to it : for
him, when he perceived it, enlightened by his genius, he
turned aside, and without entirely retracing his steps, took
flight in another direction, in absolutely refusing to abolish
liberty. The church acted like Saint Augustin ; it had
adopted his doctrines concerning grace, and on this score
condemned the Pelagians and semi-Pelagians ; she likewise
condemned the predestinarians, thus taking from Cassienus
and Faustus, and from their disciples, the pretext by favor of
which they had somewhat regained the ascendant. Semi-
Pelagianism from that time did nothing but decline ; Saint
Cesarius, bishop of Aries, at the commencement of the sixth
century, again declared war against it, as Saint Augustin and
Saint Prosper had done : in 529, the councils of Orange and
Valencia condemned it ; in 330, pope Boniface II., in his
turn, struck it with a sentence of anathema, and it soon
ceased, for a long time at least, to agitate minds. Predesti-
nation experienced the same fate.

None of these doctrines gave rise to a sect, properly so
sailed : they were not separated from the church, nor did
Ihey constitute a distinct religious society ; they had no
organization, no worship : they were mere opinions debated
. letween men of mind ; more or less accredited, more or less
•-ontrary to the official doctrine of the church, but which
never threatened her with a schism. Accordingly, of their
Appearance, and of the debates which they excited, there only
remained certain tendencies, certain intellectual dispositions,
iot sects nor veritable schools. We meet at all epochs in the
course of European civilization, 1st, With minds preoccupied
especially with what there is of humanity in our moral activ-
ity, with the fact of liberty, and which thus attach themselves
.o the Pelagians. 2d, With minds more especially struck
with tne power of God over man, with Divine intervention in
human activity, and inclined to make human liberty vanish
under the hand of God ; these hold with the predestinarians.

CIVILIZATION IN FKANCE. 12Z

3d, Between those two tendencies was placed the general
doctrine of the church, which strove to take into account all
natural facts, human liberty and Divine intervention ; denies
that God effects all in man, that man can do all without the
assistance of God, and thus establishes itself, perhaps with
more of reason than of scientific consistency, in the regions
of good sense, the true country of the human mind, which
always returns there, after having strayed ?n all directions
(Post longos error es.)

126 HISTORY 01

SIXTH LECTURE.

Object of the lecture — General character of the literature of the middle
ages — Of the transition from pagan philosophy to Christian theology
— Of the question of the nature of the soul in the Christian church
— The ancient priests for the most part pronounced in favor of the
system of materialism — Efforts to escape from it — Analogous march
of ideas in pagan philosophy — Commencement of the system of spi-
rituality— Saint Augustin, Nemesius, Mamertius Claudienus — Faus-
tus, bishop of Riez — His arguments for the materiality of the soul —
Mamertius Claudienus answers him — Importance of Mamertius
Claudienus in Gaul — Analysis of, and quotations from his treatise on
the nature of the soul — The dialogue of Evagrius between Zacheus
the Christian and Apollonius the philosopher — Of the effects of the
invasion of the barbarians upon the moral state of Gaul.

Between the question which occupied us in the last lecture,
and that with which we shall now occupy ourselves, the dif-
fertrice is very great. Pelagianism was not only a question,
but also an event ; it gave rise to parties, interests, passions ;
it put in movement councils, emperors ; it influenced the fate
of many men. The question of the nature of the soul pro-
duced nothing of the kind ; it was carried on between a few
able men in a corner of the empire. In the last lecture, I had
many facts to recount ; at present I have to speak of books
and of arguments.

I pray you to mark the course of our studies. We com-
menced by examining the social state, the external and pub-
lic facts ; we then passed to the moral state of Gaul ; we
• sought it first in general facts, in the entirety of society;
then in a great religious debate, in a doctrine, an active power-
ful doctrine, which became an event ; we will now study it in
a simple philosophical discussion. We shall thus penetrate
more and more into the interior of men's minds ; we first con-
sidered facts, then ideas mingled with facts, and subject to
their influences ; we will now consider ideas by themselves.

Before entering upon the question, permit me to say a few
words upon the general character of the literary writers of
this period and of the middle ages in general.

If- you compare, on the one hand, ancient literature, Greek
nd Roman literature, and on the other hand, modern litera*

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 127

ture, especially so called, with that of the middle ages, the
principal points, which, as I think, will strike you, will be the
following :

In ancient literature, the form of the works, the art of their
composition, and the language, are admirable ; even when its
materials are poor, the ideas false or confused, the workman-
ship is so skilful, that it cannot fail to please ; manifesting in
the author, a mind at once natural and refined, whose inward
development far surpasses its acquired knowledge, which has
an exquisite appreciation of the beautiful, and a peculiar apti-
tude for reproducing it.

In modern literature, since the sixteenth century for in-
stance, the form is very often imperfect ; there is frequently a
deficiency at once of nature and of art, but the groundwork is
in general sound ; we meet with less and less of gross igno-
rance, of wanderings from the question, of confusion ; method,
common sense, in a word, artistic merit, is the prominent
feature ; if the mind is not always satisfied, it is at least very
seldom shocked ; the spectacle is not invariably a fine one, but
chaos has disappeared.

The intellectual labors of the middle ages present a dif-
ferent aspect ; as a general proposition, they are entirely de-
ficient in artistic merit ; the form is rude, fantastic ; they are
full of divergences, of incoherent ideas ; they manifest a state
of mind, crude, uncultivated, alike without interior develop-
ment or -acquired knowledge, and accordingly neither our
reason nor our taste is satisfied. This is the reason why they
have been forgotten, why Greek and Roman literature have
survived, and will eternally survive the people among whom
it respectively arose. Yet under this so imperfect form,
amidst this so strange medley of ideas and of facts, ill under-
stood and ill combined, the books of the middle ages are very
remarkable monuments of the activity and wealth of the hu-
man mind ; we meet in them with many vigorous and original
conceptions ; important questions are often sounded to their
lowest depths, flashes of philosophical truth, of literary beauty,
glance at every moment from the darkness ; the mineral in
this mine is altogether in a rough state, but the metal is plen-
tiful, and well merits our research.

The writings of the fifth and sixth centuries, moreover,
have a character and an interest peculiar to themselves. It
was the period at which ancient philosophy was giving way
before modern theology, in which the one was becoming

128 HISTORY OF

transformed into the other ; in which certain systems becama
dogmas, certain schools sects. These periods of transition are
of great importance ; are, perhaps, in the historical point of
view, the most instructive of all. It is at these periods only
that we are able to view simultaneously and face to face
certain facts, certain states of man and of the world, which
are generally only to be seen by themselves, and separated by
whole centuries ; they are the only periods, therefore, in which
it is easy for us to compare these facts and these states, to
explain them, connect them together. The human mind is
but too prone to walk in but one single path, to see things
but under one partial, narrow, exclusive aspect, to place itself
in prison ; it is, therefore, a very fortunate circumstance for
it, when it is compelled, by the very nature of the spectacle
placed before its eyes, to look around it in all directions, to
embrace a vast horizon, to contemplate a great number of
different objects, to study the great problems of the world
under all their aspects, and in all their various solutions. It
is more especially in the south of Gaul that this character of
the fifth century manifests itself. You have seen the activity
which prevailed in the religious society, and, among others,
in the monasteries of Lerins and Saint- Victor, the focus of so
many daring opinions. The whole of this movement of mind
did not emanate from Christianity; it was in the same districts,
in the Lyonnese, the Viennese, the Narbonnese, Aquitaine,
that ancient civilization in its decline concentrated itself. It
was here that it still exhibited most life. Spain, Italy herself,
were at this period far less active than Gaul, far less rich in
literature and in literary men. We must, perhaps, attribute
this result to the development which had been assumed in
these provinces by Greek civilization, and to the prolonged
influence there of its philosophy. In all the great towns of
southern Gaul, at Marseilles, at Aries, at Aix, at Vienne, at
Lyons itself, the Greek language was understood and spoken.
There were regular Greek exercises under Caligula, in the
Athanacum, an establishment at Lyons, especially devoted to
that purpose ; and in the beginning of the sixth century, when
Cesarius, bishop of Aries, required the faithful to sing with
the clergy previous to the sermon, many of the people sang
bx Greek. We find among the distinguished Gauls of this
period philosophers of all the Greek schools ; some are men-
tioned as Pythagoreans, others as Platonists, others as Epica-
-eans, others as Stoics.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 12&

The Gaulish writings of the fourth and fifth century, among
others that which I am about to introduce to you, the treatise
of Mamertius Claudienus, On the Nature of the Soul, quote
passages from philosophers whose names even we do not meet
with elsewhere. In short, there is every evidence that, in the
philosophical as in the religious point of view, Greek and Ro-
man as well as Christian Gaul was at this period the most
unimated, the most living portion of the empire ; of the western
empire at all events. It is here, accordingly, that the transi-
tion from pagan philosophy to Christian theology, from the
ancient world to the modern, is most strongly marked, most
clearly observable.

In this movement of mind, it was not likely that the question
of the nature of the soul should remain long untouched. From
the first century upwards, we find it the subject of discussion
amongst the doctors of the church, the majority of whom
adopted the material hypothesis ; passages to this effect are
abundant. I will select two or three, which leave no doubt
as to the prevalent opinion on this subject. Tertullian says
expressly :

" The corporeality of the soul is perfectly manifest to all
who read the gospel. The soul of a man is there represented
suffering its punishment in hell ; it is placed in the midst of
the flame ; it feels a tormenting agony in the tongue, and it
implores, from the hand of a soul in bliss, a drop of water to
cool it. . . There can be nothing of all this without the pre*
sence of the body. The incorporeal being is free from every
description of restraint, from all pain or from all pleasure, for
it is in the body alone that man is punished or rewarded."1

" Who does not see," asks Arnobius, " that that which i?
ethereal, immortal, cannot feel pain."2

" We conceive," says St. John of Damascus, " we conceive
of incorporeal and of invisible beings, in two ways : by essence
and by grace ; the former incorporeal by nature, the latter
only relatively, and in comparison with the grossness of mat-
ter. Thus, God is incorporeal by nature ; as to angels, de
vils, and men's souls, we only call them incorporeal by grace,
and comparatively with the grossness of matter."3

I might multiply ad infinitum similar quotations, all proving

1 De Animci, 5, 7.

2 idversus Gcntest\\. l De Orthodoxafidf, ii. 3, 12.

130 HISTORY OF

that in the first ages of our era, the materiality of the sou
was not only the admitted, but that it was the dominant opinion.

After a while, the church manifested a tendency to quit
this opinion. We find the fathers placing before themselves
every argument in favor of immateriality. The sentence I
have just quoted from St. John of Damascus itself gives a
proof of this ; you find him laying down a certain distinction
between material beings. The philosophical fathers entered
upon the same path, and advanced in it with more rapid strides.
Origen, for instance, is so astonished at the idea of a material
soul having a conception of immaterial things, and arriving
at a true knowledge, that he concludes it to possess a certain
relative immortality, that is to say, that material in relation
with God, the only being truly spiritual, it is not so in rela-
tion with earthly things, with visible and sensual bodies.1

Such was the course of ideas in the heart of pagan philo-
sophy ; in its first essays dominated both the belief in the
immateriality of the soul, and at the same time a certain pro-
gressive effort to conceive the soul under a more elevated, a
more pure aspect. Some made of it a vapor, a breath ;
others declared it a fire ; all wished to purify, to refine, to
spiritualize matter, in the hope of arriving at the end to
which they aspired. The same desire, the same tendency
existed in the Christian church; still the idea of the mate-
riality of the soul was more general among the Christian doc-
tors from the first to the fifth century, than among the pagan
philosophers of the same period. It was against the pagan
philosophers, and in the name of the religious interest, that
certain fathers maintained this doctrine ; they wished that the
soul should be material in order that it might be recompensed
or punished, in order that in passing to another life it might
find itself in a state analogous to that in which it had been
upon earth ; in fine, in order that it should not forget how in-
ferior it is to God, and never be tempted to compare itself with
Him.

At the end of the fourth century a kind of revolution con-
cerning this point was wrought in the breast of the church ;
the doctrine of the immateriality of the soul, of the original
and essential difference of the two substances, appeared
•here, if not for the first time, at least far more positively,
with far more precision than hitherto. It was professed

1 Origen, de Principiis, I. i., c I, 1. 2, c. 2.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 181

and maintained — first, in Africa, by Saint Augustin in hia
treatise de quanlitate Anima ; secondly, in Asia, by Neine-
sius, bishop of Emessa, who wrote a very remarkable work
upon the nature of man (wepi ^v'«ot avBp6«ov) ; thirdly, in Gaul,
by Mamertius Claudienus, de natura Animce. Confined to
the history of Gaulish civilization, this last is the only one
with which we have to occupy ourselves.

This is the occasion upon which it was written. A man
whom you already know, Faustus, bishop of Riez, exercised
a great influence in the Gaulish church ; born a Breton, like
Pelagius, he came — it is not known why — into the south of
Gaul. He became a monk in the abbey of Lerins, and in 433
was made abbot of it. He instituted a great school, where
he received the children of rich parents, and brought them
up, teaching them all the learning of the age. He often con-
versed with his monks upon philosophical questions, and, it
appears, was remarkable for his talent of improvisation.
About 462 he became bishop of Riez. I have spoken of the
part taken by him in the semi-Pelagian heresy, and of his
book against the predestinarians. He was of an active, in-
dependent spirit, rather intermeddling, and always eager to
mix in all the quarrels which arose. It is not known what
called his attention to the nature of the soul : he treated of it
at length in a long philosophical letter addressed to a bishop,
and in which many other questions are debated ; he declares
himself for materiality, and thus sums up his principal argu-
ments :

1. Invisible things are of one kind, incorporeal things of
another.

2. Everything created is matter, tangible by the Creator j
is corporeal.

3. The soul occupies a place. 1. It is enclosed in a body.
2. It is not to be found wherever its thought is. 3. At all
events, it is to be found only where its thought is. 4. It is
distinct from its thoughts, which vary, which pass on, while it
is permanent and always the same ; 5. It quits the body at
death, and re-enters it by the resurrection ; witness Lazarus ;
6. The distinction of hell and heaven, of eternal punishmenta
and rewards, proves that even after death souls occupy a
place, and are corporeal.

4. God alone is incorporeal, because he alone is intangible
and omnipresent.1

1 I have adopted the text of Faustus, inserted in the edition cf th«

132 HISTORY OF

These propositions, laid down in so unhesitating and dis-
tinct a manner, are not elaborated to any extent ; and such
details as the author does enter into are taken in general
from the theology, narratives, and authority of the holy
scriptures.

The letter of Faustus, which was circulated anonymously,
occasioned considerable excitement ; Mamertius Claudienus,
brother of St. Mamertius, bishop of Vienne, and himself a
priest in that diocese, answered it in his treatise On the
Nature of the Soul, a work of far higher importance than the
one which it refuted. Mamertius Claudienus was in his day
the most learned, the most eminent philosopher of southern
Gaul ; to give you an idea of his reputation, I will read a
letter written shortly after the philosopher's death, to his
nephew Petreius, by Sidonius Appollinaris, a letter, I may
observe, stamped with all the ordinary characteristics of this
writer, exhibiting all the puerile elaboration of the professed
bel esprit, with here and there just perceptions, and curious
facts.

"sidonius to his dear petreius.2 health.3

" I am overwhelmed with affliction at the loss which our
age has sustained in the recent loss of your uncle Claudienus :
we shall never see his like again. He was full of wisdom and
judgment, learned, eloquent, ingenious ; the most intellectual
man of his period, of his country. He remained a philosopher,
without giving offence to religion ; and though he did not in-
dulge in the fancy of letting his hair and his beard grow,
though he laughed at the long cloak and stick of the philo-
sophers, though he sometimes even warmly reprehended these
fantastic appendages, it was only in such matters of externals
and in faith, that he separated from his friends the Platonists.
God of Heaven ! what happiness was ours whenever we re-
paired to him for his counsel. How readily would he give
himself wholly to us, without an -instant's hesitation, without
a word, a glance of anger or disdain, ever holding it his
highest pleasure to open the treasures of his learning to those
who came to him for the solution of some, by all others inso-

Treatise of the Nature of the Soul, by Claudienus, published, with
notes, by Andrew Schoffand Gaspard Barth, at Zwickau, in 1665.
8 Son of the sister of Mamertius Claudienus. s Lib. iv., ep. ii.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 133

luble, question ! Then, when all of us were seated around
him, he would direct all to be silent, but him to whom — and
it was ever a choice which we ourselves should have made —
he accorded the privilege of stating the proposition ; the
question thus laid before him, he would display the wealth of
his learning deliberately, point by point, in perfect order,
without the least artifice of gesture, or the slightest flourish of
language. When he had concluded his address, we stated
our objections syllogistically ; he never failed to refute at
once any propositions of ours which were not based upon
sound reason, and thus nothing was admitted without under-
going mature examination, without being thoroughly demon-
strated. But that which inspired us with still higher respect,
was that he supported, without the least ill-humor, the dull
obstinacy of some amongst us, imputing it to an excusable
motive, we all the while admiring his patience, though un-
able to imitate it. No one could fear to seek the counsel, in
difficult cases, of a man who rejected no discussion, and
refused to answer no question, even on the part of the most
foolish and ignorant persons. Thus much for his learning :
enough concerning his studies and his science ; but who can
worthily and suitably praise the other virtues of that man,
who, always remembering the weakness of humanity, assisted
the priests with his work, the people with his discourses, the
afflicted with his exhortations, the forsaken with his con-
solations, prisoners with his gold ; the hungry received
food from him, the naked were clothed by him. It would, I
think, be equally superfluous to say any more upon this
subject. . . .

" Here is what we wished to have said at first : in honor ot
the ungrateful ashes, as Virgil says, that is to say, which
cannot give us thanks for what we say, we have composed
a sad and piteous^lamentation, not without much trouble,
por having dictated nothing for so long, we found unusual
difficulty therein ; nevertheless, our mind, naturally indolent,
was reanimated by a sorrow which desired to break into tears.
This, then, is the purport of the verses:

" ' Under this turf reposes Claudienus, the pride and sorrow
of his brother Mamertius, honored like a precious stone by
ill the bishops. In this master flourished a triple science,
that of Rome, that of Athens, and that of Christ : and in the
vigor of his age, a simple monk, he achieved it completely
and in secret. Orator, dialectician, ooet, a doctor learned in

134 HISTORY OF

the sacred books, geometrician, musician, he excelled it
unravelling the most difficult questions, he struck with the
sword of words the sects which attacked the Catholic faith.
Skilful at setting the psalms and singing, in front "of the
altars, and to the great gratitude of his brother, he taught
men to sound instruments of music. He regulated, for
the solemn feasts of the year, what in each case should be
read. He was a priest of the second order, and relieved his
brother from the weight of the episcopacy ; for his brother
bore the ensigns, and he all the duty. You, therefore,
reader, who afflict yourself as if nothing remained of such
a man, whoever you be, cease to sprinkle your cheeks and this
marble with tears ; the soul and the glory cannot be buried in
the tomb.'

" These are the lines I have engraved over the remains
of him who was a brother to all ... ."

It was to Sidonius that Mamertius Claudienus had dedi-
cated his work.

It is divided into three books. The first is the only truly
philosophical one ; the question is there examined in itself,
independently of every special fact, of all authority, and under
a purely rational point of view. In the second the author
invokes authorities to his aid ; first that of the Greek philoso-
phers— then, that of the Roman philosophers — lastly, the sacred
writings, Saint Paul, the Evangelists, and the fathers of the
church. The special object of the third book is to explain,
in the system of the spirituality of the soul, certain events,
certain traditions of the Christian religion ; for example, the
resurrection of Lazarus, the existence of the angels, the appa-
rition of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary; and to show
that, so far from contradicting them, or being embarrassed by
them, this system admits them and makes at least as much of
them as any other. ' •

The classification is not as rigorous as I have made it out :
the ideas and arguments are often mixed ; philosophical dis-
cussions appear here and there in the books which are not
devoted to them ; still, upon the whole, the work is not Mint-
ing in either method or precision.

I shall now place before you the summary of it, as prepared
by Mamertius Claudienus himself, in ten theses or fundamental
propositions, in the last chapter but one of the third book. I
shall then literally translate some passages, which will enable
you to understand, on one hand, with what profundity and

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 135

with what force of mind the author has penetrated into the
question ; on the other, what absurd and fantastical conceptions
could, at this epoch, be combined with the most elevated and
the most just ideas.

" Since many of the things which I have asserted in this
discussion," says Mamertius Claudienus, " are scattered, and
might not easily be retained, I wish to bring them together,
compress them, place them, so to speak, in a single point,
under the mind's eyes.

" 1st. God is incorporeal ; the human soul is the image of
God, for man was made in the image and likeness of God.
Now a body cannot be the image of an incorporeal being ;
therefore the human soul, which is the image of God, is in-
corporeal.

" 2d. Everything which does not occupy a determined
place is incorporeal. Now the soul is the life of the body ;
and, living in the body, each part lives as truly as the whole
body. There is, therefore, in each part of the body, as much
life as in the whole body ; and the soul is that life. Thus,
that which is as great in the part as in the whole, in a small
6pace as in a large, occupies no space ; therefore the soul
occupies no place. That which occupies no place is not
corporeal ; therefore the soul is not corporeal.

" 3d. The soul reasons, and the faculty of reasoning is in-
herent in the substance of the soul. Now the reason is in-
corporeal, occupies no position in space ; therefore the soul is
incorporeal.

" 4th. The will of the soul is its very substance, and when
the soul chooses it is all will. Now will is not a body ; there-
fore the soul is not a body.

" 5th. Even so the memory is a capacity which has nothing
local ; it is not widened in order to remember more of things ;
it is not contracted when it remembers less of things ; it im-
materially remembers material things. And when the soul
remembers, it remembers entire ; it is all recollection. Now,
the recollection is not a body ; therefore the soul is not a
body.

" 6th. The body feels the impression of touch in the part
jouched ; the whole soul feels the impression, not by the entire
body, but in a part of the body. A sensation of this kind
has nothing local ; now what has nothing local is incorporeal ;
therefore the soul is incorporeal.

"7th. The body can neither approach nor absent itself

136 HISTORY OF

from God ; the soul does approach and does absent itself
from them without changing its place ; therefore the soul is
not a body.

" 8th. The body moves through a place, from one place to
another ; the soul has no similar movement ; therefore the
soul is not a body.

" 9th. The body has length, breadth, and depth ; and that
which has neither length, breadth, nor depth, is not a body.
The soul has nothing of the kind ; therefore the soul is not
a body.

" 10th. There is in all bodies the right hand and the left —
the upper part and the lower part, the front and the back ; in
the soul there is nothing of the kind ; therefore the soul is in-
corporeal."1

Here are some of the principal developments in support of
these propositions :

" I. You say that the soul is one thing, the thought of the
soul another : you ought rather to say, that the things upon
which the soul thinks . . . are not the soul ; but thought is
nothing but the soul itself.

" The soul, you say, is in such profound repose, that it has
ao thought at all. This is not true ; the soul can change its
thought, but not be without thought altogether.

" What do our dreams signify if not that, even when the
body is fatigued and immersed in sleep, the soul ceases not to
think ?

" What greatly deceives you concerning the nature of the
soul, is that you believe that the soul is one thing, and its
faculties another. What the soul thinks is an accident, but
that which thinks is the substance of the soul itself.2

" II. The soul sees that which is corporeal through the
medium of the body ; what is incorporeal it sees by itself.
Without the intervention of the body, it could see nothing
corporeal, colored, or extensive ; but it sees truth, and sees
it with an immaterial view. If, as you pretend, the soul,
corporeal itself, and confined within an external body, can see
of itself a corporeal object, surely nothing can be more easy
to it than to see the interior of that body in which it is con-
fined. Well, then, to this — apply yourself to this work ;
direct inward this corporeal view of the soul, as you call it ;

1 Book iii., chap. 14, pp. 201, 202.
* Book i., chap. 24, p. 83

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 137

tell us how the brain is disposed, where the mass of the liver
is situated ; where and what is the spleen . . . what are the
windings and texture of the veins, the origin of the nerves ?
. . . How ! you deny that you are called upon to answer
concerning such things : and wherefore do you denv it ? Be-
cause the soul cannot see directly and of itself corporeal things.
Why can it not, then, that which is never without thinking —
that is to say, without seeing ? Because it cannot see corpo-
real objects without the medium of the corporeal view. Now,
the soul which sees certain things of itself, but not corporeal
things, sees, therefore, with an incorporeal view ; now an in-
corporeal being can alone see with an incorporeal view ; there-
fore the soul is incorporeal.1

" III. If the soul is a body, what then is that which the soul
calls its body, if not itself? Either the soul is a body, and in
that case it is wrong to say my body, it ought rather to say
me, since it is itself; or if the soul is right in saying my body,
as we suppose, it is not a body.2

" IV. It is not without reason that it is said that memory is
common to men and to animals ; storks and swallows return
to their nest, horses to their stable ; dogs recognize their mas-
ter. But as the soul of animals, although they retain the
image of places, has no knowledge of its own being, they
remain confined to the recollection of corporeal objects which
they have seen by the bodily senses ; and, deprived of the
mind's eye, they are incapable of seeing, not only what is
above them, but themselves.3

" V. A formidable syllogism, which is thought insolvable,
is addressed to us ; the soul, it is said, is where it is, and is
not where it is not. The anticipation is, that we shall be
driven to say, either that it is everywhere, or that it is no-
where : and then it will be rejoined, if it is everywhere, it is
God ; if it is nowhere, it is non-existent. The soul is not
wholly in the whole world, but in the same way that God is
wholly in the whole universe, so the soul is wholly in the
whole body. God does not fill with the smallest part of him-
self the smallest part of the world, and with the largest the
largest ; he is wholly in every part and wholly in the whole ;
so the soul does not reside in parts in the various parts of the

1 Book iii., chap. 9, pp. 187, 188. s Book i., chap. 10, p 53.

'Book i , chap. 21, p. 05.

138 HISTORY OF

body. It is not one part of the soul which looks forth through
the eye and another which animates the finger ; the whole
soul lives in the eye and sees by the eye, the whole soul ani-
mates the finger and feels by the finger,1

" VI. The soul which feels in the body, though it feels by
visible organs, feels invisibly. The eye is one thing, seeing
another : the ears are one thing, hearing another ; the nostrils
are one thing, smelling another ; the mouth one thing, eating
another ; the hand one thing, touching another. We dis-
tinguish by the touch what is hot and what cold ; but we do
not touch the sensation of the touch, which in itself is neither
hot nor cold ; the organ by which we feel is a perfectly dif-
ferent thing from the sensation of which we are sensible."2

You will readily admit that these ideas are deficient neither
in elevation nor profundity ; they would do honor to the phi-
losophers of any period ; seldom have the nature of the soul
and its unity been investigated more closely or described with
greater precision. I might quote many other passages re-
markable for the subtlety of perception, or energy of debate,
and, at times, for a profound moral emotion, and a genuine
eloquence.

I will read to you two extracts from the same book of the
same man ; Mamertius Claudienus is replying to the argu-
ment of Faustus, who maintains that the soul is formed of air,
reasoning upon the ancient theory which regarded air, fire,
earth, and water, as the four essential elements of nature :
" Fire," says he, " is evidently a superior element to air, as
well by the place which it occupies as by its intrinsic power.
This is proved by the movement of the terrestrial fire, which,
with an almost incomprehensible rapidity, and by its own
natural impulse, reascends towards heaven as towards its own
country. If this proof be not sufficient, here is another : the
air is illumined by the presence of the sun, that is to say fire,
and falls into darkness in its absence. And a still more pow-
erful reason is, that air undergoes the action of fire and be-
comes heated, while fire does not undergo the action of air,
and is never made cold by it. Air may be inclosed and re-
tained in vases ; fire never. The preeminence of fire, then,
is clearly incontestable. Now, it is from fire (that is to say,
from its light) that we derive the faculty of sight, a faculty

Book iii., chap. 2, p. 164. * Book i., chap. 6, p. 31

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 139

common to men and to animals, and in which, indeed, certain
irrational animals far surpass man in point of both strength
and of delicacy. If, then, which is undeniable, sight proceeds
from fire, and if the soul, as you think, is formed of air, it
follows that the eye of animals is, as to its substance, superior
in dignity to the soul of man."1

This learned confusion of material facts and of intellectual
facts, this attempt to establish a sort of hierarchy of merit
and of rank among the elements, in order to deduce from
them philosophical consequences, are curious evidences of the
infancy of science and of thought.

I will now quote, in favor of the immateriality of the soul,
an argument of as little value in itself, but less fantastic in
its outward appearance. " Every incorporeal being is supe-
rior, in natural dignity, to a corporeal being ; every being
not confined within a certain space, to a localized being ; every
indivisible being to a divisible being. Now, if the Creator,
sovereignly powerful and sovereignly good, has not created,
as he ought to have done, a substance superior to the body,
and similar to himself, it is either that he could not or would
not ; if he would, and could not, almightiness was wanting
to him ; if he could and would not (the mere thought is a
crime), it could only have been through jealousy. Now, it
is impossible that the sovereign power cannot do what it wills,
that sovereign goodness can be jealous. It results that he
both could and would create the incorporeal being ; final
result, he did create it."2

Was I wrong in speaking just now of the strange combi-
nations, the mixture of high truths and gross errors, of admi-
rable views and ridiculous conceptions, which characterize
the writings of this period. Those of Mamertius Claud ienus,
I may add, present fewer of these contrasts than do those of
most of his contemporaries.

You are sufficiently acquainted with this writer to appre-
ciate his character ; taken as a whole, his work is rather
philosophical than theological, and yet the religious principle
is manifestly predominant throughout, for the idea of God is
the starting point of every discussion in it. The author does
not commence by observing and describing human, special,
actual facts, proceeding through them up to the Divinity :
God is with him the primitive, universal, evident fact ; the

1 Book i., chap. 9, p. 38 * Book i., chap 5, p. 26.

140 HISTORY OF

fundamental datum to which all things relate, and with which
all things must agree ; he invariably descends from God to
man, deducing our own from the Divine nature. It is evi-
dently from religion, and not from science, that he borrows
this method. But this cardinal point once established, this
logical plan once laid down, it is from philosophy that he
draws, in general, both his ideas and his manner of expressing
them ; his language is of the school, not of the church ; he
appeals to reason, not to faith ; we perceive in him, sometimes
the academician, sometimes the stoic, more frequently the
platonist, but always the philosopher, never the priest, though
the Christian is apparent, is manifest in every page.

I have thus exhibited the fact which I indicated in the out-
set, the fusion of pagan philosophy with Christian theology,
the metamorphosis of the one into the other. And it is re-
markable, that the reasoning applied to the establishment of
the spirituality of the soul is evidently derived from the an-
cient philosophy rather than from Christianity, and that the
author seems more especially to aim at convincing the theo-
logians, by proving to them that the Christian faith has no-
thing in all this which is not perfectly reconcilable with the
results derived from pure reason.

It might be thought that this transition from ancient philo-
sophy to modern theology would be more manifest,- more
strongly marked in the dialogue of the Christian Zacheus
and the philosopher Apollonius, by the monk Evagrius, where
the two doctrines, the two societies, are directly confronted
and called upon to discuss their respective merits ; but the
discussion is only in appearance, exists, in fact, only on the
title-page. I am not acquainted with any work, with any
monument, which proves more clearly the utter indifference
with which the popular mind regarded paganism. The phi-
losopher Apollonius opens the dialogue in an arrogant tone,
as if about utterly to overwhelm the Christian, and to deliver
over to general scorn any arguments which he may adduce.1
" If you examine the matter with care," says he, " you will
see that all other religions and all other sacred rites had
rational origins ; whereas, your creed is so utterly vain and
irrational, that it seems to me none but a madman could
entertain it."

1 Dialogue of Zacheus and Apollonius, in the Spicilegiwn of
D'Achery, vol. x., p. 3.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 141

But this arrogance is sterile : throughout the dialogue
Apollonius does not advance one single argument, one solitary
idea; he proves nothing, he confutes nothing; he. does not
open his lips except to suggest a topic to Zacheus, who, on
his part, takes no notice whatever of paganism nor of the
philosophy of his adversary, does not refute them, scarcely
makes here and there an allusion to them, and only occupies
himself relating history and describing the Christian faith so
as to show forth its entirety and authority. Doubtless, the
book is the work of a Christian, and the silence which he
makes his philosophers preserve does not prove that philoso-
phers were really silent. But such is by no means the cha-
racter of the first debates of Christianity with the ancient
philosophy, when the latter was still living and powerful.
Christianity at that time condescended to notice the arguments
of its adversaries ; it spoke of them, it • refuted them ; the
controversy was a real and an animated one. In the work
before us there is no longer any controversy at all ; the
Christian indoctrinates and catechises the philosopher, and
seems to consider that this is all that can be required of him.

Nay, he even makes this a matter of concession, a favor ;
discussions with pagans had by this time become a sort of
superfluity in the eyes of Christians.

" Many persons," says Evagrius, in the preface to his
book, "think that we should despise, rather than refute, the
objections advanced by the Gentiles, so vain are they, so
devoid of true wisdom ; but, in my opinion, such scorn were
worse than useless. I see two advantages in instructing the
Gentiles ; in the first place, we prove to all how holy and
simple our religion is ; and secondly, the heathen thus in-
structed come at last to believe that which, unknowing, they
had despised. . . . Besides, by approaching the candle to the
eyes of the blind, if they do not see its light, they at all
events feel its warmth." This last phrase appears to me a
fine one, full of a sympathetic sentiment.

There is one thing only which appears to me remarkable
in this dialogue ; it is that here the question is broadly laid
down between rationalism and the Christian revelation ; not
that this subject is more really or more extensively developed
than any other : it is only in a few sentences that the idea
manifests itself, but from these it is evident that the question
was full in the minds of all controversialists, and formed, as
it were, the last intrenchment behind which philosophy de-

21

J 42 HISTORY OF

fended itself. Apollonius, as you have seen, makes it an
especial charge against the Christian doctrine that it is irra.
tional ; to this Zacheus replies : " It is easy for every one to
understand and appreciate God, that is to say, if the Divine
Word is compatible with your notion of wisdom ... for your
view is, that the sage believes nothing out of himself, that he
is never deceived, but that he of himself knows all things
infallibly, not admitting that there is anything whatever
either hidden or unknown, or that anything is more possible
to the Creator than to the creature. And it is more especially
against the Christians that you make use of this mode of
reasoning."1 And elsewhere : " The understanding follows
faith, and the human mind knows only through faith the
higher things which come near God."a

It were a curious study to consider the state of rationalism
at this period, the causes of its ruin, and its efforts, its various
transformations in order to avert that ruin : but it is an inquiry
which would carry us too far, and, besides, it was not in Gaul
that the grand struggle between rationalism and Christianity
took place.

The second dialogue of Evagrius, between the Christian
Theophilus and the Jew Simon, is of no sort of importance ;
it is a mere commentary, a mere trifling controversy on a few
scriptural texts.

I might mention to you, and make extracts from, a great
number of other works of the same period and the same class.
This, however, were unnecessary, as I have selected from
among them the two most remarkable, the most characteristic,
the most calculated to convey an accurate idea of the state of
mind, and of its activity at this period. That activity was
great, though exclusively confined within the limits of the
religious society ; whatever vigor and life had remained to
the ancient philosophy, passed over to the service of the Chris-
tians ; it was under the religious form, and in the very bosom
of Christianity, that were reproduced the ideas, the schools,
the whole science of the philosophers ; but subject to this con-
dition, they still occupied men's minds, and played an im-
portant part in the moral state of the new society.

It was this movement which was arrested by the invasion
of the barbarians and the fall of the Roman empire : a hundred

1 Page 3. ! Page 9.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE- 143

yeais later we do not find the slightest trace of what I have
been describing to you ; the discussions, the travels, the cor-
respondence, the pamphlets, the whole intellectual activity of
Gaul in the seventh century, all these had disappeared.

Was this loss of any consequence ? was the movement thua
put a stop to by the invasion of the barbarians an important
and fruitful movement ? I doubt it very much. You will
perhaps remember my observations on the essentially practical
character of Christianity; intellectual progress, science, espe-
cially so called, was not at all its aim ; and although it had a
connexion upon several points with the ancient philosophy—
though it had been very willing to appropriate the ideas of tha.
philosophy, and to make the most of it, it was by no means
anxious for its preservation, nor to replace it by any othei
philosophy. To change the manners, to govern the life 0/
men, was the predominant idea of its leaders.

Moreover, notwithstanding the freedom of mind which prac
tically existed in the fifth century, in the religious society -
the principle of liberty made no progress there. It was, on
the contrary, the principle of authority, of the official domina-
tion over intellect by general and fixed rules, which sought
the ascendency. Though still powerful, intellectual liberty
was on the decline ; authority was rapidly taking its place ;
every page of the writings of this period proves the fact. It
was, indeed, the almost inevitable result of the very nature
of the Christian reformation ; morat, rather than scientific, it
proposed to itself as its leading aim to establish a law, to go-
vern men's will ; it was consequently authority that was above
all things needful to it ; authority in xhe existing state of man-
ners was its surest, it smost efficacious means of action.

Now, what the invasion of the barbarians, and the fall of
the Roman empire more especially arrested, even destroyed,
was intellectual movement ; what remained of science, of
philosophy, of the liberty of mind in the fifth century, dis-
appeared under their blows. But the moral movement, the
practical reformation of Christianity, and the official establish-
ment of its authority over nations, were not in any way af-
fected ; perhaps even they gained instead of losing : this at
least, I think, is what the history of our civilization, in propor-
tion as we advance in its course, will allow us to conjecture.

The invasion of the barbarians, therefore, did not in any
way kill what possessed life ; at bottom, intellectual activity
and liberty were in decay ; everything leads us to believe

144 HISTORY OF

that they would have stopped of themselves ; the barbarians
stopped them more rudely and sooner. That, I believe, is al .
that can be imputed to them.

We have now arrived at the limits to which we should con-
fine ourselves, to the end of the picture of the Roman society
in Gaul at the time when it fell : we are acquainted with it,
if not completely, at least in its essential features. In order
to prepare ourselves to understand the society which followed
it, we have now to study the new element which mixed with
it, the barbarians. Their state before the invasion, before
they came to overthrow the Roman society, and were changed
under its influence, will form the subject of our next lecture.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 145

SEVENTH LECTURE.

Object of the lecture — Of the Germanic element in modern civiliza-
tion— Of the monuments of the ancient social state of the Get-
mans: 1. Of the Roman and Greek historians; 2. Of the barbaric
laws ; 3. Of national traditions — They relate to very different epochs
— They are often made use of promiscuously — Error which results
therefrom — The work of Tacitus concerning the manners of the
Germans — Opinions of the modern German writers concerning the
ancient Germanic state — What kind of life prevailed there ? was it
the wandering life, or the sedentary life ? — Of the institutions — Of
the moral state — Comparison between the state of the German tribes
and that of other hordes — Fallacy of most of the views of barbarous
life — Principal characteristics of the true influence of the Germans
upon modern civilization.

We approach successively the various sources of our civili-
zation. We have already studied, on one side, what we call
the Roman element, the civil Roman society ; on the other,
the Christian element, the religious society. Let us now con-
sider the barbaric element, the German society.

Opinions are very various concerning the importance of this
element, concerning the part and share of the Germans in
modern civilization ; the prejudices of nation, of situation, of
class, have modified the idea which each has formed of it.

The German historians, the feudal publicists, M. de Bou-
lainvilliers, for example, have in general attributed too exten-
sive an influence to the barbarians ; the burgher publicists, as
the abb6 Dubos, have, on the contrary, too much reduced it,
in order to give far too large a part to Roman society; accord-
ing to the ecclesiastics, it is to the church that modern civili-
zation is the most indebted. Sometimes political doctrines
have alone determined the opinion of the writer ; the abbe de
Mably, all devoted as he was to the popular cause, and despite
his antipathy for the feudal system, insists strongly upon the
German origins, because he thought to find there more insti-
tutions and principles of liberty than anywhere else. I do
not wish to treat at present of this question ; we shall treat of
it, it will be resolved as we advance in the history of French
civilization We shall see from epoch to epoch what part

146 HISTORY OF

»

each of its primitive elements has there played, what each has
brought and received in their combination. I shall confine
myself to asserting beforehand the two results to which I be-
lieve this study will conduct us : — First, that the state of the
barbaric element in modern civilization has, in general, been
made a great deal too much of. Second, its true share has
not been given it : too great an influence upon our society has
been attributed to the Germans, to their institutions, to their
manners ; what they have truly exercised has not been attri.
buted to them ; we do not owe to them all that has been done
in their name ; we do owe to them what seems not to proceed
from them.

Until this twofold result shall arise under our eyes, from
the progressive development of facts, the first condition, in
order to appreciate with accuracy the share of the Germanic
element in our civilization, is to correctly understand what
the Germans really were at the time when it commenced,
when they themselves concurred in its formation ; that is to
say, before their invasion and their establishment on the Ro-
man territory; when they still inhabited Germany in the third
and fourth centuries. By this alone shall we be enabled to
form an exact idea of what they brought to the common work,
to distinguish what facts are truly of German origin.

This study is difficult. The monuments where we may
study the barbarians before the invasion are of three kinds ;
first, the Greek or Roman writers, who knew and described
them from their first appearance in history up to this epoch ;
that is to say, from Polybius, about one hundred and fifty
years before Christ, down to Ammianus Marcellinus, whose
work stops at the year of our Lord 378. Between these two
eras a crowd of historians, Livy, Caesar, Strabo, Pomponiuss
Mela, Pliny, Tacitus, Ptolemy, Plutarch, Florus, Pausanias,
&c, have left us information, more or less detailed, concern-
ing the German nations ; secondly, writings and documents
posterior to the German invasion, but which relate or reveal
anterior facts ; for example, many chronicles, the barbaric
laws, Salic, Visigoth, Burgundian, &c; thirdly, the recollec-
tion and national traditions of the Germans themselves con-
cerning their fate and their state in the ages anterior to the
invasion, reascending up to the first origin and their most an-
cient history.

At the mere mention of these documents, it is evident thai
rery various times and spates are comprehended in them. The

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 147

Roman and Greek writers, for example, embrace a space ol
five hundred years, during which Germany and her nations
were presented to them in the most different points of view.
Then came the first expeditions of the wandering Germans,
especially that of the Teutones and the Cimbrians. Rather
later, dating from Caesar and Augustus, the Romans, in their
turn, penetrated into Germany ; their armies passed the
Rhine and the Danube, and saw the Germans under a new
aspect and in a new state. Lastly, from the third century,
the Germans fell upon the Roman empire, which repelling and
admitting them alternately, came to know them far more inti-
mately, and in an entirely different situation from what they
had done hitherto. Who does not perceive that, during this
interval, through so many centuries and events, the barba-
rians and the writers who described them, the object and the
picture, must have prodigiously varied ?

The documents of the second class are in the same case :
the barbaric laws were drawn up some time after the invasion ;
the most ancient portion of the law of the Visigoths belonged
to the last half of the fifth century ; the Salic law may have
been written first under Clovis, but the digest which we have
of it is of a far posterior epoch ; the law of the Burgundians
dates from the year 517.

They are all, therefore, in their actual form, much more
modern than the barbaric society which we wish to study.
There can be no doubt but that they contain many facts, that
they often describe a social state anterior to the invasion ;
there can be no doubt but that the Germans, transported into
Gaul, retained much of their ancient customs, their ancient
relations. But there can also be no doubt here that, after the
invasion, Germanic society was profoundly modified, and
that these modifications had passed into laws ; the law of the
Visigoths and that of the Burgundians are much more Roman
t/ian barbarian ; three fourths of the provisions concern facts
which could not have arisen until after these nations were esta-
blished upon Roman soil. The Salic law is more primitive,
more barbaric j but still, I believe it may be proved that, in
many parts — among others, in that concerning property — it
is of more recent origin. Like the Roman historians, the
German laws evidence very various times and states of
society.

According to the documents of the third class, the national
traditions of the Germans, the evidence is still more striking :

148 HISTORY OF

the subjects of these traditions are almost all facts, so far ante-
rior as probably to have become almost foreign to the state of
these nations at the third and fourth centuries ; facts which
had concurred to produce this state and which may serve to
explain it, but which no longer constituted it. Suppose, that,
in order to study the state of the highlanders of Scotland
fifty years ago, one had collected their still living and popular
traditions, and had taken the facts which they express as
the real elements of Scotch society in the eighteenth century :
assuredly the illusion would be great and fruitful of error. It
would be the same and with much greater reason, with regard
to the ancient German traditions; they coincide with the
primitive history of the Germans, with their origin, their
religious filiation, their relations with a multitude of nations
in Asia, on the borders of the Black sea, of the Baltic sea;
with events, in a word, which, doubtless, had powerfully
tended to bring about the social state of the German tribes
in the third century, and which we must closely observe, but
which were then no longer facts but only causes.

You see that all the monuments that remain to us of
the state of the barbarians before the invasion, whatever
may be their origin and their nature, Roman or German,
traditions, chronicles, or laws, refer to times and facts very
far removed from one another, and among which it is very
difficult to separate what truly belongs to the third and
fourth centuries. The fundamental error, in my opinion, of
a great number of German writers, and sometimes of the
most distinguished, is not having sufficiently attended to this
circumstance : in order to picture German society and man-
ners at this epoch, they have drawn their materials pell-mell
from the three sources of documents I have indicated, from
the Roman writers, from the barbaric laws, from the national
traditions, without troubling themselves with the difference
of times and situations, without observing any moral
chronology. Hence arises the incoherence of some of these
pictures, a singular mixture of mythology, of barbarism,
and of rising civilization, of fabulous, heroic, and semi-
political ages, without exactitude and without order in the
eyes of the more severe critic, without truth for the imagi-
nation.

1 shall endeavor to avoid this error ; it is with the state
of the Germans, a little before the invasion, that I desire to
occupy you ; that is what it imports us to know, for it w as that

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 149

which was real and powerful at the time cf the amalgama-
tion of the nations, that which exercised a true influence
upon modern civilization. I shall in no way enter into
the examination of the German origins and antiquities ; I
shall in no way seek to discover what were the relations
between the Germans and the nations and religions 0/
Asia ; whether their barbarism was the wreck of an ancient
civilization, nor what might be, under barbaric forms, the
concealed features of this original society. The question
is an important one ; but it is not ours, and I shall not stop
at it. I would wish, too, never to transfer into the state 01
the Germans, beyond the Rhine and the Danube, facts which
belong to the Germans established upon Gaulish soil. The
difficulty is extreme. Before having passed the Danube or
the Rhine, the barbarians were in relation with Rome ; their
condition, their manners, their ideas, their laws, had perhaps
already submitted to its influence. How separate, amidst
notices so incomplete, so confused, these first results of foreign
importation 1 How decide with precision what was truly
Germanic, and what already bore a Roman stamp ? I shall
attempt this task ; the truth of history absolutely requires it.
The most important document we possess concerning the
state of the Germans, between the time when they began to
be known in the Roman world, and that in which they con.
quered it, is incontestably the work of Tacitus. Two tilings
must be here carefully distinguished : on one side, the facts
which Tacitus has collected and described ; on the other, the
reflections which he mixes with them, the color under which
he presents them, the judgment which he gives of them.
The facts are correct : there are many reasons for believing
that the father of Tacitus, and perhaps himself, had been pro-
curator of Belgium ; he could thus collect detailed informa-
tion concerning Germany ; he occupied himself carefully in
doing so ; posterior documents almost all prove the material
accuracy of his descriptions. With regard to their moral hue,
Tacitus has painted the Germans, as Montaigne and Rousseau
the savages, in a fit of ill humor against his country ; his book
is a satire on Roman manners, the eloquent sally of a philo-
sophical patriot, who is determined to see virtue, wherever he
does not happen to find the disgraceful effeminacy and the
learned depravation of an old society. Do not suppose, how-
ever, that everything is false, morally speaking, in this work
of anger — the imagination of Tacitus is essentially vigorous

150 HISTORY OF

and true ; when he wishes simply to describe German man
ners, without allusion to the Roman world, without compari.
son, without deducing any general consequence therefrom, he
is admirable, and one may give entire faith, not only to the
design, but to the coloring of the picture. Never has the
barbaric life been painted with more vigor, more poetical
truth. It is only when thoughts of Rome occur to Tacitus,
when he speaks of the barbarians with a view to shame his
fellow-citizens ; it is then only that his imagination loses its
independence, its natural sincerity, and that a false color is
spread over his pictures.

Doubtless, a great change was brought about in the state
of the Germans, between the end of the first century, the
epoch in which Tacitus wrote, and the times bordering on the
invasion j the frequent communications with Rome could not
fail of exercising a great influence upon them, attention to
which circumstance has too often been neglected. Still the
groundwork of the book of Tacitus was true at the end of the
fourth as in the first century. Nothing can be a more decisive
proof of it than the accounts of Ammianus Marcellinus, a mere
soldier, without imagination, without instruction, who made
war against the Germans, and whose brief and simple descrip-
tions coincide almost everywhere with the lively and learned
colors of Tacitus. We may, therefore, for the epoch which
occupies us, give almost entire confidence to the picture of the
manners of the Germans.

If we compare this picture with the description of the
ancient social state of the Germans, lately given by able
German writers, we shall be surprised by the resemblance.
Assuredly the sentiment which animates them is different ; it
is wita indignation and sorrow that Tacitus, at corrupted
Rome, describes the simple and vigorous manners of the
barbarians ; it is with pride and complaisance that the modern
Germans contemplate it ; but from these diverse causes rises
a single and identical fact ; like Tacitus, nay, far more than
Tacitus, the greater i>art of the Germans paint ancient Ger-
many, her institutions, her manners, in the most vivid colors ;
if they do not go so far as to represent them as the ideal of
society, they at least defend them from all imputation of bar-
barism. According to them : 1st. the agricultural or seden-
tary life prevailed there, even before the invasion, over the
wandering life ; the institutions and ideas which create landed
property were already very far advanced ; 2d. the guaran.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 151

tees of individual liberty, and even security, were efficacious ;
3d. manners were indeed violent and coarse, but at bottom
the natural morality of man was developed with simplicity
and grandeur ; family affections were strong, characters lofty,
emotions profound, religious doctrines high and powerful ;
there was more energy and moral purity than is found under
more elegant forms, in the heart of a far more extended in-
lellectual development.

When this cause is maintained by ordinary minds, it
abounds in strange assumptions and ridiculous assertions.
Heinrich, the author of an esteemed History of Germany,
will not have it that the ancient Germans were addicted
to intoxication ;l Meiners, in his History of the Female Sex,
maintains that women have never been so happy nor so
virtuous as in Germany, and that before the arrival of the
Franks, the Gauls knew not how either to respect or to love
them.2

I shall not dwell upon these puerilities of learned patriot-
ism ; I should not even have touched upon them, if they
were not the consequence, and as it were, the excrescence of
a system, maintained by very distinguished men, and which,
in my opinion, destroys the historical and poetical idea which
is formed of the ancient Germans. Considering things at
large, and according to mere appearances, the error seems to
me evident.

How can it be maintained, for example, that German
society was well nigh fixed, and that the agricultural life
dominated there, in the presence of the very fact of migra-
tions, of invasions, of that incessant movement which drew
the Germanic nations beyond their territory ? How can we
give credit to the empire of manorial property, and of the
ideas and institutions which are connected with it, over men
who continually abandoned the soil in order to seek fortune
elsewhere ? And mark, that it was not only on the frontiers
that this movement was accomplished ; the same fluctuation
reigned in the interior of Germany ; tribes incessantly ex-
pelled, displaced, succeeded one another: some paragraphs
from Tacitus will abundantly prove this :

" The Batavians," says he, " were formerly a tribe of tha

* Reiehsgeschichte, vol i., p. 69

• Oeschichte des Weiblichen Geschlects, vol. 1., p. 198

152 HISTORY OF

Catti ; intestine divisions forced them to retire into the
islands of the Rhine, where they formed an alliance with the
Romans." (Tacitus, de Morib. Germanorum, xxix.)

" In the neighborhood of the Tencteres were formerly the
Bructeres ; it is said, however, that now the Chamaves and
the Angrivarians possess the district, having, in concert with
the adjoining tribes, expelled and entirely extirpated the an-
cient inhabitants." (ib. xxxii.)

" The Marcomannians are the most eminent for their
strength and military glory ; the very territory they occupy
is the reward of their valor, they having dispossessed its former
owners, the Boians." (ib. xlii.)

" Even in time of peace the Cattians retain the same
ferocious' aspect, never softened with an air of humanity.
They have no house to dwell in, no land to cultivate, no
domestic cares to employ them. Wherever they chance to be,
they live upon the produce they find, and are lavish of their
neighbors' substance, till old age incapacitates them for these
continuous struggles." (ib. xxxi.)

" The tribes deem it an honorable distinction to have their
frontiers devastated, to be surrounded with immense deserts.
They regard it as the highest proof of valor for their neighbors
to abandon their territories out of fear of them ; moreover,
they have thus an additional security against sudden attacks."
(Caesar, de Bell. Gall, vi. 23.)

Doubtless, since the time of Tacitus, the German tribes
more or less, had made some progress ; still, assuredly, the
fluctuation, the continual displacement had not ceased, since
the invasion became daily more general and more pressing.

Hence, if I mistake not, partly proceeds the difference
which exists between the point of view of the Germans and
our own. There was, in fact, at the fourth century, among
many German tribes or confederations, among others with
the Franks and Saxons, a commencement of the sedentary,
agricultural life ; the whole nation was not addicted to the
wandering life. Its composition was not simple ; it was not
an unique race, a single social condition. We may there
recognize three classes of men : 1st. freemen, men of honor
or nobles, proprietors ; 2d. the lidi, liti, lasi, &c, or laborers,
men attached to the soil, who cultivated it for masters ; 3d.
slaves properly so called. The existence of the first two
classes evidently indicates a conquest ; the class of freemen
was the nation of conquerors, who had obliged the ancient

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 153

population to cultivate the soil for them. This was an ana-
logous fact to that which, at a later period, in the Roman
empire, gave rise to the feudal system. This fact was ac-
complished at various epochs, and upon various points, in the
interior of Germany. Sometimes the proprietors and the la-
borers— the conquerors and the conquered — were of different
races — sometimes it was in the bosom of the same race, be-
tween different tribes, that the territorial subjection took place ;
we see Gaulish or Belgian colonies submit to German colonies,
Germans to Slavonians, Slavonians to Germans, Germans to
Germans. Conquest was generally effected upon a small
scale, and remained exposed to many vicissitudes ; but the
fact itself cannot be disputed ; many passages in Tacitus
positively express it :

" The slaves, in general, are not arranged in their several
employments in household affairs, as is the practice at Rome.
Each has his separate habitation or home. The master con-
siders him as an agrarian dependent, who is obliged to furnish,
by way of rent, a certain quantity of grain, of cattle, or of
wearing apparel. The slave does this, and there his servi-
tude ends. All domestic matters are managed by the master's
own wife and children. To punish a slave with stripes, to
load him with chains, or condemn him to hard labor, is un-
usual." (lb. xxv.)

Who does not recognize in this description, ancient inha-
bitants of the territory, fallen under the yoke of conquerors ?

The conquerors, in the earliest ages at least, did not culti-
vate. They enjoyed the conquest — sometimes abandoned to
a profound idleness, sometimes excited with a profound pas-
sion for war, hunting, and adventures. Some distant expedi-
tion tempted them ; all were not of the same inclination —
they did not all go ; a party set off under the conduct of some
famous chief; others remained, preferring to guard their first
conquests, and continued to live upon the labor of the ancient
inhabitants. The adventurous party sometimes returned
laden with booty, sometimes pursued its course, and went to
a distance to conquer some province of the empire, perhaps
fou'id some kingdom. It was thus that the Vandals, the Suevi,
the Franks, the Saxons, were dispersed ; thus we find theso
nations over-running Gaul, Spain, Africa, Britain, establishing
themselves there, beginning states, while the same names are
always met with in Germany — where, in fact, the same peo-
ple still live and act. They were parcelled out : one part

154 HISTORY OF

abandoned themselves to the wandering life ; another was
attached to the sedentary life, perhaps only waiting the occa-
sion or temptation to set out in its turn.

Hence arises the difference between the point of view of
the German writers, and that of our own ; they more espe-
cially were acquainted with that portion of the German tribes
which remained upon the soil, and was more and more ad-
dicted to the agricultural and sedentary life ; we, on the con-
trary, have been naturally led to consider chiefly the portion
which followed the wandering life, and which invaded western
Europe. Like the learned Germans, we speak of the Franks,
the Saxons, the Suevi, but not of the same Suevi, the same
Saxons, the same Franks ; our researches, our words, almost
always refer to those who passed the Rhine, and it is in the
state of wandering bands that we have seen them appear in
Gaul, in Spain, in Britain, &c. The assertions of the Ger-
mans chiefly allude to the Saxons, the Suevi, the Franks who
remained in Germany ; and it is in the state of conquering
nations, it is true, but fixed, or almost fixed in certain parts
of the land, and beginning to lead the life of proprietors, that
they are exhibited by almost all the ancient monuments of
local history. The error of these scholars, if I mistake not, is
in carrying the authority of these monuments too far back —
too anterior to the fourth century ,— of attributing too remote
a date to the sedentary life, and to the fixedness of the social
state in Germany; but the error is much more natural and
less important than it would be on our part.

With regard to ancient German institutions, I shall speak
of them in detail when we treat especially of the barbarian
laws, and more especially of the Salic law. I shall confine
myself at present to the characterizing, in a few words, their
state at the epoch which occupies us.

At that time, we find among the Germans the seeds of the
three great systems of institutions which, after the fall of the
Roman empire, contested for Europe. We find there : 1st,
assemblies of freemen, where they debate upon the common
interests, public enterprises, all the important affairs of the
nation ; 2dly, kings, some by hereditary title, and sometimes
invested with a religious character, others by title of election,
and especially bearing a warlike character ; 3dly, the aris.
tocratical patronage, whether of the warlike chief over his
companions, or of the proprietor over his family and laborers.
These three systems, these three modes of social organization

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCS. 155

and of government may be seen in almost all the German
tribes before the invasion; but none of them are real, effica-
cious. Properly speaking, there are no free institutions, mo-
narchies, or aristocracies, but merely the principle to which
they relate, the germ from whence they may arise. Every-
thing is abandoned to the caprice of individual wills. When-
ever the assembly of the nation, or the king, or the lord,
wished to be obeyed, the individual must either consent, or
disorderly brute force obliged him. This is the free develop-
ment and the contest between individual existences and liber-
ties ; there was no public power, no government, no staie.

With regard to the moral condition of the Germans at this
epoch, it is very difficult to estimate it. It has been made the
text of infinite declamation in honor of or against civilization
or savage life, of primitive independence or of developed so-
ciety, of natural simplicity or of scientific enlightenment ; but
we are without documents enabling us to estimate the true
nature of these generalities. There exists, however, one
great collection of facts, posterior, it is true, to the epoch of
which we are speaking, but which yet presents a sufficiently
faithful image of it ; this is the Histoire des Francs, by Gre-
gory of Tours, unquestionably, of all others, the work which
furnishes us with the most information, which throws the
clearest light upon the moral state of the barbarians ; not that
the chronicler made it any part of his plan, but, in the ordi-
nary course of his narrative, he relates an infinite number of
private anecdotes, of incidents of domestic life, in which the
manners, the social arrangements, the moral state, in a word,
the man of his period, are exhibited to us more clearly than
in any other work we possess.

It is here that we may contemplate and understand this
singular mixture of violence and deceit, of improvidence and
calculation, of patience and bursts of passion ; this egoism of
interest and of passion, mixed with the indestructible empire
of certain ideas of duty, of certain disinterested sentiments :
in a word, that chaos of our moral nature which constitutes
barbarism ; a state of things very difficult to describe with pre-
cision, for it has no general and fixed feature, no one decided
principle ; there is no proposition we can make it, which we
are not compelled the next instant to modify, or altogether to
throw aside. It is humanity, strong and active, but abandoned
to the impulse of its reckless propensities, to the incessant mo-
bility of its wayward fancies, to the gross imperfection of its

156 HISTORY OF

knowledge, to the incoherence of its ideas, to the infinite va
riety of the situations and accidents of its life.

It were impossible to penetrate far enough into such a sta' .<
and reproduce its image, by the mere aid of a few dry and
mutilated chronicles, of a few fragments of old poems, of a few
unconnected paragraphs of old laws.

I know but of one way of attaining anything like a coirect
idea of the social and moral state of the German tribes — it is
to compare them with the tribes who, in modern times, in
various parts of the globe, in North America, in the interior
of Africa, in the north of Asia, are still almost in the same
degree of civilization, and lead very nearly the same life.
The latter have been observed more nearly, and described in
greater detail ; fresh accounts of them reach us every day.
We have a thousand facilities for regulating and completing
our ideas with respect to them ; our imagination is constantly
excited, and at the same time rectified, by the narratives of
travellers. By closely and critically observing these narra-
tives, by comparing and analyzing the various circumstances,
they become for us as it were a mirror, in which we raise up
and reproduce the image of the ancient Germans. I have gone
through this task j I have followed, step by step, the work of
Tacitus, seeking throughout my progress, in voyages and
travels, in histories, in national poetry, in all the documents
which we possess concerning the barbarous tribes in the va-
rious parts of the world, facts analogous to those described by
the Roman writer. I will lay before you the principal fea
tures of this comparison, and you will be astonished at the re^
semblance between the manners of the Germans and those of
the more modern barbarians — a resemblance which sometimes
extends into details where one would have had not the slightesl
idea of finding it.

1. 1.

" To retreat, if you afterwards " Our warriors do not pique
return to the charge, is considered themselves upon attacking the ene-

Srudent skill, not cowardice." — my in front, and while he is on his
le Moribus Germanorum, vi. guard ; for this they must be ten to

one." Choix de Litt. edif. Mis
sions d'Amerique, vii. 49.

" Savages do not pride them-
selves upon attacking the enemy
in front and by open force. If, de-
spite all their precautions and their
address, their movements are dis-
covered, they think the wisest plan
is to retire." — Robertson's Hist of
America, ii.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE.

157

2.

" Their wives and mothers ac-
company them to the field of bat-
tle ; and when their relatives are
wounded, count each honorable
glsh, and suck the blood. They
are even daring enough to mix
with the combatants, taking re-
freshments to them and reanimat-
ing their courage." — lb. vii.

" They have accounts of armies
put to the rout, who have been
brought to the charge by the wo-
men and old men preventing their
flight." — lb. viii.

*' There is in their opinion some-
thing sacred in the female sex, and
even the power of foreseeing future
events; the advice of the women,
therefore, is frequently so ight, and
their counsels respected.' — lb.

"Their attention to auguries,
and the practice of divination, is
conducted with a degree of super-
stition not exceeded by any other
nation. . . . The braich of a fruit
tree is cut into small pieces, which
being all distinctly marked, are
thrown at random on a white cloth.
If a question of public interest be
depending, the nigh priest per-
forms the ceremony ; if it be only a
private matter, the master of the

The heroes of Homer fly when-
ever, finding themselves the weak-
er party, they have the opportu-
nity.

2.

" The Tungusian women in Si-
beria go to war as well as their
husbands ; and they have as rough
treatment" — Meiners' Hist of tht
Female Sex, i. 18, 19.

"At the battle of Yermuk, in
Syria, in 636, the last line was oc-
cupied by the sister of Dezar, with
the Arabian women, who were ac-
customed to wield the bow and the
lance. Thrice did the Arabs re-
treat in disorder, and thrice were
they driven back to the charge by
the reproaches and blows of the
women." — Gibbon's Hist, of the
Dec. and Fall of the Roman Em-
pire.

3.

" When a national war breaks
out, the priests and diviners are
consulted; sometimes, even, they
take the advice of the women." —
Rob. Hist, of America, ii.

" The Hurons, in particular, pay
particular respect to women."—
Charlevoix, Hist, of Canada.

" The Gauls consulted the wo-
men in important affairs; they
agreed with Hannibal that if the
Carthaginians had to complain of
the Gauls, they should carry their
complaint before the Gaulish wo-
men, who should be the judges of
them." — Mem. de PAcadem. des
Inscrip. xxiv. 374, Memoire de
l'Abbe Fenel.

4.

" This mode of divination, by
rod, has some relation with divina-
tion by arrow, which was in usa^e
throughout the East. When Turk-
mans were established in Persia,
after the defeat of the Ghaznevides
(A. d. 103S), they chose a king by
writing upon arrows the names of
the different tribes, of the different
families of the tribes, taken by lot,
and of the different members of tha
family." — Gibbon, Hist, of the Do

158

HISTORY OF

family officiates. Having invoked
the gods, with his eyes devoutly
raised to heaven, he holds up three
times each segment of the twig, and
as the marks rise in succession, in-
terprets the decrees of fate.

" The practice of consulting the
notes and flight of birds is also in
use among them." — lb. x.
5.

" The kings in Germany owe
their election to the nobility of
their births ; the generals are cho-
sen for their valor. The power of
the former is not arbitrary or un-
limited ; the latter command more
by warlike example than by their
mere orders ; to be of a prompt and
daring spirit in battle, to appear in
the front of the lines, insures the
obedience of the soldiers, admirers
of valor. The whole nation takes
cognizance of important affairs.
The princes and chiefs gain atten-
tion rather by the force of their ar-
guments than by any authority. If
their opinion is unsatisfactory to
the warriors, the assembly reject it
by a general murmur. If the pro-
position pleases, they brandish
their javelins." — lb. vii. 11.
6.

M In that consists his dignity ; to
be surrounded by a band of young
men is the source of his power; in
peace, his highest ornament — in
war, his strongest bulwark. Nor is
his fame confined to his own coun-
try ; it extends to foreign nations,
and he is then of the first import-
ance, if he surpasses his rivals in
the number and courage of his fol-
lowers. If, in the course of a long
peace, a tribe languishes under in-
dolence, the young men often seek
in a body a more active life with
another tribe that is engaged in
war. The new chief must show his
liberality ; he must give to one a
horse, to another a shield, to an-
other a blood-stained and victori-
ous spear ; to all plentiful food and
potations. These are their only
pay." — lb. xiii.

cline and Fall of the Romu> En>
pire, xi. 224.

" Presages drawn from the song
and flight of birds were known
among the Romans, among th«
Greeks, among the greater part of
the savages of America, Natchez,
Moxes, Chequites, &c." — Lett
edif. vii. 255, viii. 141, 264.
5.

" Savages know among them-
selves neither princes nor kings.
They say in Europe that they have
republics ; but these republics have
no approach to stable laws. Each
family looks upon itself as abso-
lutely free; each Indian believes
himself independent. Still they
have learned the necessity of form-
ing among them a kind of society,
and of choosing a chief, whom they
call cacique, that is to say, com-
mander. In order to be raised to
this dignity, it is necessary to have
given striking proofs of valor." —
Lett. edif. viii. 133.

6.

" The most powerful order
among the Iroquois is that of war-
like chiefs. It is first necessary
that they should be successful, and
that they should by no means lose
sight of those who follow them ;
that they should deprive them-
selves of whatever is dear to them-
selves in favor of their soldiers." —
Mem. sur les Iroquois, in the Va-
rietes Litteraires, i. 543.

** The influence of the warlike
chiefs over the young men is more
or less great, according as they give
more or less, as they more or less
keep open table." — Journal des
Campagnes de M. de Bougainville
in Canada, in the Varietes Litte-
raires, i. 4S8.

CIVILIZATION IN FKANCE.

159

7.
** When the State has no war on
its hands, the men pass their time
partly in the chase, partly in sloth
and gluttony. The intrepid war-
rior, who in the field braved every
danger, becomes in time of peace
a listless sluggard. The manage-
ment of his house and lands he
leaves to the women, to the old
men, and to the other weaker por-
tions of his family." — lb. xv.

" The Germans, it is well
known, have no regular cities, nor
do they even like their houses to
be near each other. They dwell
in separate habitations, dispersed
up and down, as a grove, a spring,
or a meadow happens to invite.
They have villages, but not in our
fashion, with connected buildings.
Every tenement stands detached."
—lb. xvi.

9.

" They are almost the only bar-
barians who content themselves
with one wife. There are, indeed,
some cases of polygamy among
them, not, however, the effect of
licentio jsness, but by reason of the
rank of tae parties."— lb. xviii.

10.
" It is not the wife who brings
a dowry to her husband, but the
husband who gives one to his
bride ; not presents adapted for fe-
male vanity, but oxen, a capari-
soned horse, a shield and spear
and sword." — lb.1

" With the exception of some
trifling huntings, the Illinois lead
a perfectly indolent life They
pass their time in smoking an<
talking, and that is all. They re-
main tranquil upon their mats, and
pass their time in sleeping or mak-
ing bows. As to the women, they
labor from morning till night like
slaves."— Lett. edif. vii. 32, 867.
See also Robertson's History of
America, ii.

8.

" The villages of the American
savages and of the mountaineers of
Corsica, are built in the same way ;
they are formed of houses scattered
and distant from one another, so
that a village of fifty houses some-
times occupies a quarter of a league
square." — Volney, Tableau des
Etats Unis d'Ainerique, 484 — 186

9.

" Among the savages of North
America, in districts where the
means of subsistence were rar*.
and the difficulties of raising a fa-
mily very great, the man confined
himself to a single wife." — Robert-
son's History of America.

" Although the Moxes (in Peru)
allow polygamy, it is rare for them
to have more than one wife ; their
poverty will not allow of their
having more." — Lett. edif. viii. 71.

" Among the Guaranis (in Para-
guay) polygamy is not permitted
to the people ; but the caciques
may have two or three wives."—
lb. 261.

10.

This takes place wherever the
husband buys his wife, and where
the wife becomes the property, the
slave of her husband. " Among
the Indians of Guiana«the women
have no dowry on marrying. An
Indian, who wishes to marry an

1 There Is no doubt that the Germans bought their wives: a law of

160

HISTORY OF

11
f* Populous as the country is,
adultery is rarely heard of; when
detected, the punishment is imme-
diate, and inflicted by the husband.
He cuts off the hair of his guilty
wife, and having assembled her
relations, expels her naked from
his house, pursuing her with
stripes through the village." — lb.

12.

" It is generally late before their

young men enjoy the pleasures of

love, and consequently they are

not exhausted in their youth. Nor

Indian woman, must make consi.
derable presents to the father ; — a
canoe, bows and arrows, are not
sufficient ; he must labor a year for
his future father-in-law, cook for
him, hunt for him, fish for him,
&c. Women among the Guanis
are true property." — MS. Journal
of a Residence in Guiana, by M. de
M.

" It is the same among the Nat-
chez, in many Tartar tribes in
Mingrelia, in Pegu, among many
Negro tribes in Africa." — Lett,
edif. vii. 221 ; Lord Kaimes's
Sketches of the History of Man. i.
184—186.

11.

" It is pretended that adultery
was unknown among the Caribbees
of the islands, before the establish-
ment of the Europeans." — Lord
Kaimes, i. 207.

" Adultery among the savages
of North America is generally
punished without form or process,
by the husband, who sometimes
severely beats his wife, sometimes
bites off her nose." — Lang's Tra-
vels among the different savage
nations of North America, 177.
See also the History of the Ameri-
can Indians by James Adair (1775),
144 ; Varietes Litteraires, i. 458
12.

The coldness of wandering sav-
ages, in matters of love, has oftep
been remarked : Bruce was struck
with it among the Gallas ana

the Burgundians declares — " If any one dismiss his wife without a
good reason, he must give her a sum equal to what he paid for her." —
Tit. xxxiv. Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, in giving his niece in
marriage to Hermanfried, king of the Thuringians, writes to him, by
the hand of Cassiodorus : " We inform you that on the arrival of your
envoys, they punctually delivered to us the horses harnessed with the
silver trappings, befitting royal marriage horses, the price you, after
(he custom of the Gentiles, gave us for our niece." — Cassiodorus, Va-
or., iv. 1.

Jjown to a very recent period, the betrothing in Lower Saxony was
•-ailed brudkop, that is to say brautkauf [vide purchase]. — Adelung.
History of the Ancient Germans, 301.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE.

:oi

are the virgins married too soon."
lb xv.

13.
Tbi* uncle on the mother's side
regards his nephews with an affec-
tion nothing inferior to that of their
father. With some, this relation-
ship is held to be the strongest tie
of consanguinity, insomuch that in
demanding hostages, maternal ne-
phews are preferred, as the most
endearing objects, and the safest
pledges. — lb.

14.

" To adopt the quarrels as well
as the friendships of their parents
and relations, is held to be an in-
dispensable duty." — lb. xxi.

Shangallas, on the frriitiers of
Abyssinia : Levaillant, among the
Hottentots. " The Iroquois know
and say that the use of women
enervates their courage and their
strength, and that, wishing to be
warlike, they should abstain from
using them, or use them with mo-
deration."— Mem. stir les Iroquois,
in the Varietes Litteraires, -i. 455 ;
see also Volney, Tabl. des Etats-
Unis, 443 ; Malthus's Essays upon
the principle of Population, i. 50 ;
Robertson's History of America,
il 237.

Among the Greenlanders, the
girls marry at twenty ; it is the
same among most of the northern
savages. — Meiner's History of the
Female Sex, i. 29.
13.

Among the Natchez " it is not
the son of the reigning chief who
succeeds to his father ; it is the son
of his sister. . . . This policy is
founded on the knowledge of the
licentiousness of their wives ; they
are sure, say they, that the son of
the sister of the great chief is of
the blood royal, at least on his mo-
ther's side."— Lett. edif. vii. 217.

Among the Iroquois and the Hu-
rons, the dignity of a chief always
passes to the children of his aunts,
of his sisters, or of his nieces on
the maternal side. — Moeurs des
Sauvages, by father Lafitau, i. 73,
471.

14.

" Every one knows that this fea-
ture is found among all nations in
the infancy of civilization, where
as yet there was no public power
to protect or punish. I shall cite
but one example of this obstinacy
of savages in taking vengeance ; it
appears to me striking and very
analogous to what is recounted of
the Germans by Gregory of Tours
and other characters.

" An Indian, of a tribe establish-
ed on the Maroni, a violent and
blood-thirsty man, had assassinated
one of his neighbors of the same

102

HISTORY OF

15.
M Hospitality is nowhere more
liberally observed To turn any
man from their door was regarded
as a crime." — lb.

10.
" A German delights in the gifts
which he receives ; yet in bestow-
ing, he imputes nothing to you as a
favor, and for what he receives, he
acknowledges no obligation." — lb.

17.

" To devote both day and night
to deep drinking, is a disgrace to
no man " — lb. xxii.

village ; to escape the resentmen
of the family of his enemy, he fled
and established himself at Simapo,
at a distance of four leagues from
our desert ; a brother of ihe de-
ceased did not delay following the
murderer. On his arrival at Sima-
po, the captain asked him what he
came there to do. • I came,' said
he, « to kill Averani, who has kill-
ed my brother.' « I cannot prevent
you,' said the captain to him. But
Averani was warned during the
night, and fled with his children.
His enemy, informed of his depar-
ture, and that he had repaired by
the interior towards the river
Aprouague, resolved to follow him.
• I will kill him,' said he, ' though
he flee to the Portuguese.' He im-
mediately set out. We know not
whether he attained his end." —
Journal Manuscrit d'un sejour a
la Guyanne par M. de M.
15.

" The hospitality of all savage
nations is proverbial." — See in the
Histoire de l'Academie des In-
scriptions, iii. 41, the extract from
a memoir of M. Simon, and a num-
ber of accounts of travellers.
16.

" It is the same with the Ame-
rican savages; they give and re-
ceive with great pleasure, but they
do not think of, nor will they ac-
cept, any acknowledgment. ' If
you have given me this,' say the
Galibis, ' it is because you have no
need of it.' " — Aublet, Histoire des
Plantes de la Guyanne Franchise,
ii. lu.

17.

" The inclination of savage na-
tions for wine and strong liquors
is universally known ; the Indians
of Guiana take long journeys to
procure it ; one of them, of the
colony of Simapo, replied to M. de

M , who asked him where they

were going : to drink, as our pea-
santry say : to the harvest, to the
fair." — Manuscript Diary of a Re-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE

163

sidence
M .

in Guiana, by M. de

18.
" They have but one sort of
public spectacle ; the young men
dance naked amidst swords and
javelins pointed at their breasts."
— lb. xxiv.

19.
" They yield to gambling with
such ardor, that when they have
lost everything, they place their
own liberty on the hazard of the
die."-Ib.

20.
*• It was not in order to succeed in
love, or to please, that they decked
themselves, but in order to give
themselves a gigantic and terrible
appearance, as they might have
decked themselves to go before
their enemies."— lb. c. 38.

21.
From the age of early manhood
they allow their hair and beard
to grow, until they have killed an
enemy.— lb. c 31.

18.

" Love does not enter the least
into the dances of the North Ame-
rican savages ; they are only war-
like dances." — Robertson's History
of America, ii. 459-461.
19.

" The Americans play for their
furs, their domestic utensils, their
clothes, their arms, and when all
is lost, we often see them risk, at
a single blow, their liberty."
20.

" When the Iroquois choose to
paint their faces it is to give them-
selves a terrible air, with which
they hope to intimidate their ene-
mies ; it is also for this reason that
they paint themselves black when
they go to war." — Varietes Litte-
raires, i. 472.

21.

After the Indians are twenty
years old, they allow their hair to
grow. — Lett. edif. viii. 261.

The custom of scalping, or tak-
ing off the hair of their enemies,
so common among the Americans,
was also practised among the Ger-
mans : this is the decalvare men-
tioned in the laws of the Visi-
goths ; the capillos et cutem de-
trahere, still in use among the
Franks towards the year 879, ac-
cording to the annals of Fulda
the hettinan of the Anglo Saxons,
&c. — Adelung, Ancient History of
the Germans, 303.

Here are numerous citations ; I might extend them much
more, and might almost always place, side by side with the
most trifling assertion of Tacitus concerning the Germans, an
analogous assertion of some modern traveller or historian,
concerning some one of the barbarous tribes at present dis-
persed over the face of the globe.

You see what is the social condition which corresponds to
that of ancient Germany : what, then, must we think of those
magnificent descriptions which have so often been drawn ?
Precisely that which we should think of Cooper's romances,

164 HISTORY OF

as pictures of the condition and manners of the savages ol
North America. There is, without doubt, in these romances,
and in some of the works in which the Germans have at-
tempted to depict their wild ancestors, a sufficiently vivid and
true perception of certain parts and certain periods of barba-
rous society and life — of its independence, for instance ; of the
activity and indolence which it combines ; of the skilful
energy which man therein displays against the obstacles and
perils wherewith material nature besieges him ; of the mono-
tonous violence of his passions, &c. &c. But the picture is
very incomplete — so incomplete that the truth of even wha
it represents is often much changed by it. That Cooper, in
writing of the Mohicans or the Delawares, and that the Ger-
man writers, in describing the ancient Germans, should allow
themselves to represent all things under their poetic aspect —
that, in their descriptions, the sentiments and circumstances
of barbarous life should become exalted to their ideal form —
is very natural, and I willingly admit, is very legitimate : the
ideal is the essence of poetry — history itself is partial to it ;
and perhaps it is the only form under which times gone by
can be duly represented. But the idea must also be true,
complete, and harmonious ; it does not consist in the arbitrary
and fanciful suppression of a large portion of the reality to
which it corresponds. Assuredly the songs which bear the
name of Homer, form an ideal picture of Greek society ;
nevertheless that society is therein reproduced in a complete
state, with the rusticity and ferocity of its manners, the coarse
simplicity of its sentiments, and its good and bad passions,
without any design of particularly drawing forth or cele-
brating such or such of its merits and its advantages, or of
leaving in the shade its vices and its evils.

This mixture of good and evil, of strong and weak — this
co-existence of ideas and sentiments apparently contradictory
— this variety, this incoherence, this unequal development of
human nature and human destiny — is precisely the condition
which is the most rife with poetry, for through it we see to the
bottom of things, it is the truth concerning man and the world :
and in the ideal pictures which poetry, romance, and even
history, make of it, this so various and yet harmonious whole
ought to be found, for without it the true ideal will be want-
ing, no less than the reality. Now it is into this fault that the
writers of whom I speak have always fallen ; their pictures
of savage man and of savage life are essentially incomplete,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 165

formal, factitious, and wanting in simplicity and harmony.
One fancies that one sees melodramatic barbarians and
savages, who present themselves to display their independence,
their energy, their skill, or such and such a portion of their
character and destiny, before the eyes of spectators who, at
once greedy of, but worn out with excitement, still take plea-
sure in qualities and adventures foreign to the life they them-
selves lead, and to the society by which they are surrounded.
I know not whether you are struck, as I am, with the defects
of the imagination in our times. Upon the whole, it seems to
me that it lacks nature, facility, and extension ; it does not
take a large and simple view of things in their primitive and
real elements ; it arranges them theatrically, and mutilates
them under pretence of idealizing them. It is true that I
find, in the modern descriptions of ancient German manners,
some scattered characteristics of barbarism, but I can dis-
cover nothing therefrom of what barbarous society was as a
whole.

If I were obliged to sum up that which I have now said
upon the state of the Germans before the invasion, I confess
I should be somewhat embarrassed. We find therein no pre-
cise and well defined traits which may be detached and dis-
tinctly exhibited ; no fact, no idea, no sentiment had as yet
attained to its development, or as yet presented itself under a
determinate form ; it was the infancy of all things, of the
social and moral states, of institutions, of relations, of man
himself; everything was rough and confused. There are,
however, two points to which I think I ought to direct your
attention.

1st. At the opening of modern civilization, the Germans
influenced it far less by the institutions which they brought
with them from Germany, than by their situation itself,
amidst the Roman world. They had conquered it : they were,
at least upon the spot where they had established themselves,
masters of the population and of the territory. The society
which formed itself after this conquest, arose rather from this
situation, from the new life led by the conquerors in their
relations with the conquered, than from the ancient German
manners.

2d. That which the Germans especially brought into the
Roman world was the spirit of individual liberty, the need,
the passion for independence and individuality. To speak
properly, no public power, no religious power, existed in

22

166 HISTORY OF

ancient Germany ; the only real power in this society, tnd
only power that was strong and active in it, was the will
of man ; each one did what he chose, at his own risk and
peril.

The system of force, that is to say, of personal liberty, was
at the bottom of the social state of the Germans. Through
this it was that their influence became so powerful upon the
modern world. Very general expressions border always so
nearly upon inaccuracy, that I do not like to risk them.
Nevertheless, were it absolutely necessary to express in few
words the predominating characters of the various elements
of our civilization, I should say, that the spirit of legality, of
regular association, came to us from the Roman world, from
the Roman municipalities and laws. It is to Christianity, to
the religious society, that we owe the spirit of morality, the
sentiment and empire of rule, of a moral law, of the mutual
duties of men. The Germans conferred upon us the spirit
of liberty, of liberty such as we conceive of, and are ac-
quainted with it, in the present day, as the right and property
of each individual, master of himself, of his actions, and of
his fate, so long as he injures no other individual. This is a
fact of universal importance, for it was unknown to all pre-
ceding civilizations : in the ancient republics, the public power
disposed all things ; the individual was sacrificed to the
citizen. In the societies where the religious principle pre-
dominated, the believer belonged to his God, not to himself.
Thus, man hitherto had always been absorbed in the church
or in the state. In modern Europe, alone, has he existed and
developed himself on his own account and in his own way,
charged, no doubt, charged continually, more and more
heavily with toils and duties, but finding in himself his aim
and his right. It is to German manners that we must trace
this distinguishing characteristic of our civilization. The
fundamental idea of liberty, in modern Europe, came to it from
its conquerors.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE i67

EIGHTH LECTURE.

Object of the lecture — True character of the German invasions — Causa
of errors on this subject — Description of the state of Gaul in the
last half of the sixth century — Dissolution of Roman society : 1. In
rural districts ; 2. In towns, though in a lesser degree — Dissolution
of German society : 1. Of the colony or tribe ; 2. Of the warfaring
band — Elements of the new social state : 1. Of commencing royalty ;
2. Of commencing feudalism ; 3. Of the church, after the invasion
— Summary.

We are now in possession of the two primitive and funda-
mental elements of French civilization ; we have studied, on
the one hand, Roman civilization, on the other, German so-
ciety, each in itself, and prior to their apposition. Let us
endeavor to ascertain what happened in the moment at which
they touched together, and became confounded with one
another ; that is to say, to describe the condition of Gaul after
the great invasion and settlement of the Germans.

I should wish to assign to this description a somewhat
precise date, and to inform you, beforehand, to what age and
to what territory it especially belongs. The difficulty of doing
this is great. Such, at this epoch, was the confusion of things
and minds, that the greater part of the facts have been trans-
mitted to us without order and without date ; particularly
general facts, those connected with institutions, with the re-
lations of the different classes, in a word, with the social
condition ; facts which, by nature, are the least apparent and
the least precise. They are omitted or strangely confused
in contemporary monuments ; we must, at every step, guess
at and restore their chronology. Happily, the accuracy of
this chronology is of less importance at this epoch than at
any other. No doubt, between the sixth and eighth centu-
ries, the state of Gaul must have changed ; relations of men,
institutions and manners must have been modified ; less,
however, than we might be tempted to believe. The chaos
was extreme, and chaos is essentially stationary. When all
things are disordered and confounded to this degree, they
require much time for unravelling and re-arranging them-

168 HISTORY OF

selves ; much time is needed for each of the elements to return
o its place, to re-enter its right path, to place itself again in
some measure under the direction and motive force of the
special principle which should govern its development. After
the settlement of the barbarians upon the Roman soil, events
and men revolved for a long time in the same circle, a prey
to a movement more violent than progressive. Thus, from
the sixth to the eighth century, the state of Gaul changed
less, and the strict chronology of general facts is of less im-
portance than we might naturally presume from the length
of the interval. Let us, nevertheless, endeavor to determine,
within certain limits, the epoch of which we are now to trace
the picture.

The true Germanic people who occupied Gaul were the
Burgundians, the Visigoths, and the Franks. Many other
people, many other single bands of Vandals, Alani, Suevi,
Saxons, &c, wandered over its territory ; but of these, some
only passed over it, and the others were rapidly absorbed by
it ; these are partial incursions which are without any histo-
rical importance. The Burgundians, the Visigoths, and the
Franks, alone deserve to be counted among our ancestors.
The Burgundians definitively established themselves in Gaul
between the years 406 and 413 ; they occupied the country
between the Jura, the Sa6ne, and the Durance ; Lyons was
the centre of their dominion. The Visigoths, between the
years 412 and 450, spread themselves over the provinces
bounded by the Rhone, and even over the left bank of the
Rhone to the south of the Durance, the Loire, and the Pyre-
nees : their king resided at Toulouse. The Franks, between
the years 481 and 500, advanced in the north of Gaul, and
established themselves between the Rhine, the Scheldt, and
the Loire, without including Brittany and the western por-
tions of Normandy ; Clovis had Soissons and Paris for his
capitals. Thus, at the end of the fifth century, was accom-
plished the definitive occupation of the territory of Gaul by
the three great German tribes.

The condition of Gaul was not exactly the same in its
various parts, and under the dominion of these three nations.
There were remarkable differences between them. The
Franks were far more foreign, German, and barbarous, than
the Burgundians and the Goths. Before their entrance into
Gaul, these last had had ancient relations with the Romans ;
they had lived in the eastern empire, in Italy ; they were

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 169

familiar with the Roman manners and population. We may
say almost as much for the Burgundians. Moreover, the two
nations had long been Christians. The Franks, on the con-
trary, arrived from Germany in the condition of pagans and
enemies. Those portions of Gaul which they occupied be-
came deeply sensible of this difference, which is described
with truth and vivacity in the seventh of the " Lectures upon
the History of France," of M. Augustin Thierry. I am in-
clined, however, to believe that it was less important than has
been commonly supposed. If I do not err, the Roman pro-
vinces differed more among themselves than did the nations
which had conquered them. You have already seen how
much more civilized was southern than northern Gaul, how
much more thickly covered with population, towns, monu-
ments, and roads. Had the Visigoths arrived in as barbarous
a condition as that of the Franks, their barbarism would yet
have been far' less visible and less powerful in Gallia Nar-
bonensis and in Aquitania ; Roman civilization would much
sooner have absorbed and altered them. This, I believe, is
what happened ; and the different effects which accompanied
the three conquests resulted rather from the differences of the
conquered than from that of the conquerors.

Besides, this difference, sensible so long as we confine our-
selves to a very general view of things, becomes effaced, or
at least very difficult to be perceived, when we go farther on
with the study of the society. It may be said that the Franks
were more barbarous than the Visigoths ; but, that being said,
we must stop. In what consisted the positive differences be-
tween the two peoples, in institutions, ideas, and relations of
classes 1 No precise record contains an answer to this ques-
tion. Finally, the difference of condition in the provinces of
Gaul, that difference, at least, which was referable to their
masters, soon disappeared or became greatly lessened. About
the year 534, the country of the Burgundians fell under the
yoke of the Franks ; between the years 507 and 542, that of
the Visigoths became subject to nearly the same fate. In the
middle of the sixth century, the Frank race had spread itself
and obtained dominion throughout Gaul. The Visigoths still
possessed a part of Languedoc, and still disputed the posses-
sion of some towns at the foot of the Pyrenees ; but, properly
speaking, Brittany excepted, the whole of Gaul was, if not
governed, at least overrun by the Franks.

It is wi*h the Gaul of this epoch that I desire to make ycu

170 HISTORY OF

acquainted ; it is the state of Gaul about the last half of tht
sixth century, and, above all, of Frankish Gaul, thai I shall
now endeavor to describe. Any attempt to assign a more
precise date to this description would be vain and fertile in
errors. No doubt there was still, at this epoch, much variety
in the condition of the Gaulish provinces ; but I shall attempt
to estimate it no farther, remaining satisfied with having
warned you of its existence.

It seems to me that people commonly form to themselves
a very false idea of the invasion of the barbarians, and of the
extent and rapidity of its effects. You have, in your reading
upon this subject, often met with the words inundation, earth-
quake, conflagration. These are the terms which have been
employed to characterize this revolution. I think that they
are deceptive, that they in no way represent the manner in
which this invasion occurred, nor its immediate results. Ex-
aggeration is natural to human language ; words express the
impressions which man receives from facts, rather than the
facts themselves ; it is after having passed through the mind
of man, and according to the impressions which they have
produced thereupon, that facts are described and named.
But the impression is never the complete and faithful image
of the fact. In the first place, it is individual, which the fact
is not ; great events, the invasion of a foreign people, for in-
stance, are related by those who have been personally affected,
as victims, actors, or spectators : they relate the event as they
have seen it ; they characterize it according to what they
have known or undergone. He who has seen his house or
his village burnt, will, perhaps, call the invasion a conflagra-
tion ; to the thought of another, it will be found arrayed k>
the form of a deluge or an earthquake. These images arr
true, but are of a truth which, if I may so express myself, is
full of prejudice and egoism ; they re-produce the impressions
of some few men ; they are not expressions of the fact in its
entire extent, nor of the manner in which it impressed the
whole of the country.

Such, moreover, is the instinctive poetry of the humai.
mind, that it receives from facts an impression which is live-
lier and greater than are the facts themselves ; it is its ten
dency to extend and ennoble them ; they are for it but
matter which it fashions and forms, a theme upon which it
exercises itself, and from which it draws, or rather over whicb
>t spreads, beauties and effects which were not really there.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 171

Thus, a double and contrary cause fills language with illu-
sion ; under a material point of view, facts are greater than
man, and he perceives and describes of them only that which
strikes him personally ; under the moral point of view, man
is greater than facts ; and, in describing them, he lends them
something of his own greatness.

This is what we must never forget in studying history,
particularly in reading contemporary documents ; they are
at once incomplete and exaggerated ; they omit and amplify :
we must always distrust the impression conveyed by them,
both as too narrow and as too poetical ; we must both add to
and take from it. Nowhere does this double error appear
more strongly than in the narratives of the Germanic inva-
sion ; the words by which it has been described in no way
represent it.

The invasion, or rather, the invasions, were events which
were essentially partial, local, and momentary. A band ar-
rived, usually far from numerous ; the most powerful, those
who founded kingdoms, as the band of Clovis, scarcely num-
bered from 5,000 to 6,000 men ; the entire nation of the Bur-
gundians did not exceed 60,000 men. It rapidly over-ran a
limited territory ; ravaged a district ; attacked a city, and
sometimes retreated, carrying away its booty, and sometimes
settled somewhere, always careful not to disperse itself too
much. We know with what facility and promptitude such
events accomplish themselves and disappear. Houses are
burnt, fields are devastated, crops carried off, men killed or
led away prisoners : all this evil over, at the end of a few
days the waves close, the ripple subsides, individual sufferings
are forgotten, society returns, at least in appearance, to its
former state. This was the condition of things in Gaul dur-
ing the fourth century.

But we also know that the human society, that society
which we call a people, is not a simple juxta-position of iso-
lated and fugitive existence : were it nothing more, the inva-
sions of the barbarians would not have produced the impression
which the documents of the epoch depict ; for a long while
the number of places and men that suffered therefrom was
far inferior to the number of those who escaped. But the
social life of each man is not concentrated in the material
space which is its theatre, nor in the passing moment ; it
extends itself to all Ihe relations which he has contracted upon
different points of the land ; and not only to those relations

..72 HISTORY OF

which he has contracted, but also to those whicn he migh
contract, or can even conceive the possibility of contracting ;
it embraces not only the present, but the future j man lives
in a thousand spots which he does not inhabit, in a thousand
moments which, as yet, are not ; and if this development of
his life is cut off from him, if he is forced to confine himself
to the narrow limits of his material and actual existence, to
isolate himself in space and time, social life is mutilated, and
society is no more.

And this was the effect of the invasions, of those appa-
ritions of barbarous hordes, short, it is true, and limited, but
reviving without cessation, everywhere possible, and always
imminent : they destroyed, 1st, all regular, habitual, and easy
correspondence between the various parts of the territory ;
2d, all security, all sure prospect of the future ; they broke
the ties which bound together the inhabitants of the same
country, the moments of the same life ; they isolated men,
and the days of each man. In many places, and for many
years, the aspect of the country might remain the same ; but
the social organization was attacked, the members no longer
held together, the muscles no longer played, the blood no
longer circulated freely or surely in the veins : the disease
appeared sometimes at one point, sometimes at another : a
town was pillaged, a road rendered impassable, a bridge
destroyed ; such or such a communication ceased ; the cul-
ture of the land became impossible in such or such a district :
in a word, the organic harmony, the general activity of the
social body, were each day fettered and disturbed ; each day
dissolution and paralysis made some new advance.

Thus was Roman society destroyed in Gaul ; not as a
valley is ravaged by a torrent, but as the most solid body is
disorganized by the continual infiltration of a foreign substance.
Between all the members of the state, between all the mo-
ments of the life of each man, the barbarians continually in-
truded themselves. I lately endeavored to paint to you the
dismemberment of the Roman empire, the impossibility under
which its masters found themselves of holding together the
different parts, and how the imperial administration was
obliged to retire spontaneously from Britain, from Gaul,
incapable of resisting the dissolution of that vast body.
What occurred in the Empire occurred equally in each pro-
vince ; as the Empire had suffered disorganization, so did each
province j the cantons, the towns detached themselves, and

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 173

returned to a local and isolated existence. The invasion
operated everywhere in the same manner, and everywhere
produced the same effects. All the ties by which Rome had
been enabled, after so many efforts, to combine together the
different parts of the world ; that great system of administra-
tion, of imposts, of recruiting, of public works, of roads, had
not been able to support itself. There remained of it nothing
but what could subsist in an isolated and local condition, that
is to say, nothing but the wrecks of the municipal system.
The inhabitants shut themselves up in the towns, where they
continued to govern themselves nearly as they had done ol
old, with the same rights, by the same institutions. A thou-
sand circumstances prove this concentration of society in
towns; here is one which has been little noticed. Under the
Roman administration, it is the governors of provinces, the
consuls, the correctors, the presidents who fill the scene, and
reappear continually in the laws and history ; in the sixth
century, their names become much more rare ; we, indeed,
still meet with dukes and counts, to whom the government of
the provinces was confided ; the barbarian kings strove to
inherit the Roman administration, to preserve the same officers,
and to induce their power to flow in the same channels ; but
they succeeded only very incompletely, and with great dis-
order ; their dukes were rather military chiefs than adminis-
trators; it is manifest that the governors of provinces had no
longer the same importance, and no longer played the same
part ; the governors of towns now filled history ; the majority
of these counts of Chilperic, of Gontran, of Theodebert,
whose exactions are related by Gregory of Tours, are counts
of towns established within their walls, and by the side of
their bishop. I should exaggerate were I to say that the
province disappeared, but it became disorganized, and lost all
consistency, and almost all reality. The towns, the primitive
elements of the Roman world, survived almost alone amidst
its ruin. The rural districts became the prey of the barba-
rians ; it was there that they established themselves with their
men ; it was there that they were about to introduce by
degrees totally new institutions, and a new organization, but
till then the rural districts will occupy scarcely any place in
society ; they will be but the theatre of excursions, pillages,
and misery.

Even within the towns the ancient society was far frona
maintaining itself strong and entire. Amidst the movemen

174 HISTORY OF

of the invasions, the towns were regarded above all as for.
tresses ; the population shut themselves therein to escapa
from the hordes which ravaged the country. When the bar.
barous immigration was somewhat diminished, when the new
people had planted themselves upon the territory, the towns
still remained fortresses : in place of having to defend them-
selves against the wandering hordes, they had to defend them-
selves against their neighbors, against the greedy and tur.
bulent possessors of the surrounding country. There was
therefore little security behind those weak ramparts. Towns
are unquestionably centres of population and of labor,
but under certain conditions; under the condition, on the
one hand, that the country population cultivate for them ; on
*he other, that an extended and active commerce consume the
products of the citizens' labor. If agriculture and commerce
decay, towns must decay j their prosperity and their power
cannot be isolated. Now you have just seen into what
a condition the rural districts of Gaul had fallen in the sixth
century j the towns were able to escape for some time, but
from day to day the evil threatened to conquer them. Finally,
it did conquer them, and very soon this last wreck of the
Empire seemed stricken with the same weakness, and a prey
to the same dissolution.

Such, in the sixth century, were the general effects of the
invasion and establishment of the barbarians upon Roman
society ; that was the condition in which they had placed it.
Let us now inquire, what was the consequence of these facts,
with regard to the second element of modern civilization, the
German society itself?

A. great mistake lies at the bottom of most of the researches
which have bean made upon this subject. The institutions
of the Germans have been studied in Germany, and then trans-
ported just as they were into Gaul, in the train of the Ger-
mans. It has been assumed that the German society was in
much the same condition after as before the conquest ; and
persons have reasoned from this postulate in determining the
influence of the conquest, and in assigning to it its part in the
development of modern civilization. Nothing can be more
false and more deceptive. The German society was modified,
defaced, dissolved, by the invasion, no less than the Roman
society. In this great commotion a wreck was all that
remained to each ; the social organization of the conquerors
perished like that of the conquered.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 175

Two societies — at bottom perhaps more like eacn other than
has been supposed, distinct, nevertheless — subsisted in Ger.
many : first, the society of the colony or tribe, tending to a
sedentary condition, and existing upon a limited territory
which it cultivated by means of laborers and slaves; second;
the society of the warfaring horde, accidentally grouped around
some famous chief, and leading a wandering life. This mani-
festly results from the facts which I have already described
to you.

To the first of these two societies, to the tribes, are, in a
certain measure, applicable those descriptions of the condition of
the ancient Germans by modern Germans, concerning wnich I
have already spoken. When, in fact, a tribe, small in number
as were all the tribes, occupied a limited territory ; when each
head of a family was established upon his domain, in the midst
of his people, the social organization which has been described
by these writers might well exist, if not completely and
effectively, at least in the rough sketch; the assembly of pro-
prietors, of heads of families, decided upon all matters ; each
horde had its own assembly ; justice was dispensed to them by
the freemen themselves, under the direction of the aged ;
a kind of public polity might arise between the confederate
hordes ; free institutions were then under the form in which
we meet them in the infancy of nations.

The organization of the warfaring band was different ;
another principle presided in it, the principle of the patronage
of the chief, of aristocratic clientship, and military subordina-
tion. It is with regret that I make use of these last words ;
they art ill suited to barbarian hordes ; yet, however
barbarian men may be, a kind of discipline necessarily in-
troduces itself between the chief and his warriors ; and in
this case there must assuredly exist more arbitrary authority,
more forced obedience, than in associations which have not
war for their object. The German warfaring band therefore
contained a political element that was not possessed by the
tribe. At the same time, however, its freedom was great : no
man engaged therein against his will ; the German was born
within his tribe, and thus belonged to a situation which was
not one of his choice ; the warrior chose his chief and his
oompanions, and undertook nothing but with the consent of
n:s own free will. Besides, in the bosom of the warfaring
band, the inequality was not great between the chiefs and
Jheirmen ; there was nothing more than the natural inequality

170 HISTORY OF

of strength, skill, or courage ; an inequality which afterwards
becomes fruitful, and which produces sooner or later immense
results, but which, at the outset of society, displays itself
only in very narrow limits. Although the chief had the
largest share of the booty, although he possessed more horses
and more arms, he was not so superior in riches to his com-
panions as to be able to dispose of them without their con-
sent ; each warrior entered the association with his strength
and his courage, differing very little from the others, and at
liberty to leave it whenever he pleased.

Such were the two primitive German societies : what did
they become by the fact of the invasion ? what change
did it necessarily work upon them ? By ascertaining this
alone it is that we can learn what German society truly was
after its transplantation to the Roman soil.

The characteristic fact, the grand result of the invasion, as
regards the Germans, was their change to the condition of
proprietors, the cessation of the wandering life, and the defi-
nitive establishment of the agricultural life.

This fact accomplished itself gradually, slowly, and un-
equally ; the wandering life continued for a long time in Gaul,
at least it so continued for a great number of the Germans.
Nevertheless, when we have estimated all these delays and
disorders, we see that, in the end, the conquerors became pro-
prietors, that they attached themselves to the soil, that landed
property was the essential element of the new social state.

What were the consequences of this single fact, as regards
the regulation of the warfaring band and of the tribe ?

As to the tribe, remember what I have told you of the
manner of its territorial establishment in Germany, of the
manner in which the villages were constructed and disposed.
The population was not condensed therein ; each family, each
habitation was isolated and surrounded with a plot of culti-
vated ground. It is thus that nations, who have only
arrived at this degree of civilization, arrange themselves,
even when they lead a sedentary life.

When the tribe was transplanted to the soil of Gaul, the
habitations became yet further dispersed ; the chiefs of families
established themselves at a much greater distance from one
another ; they occupied vast domains ; their houses afterwards
became castles. The villages which formed themselves around
them were no longer peopled with men who were free, who
Were their equals, but with laborers who were attached to

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 177

their lands. Thus, in its material relations, t *e tribe became
dissolved by the single fact of its new establishment.

You may easily guess what effect this single change was
calculated to exert upon its institutions. The assembly of free-
men, wherein all things were debated, was now got together
with much greater difficulty. So long as they had lived
near to one another, there was no need of any great art, or
wise combinations, in order that they might treat in common of
their affairs ; but when a population is scattered, in order that
the principles and forms of free institutions may remain
applicable to it, great social development is necessary, riches,
intelligence, in short, a thousand things are necessary, which
were wanting to the German horde, transported suddenly
to a territory far more extensive than that which it
had hitherto occupied. The system which regulated its
existence in Germany now perished. In looking over the
most ancient German laws — those of the Allemanni, Boii,
and Franks — we see that, originally, the assembly of freemen
in each district was held very frequently, at first, every week,
and afterwards, every month. All questions were carried
before it ; judgments were given there, and not only criminal,
but also civil judgments : almost all acts of civil life were
done in its presence, as sales, donations, &c. When once the
tribe was established in Gaul, the assemblies became rare and
difficult ; so difficult, that it was necessary to employ force
to make the freemen attend : this is the object of many
legal decrees. And if you pass suddenly from the fourth
to the middle of the eighth century, you find that at this last
epoch there were in each county but three assemblies of free-
men in the year : and these not regularly kept, as is proved
by some of Charlemagne's laws.

If other proofs were necessary, here is one which deserves
to be noticed. When the assemblies were frequent, freemen,
under the name of rachimburgi, arhimanni, boni homines,
and in various forms, decided upon affairs. When they no
longer attended, it became necessary, upon urgent occasions,
to supply their places ; and thus we see, at the end of the
eighth century, the freemen replaced in judicial functions by
permanent judges. The scabini, or sheriffs of Charlemagne,
were regular judges. In each county, five, seven, or nine free-
men were appointed by the count, or other local magistrate,
and charged to present themselves at the assembly of the
aountry to decide upon cases. The primitive institution!

178 HISTORY OF

were become impracticable, and the judicial power passed
from the people to the magistrates.

Such was the state into which the first element of German
society, the colony or tribe, fell after the invasion and under
its influence. Politically speaking, it was disorganized, as
Roman society had been. As to the warfaring band, facts
accomplished themselves in another way, and under a different
form, but with the same results.

When a band arrived anywhere, and took possession of the
land, or of a portion of it, we must not believe that this occu-
pation took place systematically, or that the territory was
divided by lots, and that each warrior received one,
proportionate to his importance or his rank. The chiefs
of the band, or the different chiefs who were united in it,
appropriated to themselves vast domains. The greater part
of the warriors who had followed them continued to live
around them, with them, and at their table, without possessing
any property which belonged especially to them. The band
did not dissolve into individuals of whom each became a pro-
prietor ; the most considerable warriors entered almost alone
into this situation. Had they dispersed themselves, in order
that each one might establish himself upon a spot of the
territory, their safety amidst the original population would
have been compromised ; it was necessary that they should
remain united in groups. Moreover, it was by the life in
common that the pleasures of the barbarians, gaming, the
chase, and banquets, could alone subsist. How could they
have resigned themselves to isolation ? Isolation is only
supportable in a laborious condition ; man cannot remain idle
and alone. Now, the barbarians were essentially idle ; they
therefore required to live together, and many companions
remained about their chief, leading upon his domains pretty
nearly the same life which they had led before in his train.
But from these circumstances it arose that their relative
situation was completely altered. Very soon a prodigious
inequality sprang up between them : their inequality no longer
consisted in some personal difference of strength or of courage,
or in a more or less considerable share of cattle, slaves, or
valuable goods. The chief, become a great proprietor, dis-
posed of many of the means of power ; the others Were always
simple warriors ; and the more the ideas of property established
and extended themselves in men's minds, the more was in-
equality, with its effects, developed. At this period we find

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 17P

a treat number of freemen falling by degrees into a very
ihierior position. The laws speak constantly of freemen, of
Franks, living upon the lands of another, and reduced almost
to the situation of the laborers.1 The band, regarded as a
peculiar society, reposed upon two facts — the voluntary asso-
ciation of the warriors in order to lead in common a wander-
ing life, and their equality. These two facts perished in the
results of the invasion, On one hand, the wandering life
ended — on the other, inequality introduced itself, and in-
creased from day to day, among the sedentary warriors.

The progressive parcelling out of lands, during the three
centuries after the invasion, did not change this result.
There are none of you who have not heard of the fees
that the king, or the great chiefs who occupied a vast
territory, distributed to their men, to attach them to their
service, or to recompense them for services done. This
practice, in proportion as it extended, produced, upon what
remained of the warfaring band, effects analogous to those
which I have pointed out to you. On one hand, the
warrior upon whom the chief had conferred the fee, de
parted to inhabit it, — a new source of isolation and indivi-
duality ; on the other, this warrior had usually a certain num-
ber of men attached to him ; or he sought and found men who
would come to live with him upon his domain ; — a new source
of inequality. Such were the general effects of the invasion
upon the two ancient Germanic societies, the tribe and the
wandering band. They became equally disorganized, and
entered upon totally different situations, upon totally new
relations. In order to bind them among themselves anew,
in order to form society anew, and to deduce from that society
a government, it became necessary to have recourse to other
principles, to other institutions. Dissolved, like Roman
society, German society, in like manner, furnished to the
society which followed it nothing but wrecks.

I hope that these expressions, society dissolved, society which
perislied, do not mislead you, and that you understand them
in their right sense. A society never dissolves itself, but
because a new society is fermenting and forming in its
bosom ; the concealed work it is there going on which tends
o separate its elements,, in order to arrange them under new

i Essai9 sur PHistoire de France, pp. 109 — 111

180 HISTORY OF

combinations. Such a disorganization shows that facts are
changed, that the relations and dispositions of men are no
longer the same ; that other principles and other forms are
ready to assume the predominance. Thus, in affirming that
in the sixth century, ancient society, Roman as well as Ger-
man, was dissolved in Gaul by the results of the invasion, we
say that, by the same causes, at the same epoch, and upon
the same ground, modern society began.

We have no means of explaining or clearly contemplating
this first labor ; the original sources, the original creation, is
profoundly concealed, and does not manifest itself outwardly
until later, when it has already made considerable progress.
Nevertheless, it is possible to foresee it ; and it is important
that you should know, at once, what was fermenting and
being formed beneath this general dissolution of the two
elements of modern society ; I will endeavor to give you an
idea of this in few words.

The first fact of which we catch a glimpse at this period,
is a certain tendency to the development of royalty. Persons
have often praised barbarian at the expense of modern royalty,
wrongfully, as I think : in the fourth and in the seventeenth
centuries this word expresses two institutions, two powers
which are profoundly different from each other. There
were, indeed, among the barbarians, some germs of hereditary
royalty, some traces of a Teligious character inherent in cer-
tain families descended from the first chiefs of the nations,
from heroes become gods. There can, however, be no doubt
but that choice, election, was the principal source of royalty,
and that the character of warlike chiefs predominates in the
barbarous kings.

When they were transplanted to the Roman territory, their
situation changed. They found there a place which was
empty, namely, that of the emperors. Power, titles, and a
machine of government with which the barbarians were
acquainted, and of which they admired the splendor and soon
appreciated the efficacy, were there ; they were, of course,
strongly tempted to appropriate these advantages. Such,
indeed, was the aim of all their efforts. This fact appears
everywhere : Clovis, Childebert, Gontran, Chilperic, CJotaire,
labored incessantly to assume the names and to exercise the
rights of the Empire ; they wished to distribute their dukes
and their counts as the emperors had distributed their con-
suls, their correctors, and their presidents ; they tried /> re-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 191

establish all that system of taxes, enlistment, and administra-
tion, which had fallen into ruin. In a word, barbaric royalty,
narrow and crude as it was, endeavored to develope itself, and
fill, in some measure, the enormous frame of imperial royalty.

For a long while the course of things was not favorable to
it, and its first attempts were attended with little success;
nevertheless, we may see, from the beginning, that something
of the imperial royalty will remain to it ; that the new
royalty will by and bye gather a portion of that imperial
inheritance, the whole of which it desired to appropriate at
the first ; immediately after the invasion, it became less war-
like, more religious, and more politic than it had hitherto been,
that is to say, it assumed more of the character of the imperial
royalty. Here, if I mistake not, is the first great fact of that
labor which was about to give birth to the new society ; that
fact is not clearly manifest as yet, but glimpses of it are easily
to be caught.

The second great fact is the birth of the territorial aris-
tocracy. Property, for a long time after the settlement of
the barbarians, seemed uncertain, fluctuating and confused,
passing from one hand to another with surprising rapidity.
Nevertheless, it is clear that it prepared to become fixed in
the same hands, and to regulate itself. The tendency of
fees is to become hereditary ; and, in spite of the obstacles
which oppose it, the principle of inheritance prevails therein
more and more. At the same time there arose between the
possessors of the fees that hierarchical organization which
afterwards became the feudal system. We must not trans-
port into the sixth and seventh centuries the feudalism of the
thirteenth ; nothing like it then existed ; the disorder of pro-
perty and personal relations was infinitely greater than under
the feudal system ; nevertheless all things concurred, on the
one hand, to render property fixed ; on the other, to constitute
the society of the proprietors according to a certain hierarchy.
As we have seen royalty dawning from the end of the sixth
century, so likewise, we may discover, from that period, the
dawn of feudalism.

Finally, a third fact also developed itself at this epoch. I
have engaged your attention with the state of the church ;
you have seen what power it had, and how it was, so to
3peak, the sole living remnant of Roman society. When the
barbarians were established, let us see in what situation the
church found itself, or, at least, what that situation soon be-

182 HISTORY OF

came. The bishops were, as you know, the natural chiefs of
the towns ; they governed the people in the interior of each
city, they represented them in the presence of the barbarians,
they were their magistrates within, and their protectors
without. The clergy were therefore deeply rooted in the
municipal system, that is to say, in all that remained of
Roman society. And they very soon struck root in other
directions; the bishops became the counsellors of the barbarous
kings ; they counselled them upon the conduct which they
ought to observe towards the vanquished people, upon the
course they ought to take in order to become the heirs of
the Roman emperors. They had far more experience and
political intelligence than the barbarians, who came fresh
from Germany ; they had the love of power, they had been
accustomed to serve and to profit by it. They were thus the
counsellors of the nascent royalty, while they remained the
magistrates and patrons of the still surviving municipality.

Behold them connected on the one hand with the people, on
the other with thrones. But this was not all ; a third position
now opened itself to them ; they became great proprietors ;
they entered into that hierarchical organization of manorial
property which, as yet, scarcely existed but in tendency ; they
labored to occupy, and soon succeeded in occupying, a con-
siderable place therein. So that at this epoch, while yet the
new society was in its first rudiments, the church was already
connected with all its parts, was everywhere in good repute
and powerful ; a sure sign that it would be the first to attain
dominion j as happened.

Such were the three great facts — obscure as yet, but visible —
by which the new social order announced itself, at the end of
the sixth and the beginning of the seventh century. It is, I
believe, impossible to mistake them • but, in recognizing them,
we must remember that neither of them had as yet taken the
position and the form which it was to retain. All things
were still mixed and confused to such a degree, that it
must have been impossible for the shrewdest sight to have
discerned any of the characteristics of the future. I have
already had occasion to say, and in your studies you have
had opportunities of becoming convinced, that there exists
no modern system, no pretension to power, which has not
discovered grounds for its legitimacy in these beginnings of
*ur society. Royalty regards itself as the only heir of the
Roman empire. The feudal aristocracy asserts that, at that

CIVILISATION IN FRANCE. 183

time, it possessed the entire country, men and lands ; the
towns affirm that they succeeded to all the rights of the
Roman municipalities ; the clergy, that they then shared
all power. This singular epoch has lent itself to all the re-
quirements of party spirit, to all the hypotheses of science ; it
has furnished arguments and arms to nations, to kings, to
grandees, to priests, to liberty as well as to aristocracy, to
aristocracy as well as to royalty.

The fact is, it carried all things in its bosom, theocracy,
monarchy, oligarchy, republics, mixed constitutions ; and all
things in a state of confusion which has allowed each to see
all that it chose to see therein. The obscure and irregular
fermentation of the wrecks of former society, German as well
as Roman, and the first labors of their transformation into
elements of the new society, constituted the true condition of
Gaul during the sixth and seventh centuries, and this is tho
only character we can assign to it.

184 HISTORY OP

NINTH LECTURE.

Object of the lecture — False idea of the Salic law — History of the
formation of this law — Two hypotheses upon this matter — Eighteen
manuscripts — Two texts of the Salic law — M. Wiarda's work upon
the history and exposition of the Salic law — Prefaces attached to the
manuscripts — Value of national traditions concerning the origin and
compilation of the Salic law — Concerning its tendencies — It is essen-
tially a penal code — 1st. Of the enumeration and definition of of-
fences in the Salic law ; 2d. Of penalties ; 3d. Of criminal proce-
dure— Transitory character of this legislation.

We are to occupy ourselves now with the barbarian laws,
and especially with the Salic law, upon which I must give
certain minute details, indispensable to a knowledge of the true
character of this law, and of the social state which is indicated
thereby. People have been deeply, and for a long while,
deceived upon this point. A greatly exaggerated importance
has been attributed to the Salic law. You are acquainted
with the reason of this error ; you know that at the accession
of Philippe-le-Long, and during the struggle of Philippe-de-
Valois and Edward III. for the crown of France, the Salic
law was invoked in order to prevent the succession of women,
and that, from that time, it has been celebrated by a crowd
of writers, as the first source of our public law, as a law
always in vigor, as the fundamental law of monarchy.
Those who have been the most free from this illusion, as, for
example, Montesquieu, have yet experienced, to some degree,
its influence, and have spoken of the Salic law with a respect
which it is assuredly difficult to feel towards it when we attri-
bute to it only the place that it really holds in our history.
We might be tempted to believe that the majority of the
writers who have spoken of this law had studied neither its
history nor its scope ; that they were equally ignorant of its
source and of its character. These are the two questions
which we have now to solve : we must learn, on the one hand,
in what manner the Salic law was compiled, when, where, by
whom, and for whom ; on the other, what the object and plan
of its dispositions were.

CIVILIZATION in FRANCE. 185

As regards its history, I pray you to recall that which I
have already told you touching the double origin and the in-
coherence of the barbarous laws ; they were, at once, anterior
and posterior to the invasion ; at once, German, and Germano-
Roman : they belonged to two different conditions of society.
This character has influenced all the controversies of which
the Salic law has been the object ; it has given rise to two
hypotheses : according to one, this law was compiled in Ger-
many, upon the right bank of the Rhine, long before the
conquest, and in the language of the Franks ; everything in its
provisions which is not suitable to that period, and to ancient
German society, according to this hypothesis, was introduced
afterwards, in the successive revisions which occurred after
the invasion. According to the other hypothesis, the Salic
law was, on the contrary, compiled after the conquest, upon
the left bank of the Rhine, in Belgium or in Gaul, perhaps in
the seventh century, and in Latin.

Nothing is more natural than the conflict of these hypo-
theses ; they necessarily arose from the Salic law itself. A
peculiar circumstance tended to provoke them.

In the manuscripts which remain to us, there are two texts
of this law : the one unmixedly Latin ; the other Latin also,
but mixed with a great number of German words, of glosses,
and of expositions, in the ancient Frankish tongue, interca-
lated in the course of the articles. It contains two hundred
and fifty-three intercalations of this kind. The second text
was published at Basil, in 1557, by the jurisconsult, John
Herold, from a manuscript in the Abbey of Fulda. The
purely Latin text was published, for the first time, in Paris,
without date, or the name of the editor ; and, for the second
time, by John Dutillet, also in Paris, in 1573. Both texts
have since gone through many editions.

Of these two texts there exist eighteen manuscripts1 —
namely, fifteen of the unmixed Latin text, and three of that
in which Germanic words appear. Of these manuscripts,
fifteen have been found upon the left bank of the Rhine, in
France, and only three in Germany. You might be inclined
to suppose that the three manuscripts found in Germany, are
those which contain the German glosses : but such is not the

1 If I do not err, M. Pertz has recently discovered two others ; but
nothing has as yet been published concerning them.

186 HISTORY OF

case ; of the three manuscripts with the comments, two only
come from Germany, the third was found in Paris ; of the fif-
teen others, fourteen were found in France, and one in Ger-
many.

The fifteen manuscripts of the unmixedly Latin texts are
pretty nearly alike. There are, indeed, some various readings
IB the prefaces, the epilogues, and in the arrangement or the
compilation of the articles, but these are of little importance.
The three manuscripts containing the German comments differ
much more widely ; they differ in the number of titles and
articles, in their arrangement, even in their contents, and still
more in their style. Of these manuscripts, two are written
in the most barbarous Latin.

Here, then, are two texts of the Salic law which support
the two solutions of the problem ; the one appears rather of a
Roman origin, the other more entirely Germanic. Thus the
question assumes this form : of the two texts, which is the
most ancient ? — to which of them should priority be attri-
buted ?

The common opinion, especially in Germany, attributes
the highest antiquity to the text which bears the German
gloss. There are, indeed, some arguments which seem, at
first sight, to support this view. The three manuscripts of
this text bear the words, Lex Salica antiqua, antiquissima,
vetustior ; whilst, in those of the unmixedly Latin text, we
commonly read : hex Salica recentior, emendata, reformata.
If we referred the question to these epigraphs, it would be
resolved.

Another circumstance seems to lead us to the same solution.
Several manuscripts contain a kind of preface, in which the
history of the Salic law is related. The following is the
most comprehensive. You will immediately see what conse-
quences are to be deduced from it concerning the antiquity of
the law :

" The nation of the Franks, illustrious, founded by God,
mighty in arms, firm in treaties of peace, profound in council,
noble and healthy iu body, of a singular fairness and beauty,
bold, active, and fierce in fight ; lately converted to the
catholic faith, free from heresy ; while it was yet under a
barbarous belief seeking the key of knowledge by the inspi-
ration of God, desiring justice, and observing piety accord-
ing to the nature of its qualities : the Salic law was dictated

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 187

by the chiefs of their nation, who, at that time, commanded
therein.

"Four men were chosen of many — namely, Wisogast,
Bodogast, Salogast, and Windogast,1 in the places called Sala-
gheve, Bodogheve, Windogheve. These men met in three
mdls* discussed with care all judicial piocesses, treated of
each in particular, and decreed their judgment in the follow-
ing manner. Afterwards, when, with the help of God,
Choldwig the long-haired, the beautiful, the illustrious king
of the Franks, had received the first catholic, baptism, every-
thing in this covenant that was considered unfitting was
amended with perspicuity by the illustrious kings, Choldwig,
Childeberg, and Chlotaire ; and in this manner was the follow-
ing decree produced :

" ' Honor to Christ who loves the Franks ! May he pre-
serve their kingdom, and fill their chiefs with the light of his
grace ! May he protect their army ; may he give them signs
which shall bear witness to their faith, awarding unto them
joys of peace and an entire felicity ! May the Lord Jesus
Christ direct in the ways of piety those who govern ! For
this is the nation which, small in number but valorous and
powerful, shook from its head the hard yoke of the Romans,
and which, after having recognized the sacredness of baptism,
sumptuously adorned with gold and precious stones the bodies
of the holy martyrs whom the Romans had burnt with fire,
massacred, mutilated with the sword, or delivered to be torn
to pieces by wild beasts.

" Concerning the inventors of laws and their order. — Moses
was the first of all those who expounded, in sacred letters,
the divine laws to the Hebrew nation. King Phoroneus was
the first to establish laws and judgments among the Greeks ;
Mercury Trismegistus gave the first laws to the Egyptians ;
Solon gave the first laws to the Athenians ; Lycurgus esta-
blished the first laws among the Lacedemonians, by the au-
thority of Apollo ; Numa Pompilius, who succeeded to Romu-
lus, gave the first laws to the Romans. Afterwards, because
the factious people would not tolerate its magistrates, it created
decemvirs to write laws, and these placed upon twelve tables

1 Gast means guest ; gheoe or gati, canton, district ; salogast is the
guest inhabiting the canton of Sale ; bodogast, the guest of the cantos
of Bode, &c.

• Malfum, an assembly of free men.

188 HISTORY OF

he laws of Solon, translated into Latin. They were : Appiiu
Claudius Sabinus, T. L. Genutius, P. Sestius Vaticanus, T.
eturius Cicurinus, C. Julius Tullius, A. Manilius, P. Sul-
oicius Camerinus, Sp. Postumius Albus, P. Horatius Pul villus,
r. Romilius Vaticanus. These decemvirs were nominated
.o write the laws. The consul Pompey was the first to desire
that the laws should be written in books ; but he did not pro-
secute his desire from the dread of calumniators. Csesar
afterwards began this work, but he was killed before he com-
pleted it. Little by little the ancient laws fell into disuse
through age and neglect ; but although they were no longer
used, it was nevertheless necessary that they should be known.
The new laws began to count from Constantine and his suc-
cessors ; they were mixed and without order. Afterwards,
the august Theodosius II., in imitation of the Codes of Gregory
and of Hermogenes, caused the constitutions given out since
Constantine to be collected and arranged under the name of
each emperor ; and this is called, after himself, the Theodosian
Code. Afterwards, each nation selected, according to its
customs, the laws which were suited to it ; for a long custom
passes for a law ; law is a written constitution ; custom is
usage founded upon antiquity, or unwritten law ; for the
word law is derived from the word legere (lex a legendo),
because it is written ; custom is a long habit founded solely
upon manners ; habit is a certain right which is established
by manners, and which is regarded as law ; law is all that
which has already been established by reason, which is agree-
able to good discipline and profitable to salvation ; but we
call that habit which is in common use.

" Theodoric, king of the Franks, when he was at Chalons,
selected the wise men of his kingdom, and those who were
learned in ancient laws, and dictating to them himself, he
commanded them to write the laws of the Franks, of the
Allemanni, of the Boii, and of all the nations which were
under his power, according to the customs of each. He added
what was necessary thereto, and took away what was im-
proper, and amended, according to the laws of the Christians,
that which was according to the ancient pagan customs. And
of that which king Theodoric was unable to change, on
account of the great antiquity of the pagan customs, king
Childebert began the correction, which was finished by king
Chlotaire. The glorious king Dagobert renewed all thesa
.hings by means of the illustrious men, Claudius, Shadoin,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 189

Dcmagne, and Agilof ; he caused to be transcribed, with
ameliorations, the ancient laws, and gave them written to
each nation. Laws are made in order that human wickedness
should be restrained by fear, that innocence should be 'shielded
from all danger in the midst of the wicked, that the wicked
should dread punishment, and that they should curb their lust
for mischief.

" This has been decreed by the king, ine chiefs, and all the
Christian people who dwell in the country of the Merovin-
gians.

$ $ * % $ * +

" In the name of Christ : —

" Here commences the compact of the Salic law.

" Those who have written the Salic law are Wisogast,
Aregast, Salogast, Windogast, in Bodham, Saleham, and
Widham "

From this preface, from the words antiqua, vetustior, in-
serted in a text, and from some other analogous indications, it
has been concluded — 1st. That the Salic law was written
before the invasion, beyond the Rhine, and in the language of
the Franks. 2d. That the manuscript mixed with German
words was the most ancient, and that it contained the remains
of the primitive text.

The most learned work in which this controversy has been
recapitulated is that of M. Wiarda, entitled, " Histoire et
explication de la loi Salique," and published at Bremen in
1808. I will not carry you through the labyrinth of discus-
sions which he engages in upon the different questions which
his work embraces ; but merely point out his principal results.
They are generally supported by sufficient proofs, and the
criticism upon them is very careful.

According to M. Wiarda, the text mixed with German
words — in the copies, at least, which we possess of it — is not
more ancient than the other; one might be tempted, indeed,
to believe it more modern. Two articles especially seem to
indicate that this is the case : — 1st. Title 61, entitled De Chre-
necruda,1 which treats of the cession of property, is found alike
in both texts ; but the purely Latin text gives it as a rule
in vigor, while the text with the German gloss adds : " In

That is to say, concerning green herbage, from ancient German
words which answer tc the modern words griin, green, and kraut,
herb or plant.

23

190 HISTORY OP

present times this no longer applies." 2d. Under title 58^
§ 1st., the text with the gloss runs thus : " According to the
ancient, law, whoever disinterred or stripped a dead and
buried body, was banished," &c. This law, described here
as ancient, exists in the unmixedly Latin text without any
observation.

It is impossible to deny that these two passages of the text
with the gloss seem to indicate posterior date.

From this comparison of the texts, M. Wiarda passes to an
examination of the preface, and easily discovers improbabilities
and contradictions therein. Many manuscripts have no preface ;
in those which have, they vary much. Even that which 1
have just read to you is composed of incoherent parts ; the
second part, from the words, the inventors of laws, &c. &c,
is copied textually in the treatise Of Etymologies and Origins,
by Isidore of Seville, a writer of the seventh century ; the
third from these words, Theodoric, king of the Franks, is also
found at the head of a manuscript of the law of the Bavarians.
The names of the first compilers of the law of the Salian
Franks are not the same in the preface and in the body of the
law itself. From these, and many other circumstances, M.
Wiarda concludes that the prefaces are merely additions
written at the head of the text, by the copyists, who collected,
each in his own fashion, the popular reports, and that there-
fore no authority is to be attributed to them.

Moreover, none of the ancient documents, none of the first
chroniclers who have minutely related the history of the
Franks, neither Gregory of Tours, nor Fredegaire, for instance,
speak of any compilation of their laws. We must come
down to the eighth century in order to find a passage in which
such compilation is mentioned, and then it is in one of the
most confused and most fabulous chronicles of the time, the
Gesta Francorum, that we read :

" After a battle with the emperor Valentinian, in which
their chief, Priam, fell, .the Franks left Sicambria, and came
to establish themselves in the regions of Germany, at the

extremity of the river Rhine There they elected king

Pharamond, son of Marcomir, and, elevating him upon their
shields, they proclaimed him the long-haired king ; and then
they began to adopt a law which their ancient gentile council*
lors, Wisogast, Windogast, Aregast, and Salogast, wrote in the
German villages of Bodecheim, Salecheim, and Windecheim.''
'Gesta Franc., c. 3.)

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 19]

It is upon this paragraph that all the prefaces, inscriptions,
or narratives, placed at the head of manuscripts, are founded ;
they have no other warrant, and merit no more faith.

After having thus discarded the indirect documents ad
vanced in support of the high antiquity and of the purely
German origin of this law, M. Wiarda comes directly to the
question, and conceives, 1st. That the Salic law was written
for the first time upon the left bank of the Rhine, in Belgium,
upon the territory situated between the forest of Ardennes,
the Meus, the Lys, and the Scheldt ; a country which, for n
long time, was occupied by the Salian Franks, whom espe-
cially this law governed, and from whom it received its name ;
2d. that, in none of the texts actually existing does this law
appear to go further back than the seventh century ; 3d.
that it has never been written except in Latin. This is
acknowledged with regard to all other barbarous laws, the
Ripuarian, Bavarian, and Allemanic laws; and nothing indi-
cates that the Salic law was an exception. Moreover, the
Germanic dialects were not written before the reign of Charle-
magne ; and Otfried of Weissemburg, the translator of the
Gospel, calls the Frankish tongue, even in the ninth century,
linguam indisciplinabilem.

Such are the general results of the learned labor of M.
Wiarda ; and, upon the whole, I believe that they are legiti-
mate. He even places too little importance upon a kind of
proof, which is, in my opinion, more forcible than the greater
portion of those which he has so ingeniously examined — I
mean, the contents themselves of the Salic law, and the facts
which are clearly deducible therefrom. It seems evident to
me, from the dispositions, the ideas, and the tone of their
law, that it belongs to a period at which the Franks had for
a long time existed amidst a Roman population. It constantly
makes mention of the Romans ; and not as of inhabitants
scattered thinly here and there, over the territory, but as of a
population numerous, industrious, agricultural, and already
reduced, in great part, at least, to the condition of laborers.
We also perceive from this law, that Christianity was not of
recent date among the Franks, but that it already held an im-
portant place in society and men's minds. Churches, bishops,
deacons, clerks, are often treated of; and we may recognize,
in more than one article, the influence of religion upon moral
notions, and the change which it had already wrought upon

192 HISTORY OF

barbarous manners. In short, the intrinsic proof, derivable
from the law itself, appears to me conclusive in favor of the
hypothesis maintained by M. Wiarda.

I believe, however, that the traditions which, through so
many contradictions and fables, appear in the prefaces and
epilogues annexed to the law, have more importance, and
merit more consideration, than he gives them. They indi-
cate that, from the eighth century, it was a general belief, a
popular tradition, that the customs of the Salian Franks were
anciently collected — they were Christians before, in a terri-
tory more German than that which they now occupied. How-
ever little their authenticity, and however defective the docu-
ments where these traditions are preserved may be, they at
least prove that the traditions existed. We are not obliged
to believe that the Salic law, such as we have it, is of a very
remote date, nor that it was compiled as recounted, nor even
that it was ever written in the German language ; but that it
was connected with customs collected and transmitted from
generation to generation, when the Franks lived about the
mouth of the Rhine, and modified, extended, explained, re-
duced into law, at various times, from that epoch down to the
end of the eighth century — this, I think, is the reasonable
result to which this discussion should lead.

Allow me, before quitting the work of M. Wiarda, to call
your attention to two ideas which are developed there, and
which contain, in my opinion, a large portion of truth. The
Salic law, according to him, is, properly speaking, no law at
all, no code ; it was not compiled and published by a legal,
official authority, whether that of a king, or of an assembly of
the people or great men. He has been disposed to see in it a
mere enumeration of customs and judicial decisions — a collec-
tion made by some learned man, some barbarian priest — a col-
lection analogous to the Mirror of the Saxons, to the Mirror of
the Swabians, and many other ancient monuments of the Ger-
manic legislation, which have evidently only this character.
M. Wiarda founds the conjecture upon the example of many
other nations at the same degree of civilization, and upon a
number of ingenious arguments. One has escaped him —
perhaps the most conclusive ; this is a text of the Salic law
itself. There we read : —

" If any one strips a dead person before he is placed in the
earth, let him be condemned to pay 1800 deniers, which make

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 193

45 sous ; and, according to another decision (in alia senlentia),
2500 deniers, which make 02 sous and a-half."1

This is evidently not a legislative text, for it contains two
different penalties for the same crime ; and the words accord-
ing to another decision, are exactly those which would be found
in the language of jurisprudence, in a collection of decrees.

M. Wiarda thinks, moreover, and this will confirm the pre-
ceding opinion, that the Salic law does not contain all the
legislation, all the law of the Salian Franks. We find, in
fact, in the monuments of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh
centuries, a certain number of cases which are called rules
secundum legem salicam, and of which the text of that law
makes no mention. Certain forms of marriage, certain rules
of affiancing, are expressly called secundum legem salicam,
which do not figure there at all. From whence one might
conclude that a large number of the customs of the Salian
Franks had never been written, and form no part of the text
which we possess.

Here are a great many details, and I have suppressed many
more ; I have given only the result of the controversies of
which the history of the Salic law alone has been the object.
It is from not having given proper attention to it, from not
having scrutinized with care the origins and vicissitudes of
this law, that such strange mistakes have been fallen into as
to its character. Let us now enter into the examination of
the legislation itself, and endeavor to bring to bear upon it
a rather close criticism, for here also people have strangely
fallen into vagueness and declamation.

The two texts are of unequal extent : the text, mixed with
Germanic words, contains 80 titles and 420 articles or para-
graphs ; the purely Latin text has but 70, 71, 72 titles, accord-
ing to the different manuscripts, and 406, 407, or 408 articles.
One manuscript, that of Wolfenbuttel, a very confused one
in its arrangements, contains even a greater number.

At the first aspect it is impossible not to be struck with the
apparent utter chaos of the law. It treats of all things — of
political law, of civil law, of criminal law, of civil procedure,
of criminal procedure, of rural jurisdiction, all mixed up to-
gether without any distinction or classification. If we were
to write out, each on a separate piece of paper, the various

1 Pact. Leg. Sal., ed. Herold, tit xvii. de Expoliationibus, b 1

194 HISTORY OF

articles of our various codes, and after having thrown them
together into an urn, draw them out as each .presented itself,
the order, or rather disorder, in which chance would throw
them, would differ very little from their arrangement in the
Salic law.

When we examine this law more closely, we perceive that
it is essentially a penal regulation, that in it the criminal law
occupies the first, and, indeed, almost the whole place. The
political law makes its appearance quite incidentally and in-
directly, and in reference only to institutions, to facts which
are regarded as established, and with the foundation or even
declaration of which the law looks upon itself as having no-
thing to do ; as to the civil law, it contains some enactments
of a more precise and distinct nature, to the preparation of
which much attention seems to have been paid. The same is
the case with regard to civil procedure. As to criminal pro-
cedure, the Salic law appears to consider almost every point
established and understood ; all that it does under this head,
is to supply a few obvious deficiencies, and to lay down in
certain cases the duties of judges, of witnesses, &c. Pains
and penalties are here entirely dominant ; the great aim is to
repress crime, and to inflict punishment. It is a penal code.
It contains three hundred and forty -three penal articles, and
but sixty-five upon all other subjects.

Such, indeed, is the character of all legislations in their
infancy ; it is by penal laws that nations make the first visible
steps — the first written steps, if I may use the expression —
out of barbarism. They have no idea of writing the political
law ; the powers which govern them, and the forms in which
those powers are exercised, are clear, certain, understood
facts : it is not in this period of their existence that nations
discuss constitutions. The civil law exists in like manner as
a fact ; the mutual relations between men, their covenants
and agreements, are left to the rules of natural equity, are
conducted according to certain fixed principles, certain gene-
rally admitted forms. The legal settlement of this portion of
law does not take place until after a much fuller development
of the social state. Whether under a religious form, or under
one purely secular, the penal law is the first that makes its
appearance in the legislative career of nations ; their first
effort towards the perfecting of civil life consists in raising
barriers against, in proclaiming, beforehand, punishments for

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 195

sxcesses of individual liberty. The Salic law belongs to this
period of the history of our society.

In order to acquire a true knowledge of this law, apart from
the vague assertions and discussions of which it has been made
the object, let us endeavor to consider it — first, in the enume
ration and definition of crimes ; secondly, in its application of
punishments ; thirdly, in its criminal procedure. These are
the three essential elements of all penal legislation.

I. The crimes taken cognisance of in the Salic law are
almost all of them classed under two heads : robbery, and
violence against the "person. Of three hundred and forty-
three articles in the penal law, one hundred and fifty have
reference to cases of robbery, and of these seventy-four relate
to and assign punishments for the stealing of animals — twenty,
namely, to pig stealing ; sixteen to horse stealing ; thirteen
to the stealing of bulls, cows, and oxen ; seven to sheep and
goat stealing ; four to dog stealing ; seven to bird stealing ;
and seven to bee stealing. Under these heads the laws enter
into the most minute details; the crime and the punishment
vary according to the age and sex of the thief, the number of
animals stolen, the place and time of the robbery, &c.

Cases of violence against the person furnish matter for 113
articles, of which 30 relate to mutilation in every possible va-
riety, 24 to violence against women, &c.

I need proceed no further in this enumeration of crimes.
They exhibit to us in a clear light two marked characteristics
of the law : 1st, it belongs to a society in a very low and in-
artificial state. Open the criminal codes of another period,
you find a far greater variety in the classes of crimes, while
in each class the specification of cases is infinitely less detailed ;
we recognize at once more various facts and more general
ideas. The crimes set forth here are, for the most part, such
only as may be anticipated in a condition of things under
which mankind becomes more united, however simple their
relations may be, however monotonous their life. 2d, It is
also evidently a very coarse and brutal society, in which the
confusion of individual wills and forces is carried to an extre-
mity, where there is no kind of public power to prevent their
excesses, where the safety of persons and properties is every
instant in peril. This absence of all generalization, of all
attempt to give a simple and common character to crimes,
attests at once the want of intellectual development, and the
precipitation of the legislator. It combines rothing; it is

196 HISTORY OP

under the influence of a pressing necessity; it takes, so t«
speak, every action, every case of robbery, of violence in the
very fact, in order to immediately inflict a penalty upon them.
Rude itself, it had to do with rude men, and had no idea but
of adding a new article of law whenever a new crime was
committed, however trifling its difference from those it had
already contemplated.

II. From the crimes let us pass to the punishments, and
let us see what was the character of the Salic law in this re-
spect.

At the first glance, we shall be struck with its mildness.
This legislation, which as to crimes reveals such violent and
brutal manners, contains no cruel punishments, and not only
is it not cruel, but it seems to bear a singular respect towards
the person and liberty of men : of free men, that is to say; for
whenever slaves or even laborers are in question, cruelty re-
appears— the law abounds in tortures and in corporeal punish-
ments for them ; but for free men, Franks and even Romans,
it is extremely moderate. There are but few cases of the
punishment of death, and from this criminals could always
redeem themselves ; no corporeal punishments, no imprison-
ments. The only punishment put forth in writing in the
Salic law, is composition, wehrgeld, widrigeld1 — that is, a cer-
tain sum which the guilty person was obliged to pay to the
offended person, or to his family. To the ivehrgeld is added,
in a great number of cases, what the German laws call the
fred* a sum paid to the king or to the magistrate, in repara-
tion for the violation of public peace. The penal system of
the law reduces itself to this.

Composition is the first step of criminal legislation out of
' W> .system of personal vengeance. The right concealed under
Knis penalty, the right which exists at the foundation of the
Salic law, and all barbaric laws, is the right of each man to
do justice to himself, to revenge himself by force ; war be-
tween the offender and the offended. Composition is an attempt
to substitute a legal system for this war ; it is the right of the
offender, by paying a certain sum, to protect himself from the
vengeance of the offended ; it obliges the offended party to
renounce the employment of force.

» Prohibition money (from wheren, wharen, bewahren), guarantee.
Bee my Essais sur VHistoire de France, p. 197.
9 From frieden, peace.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 19?

Be careful, however, not to suppose that it had this effec
from its origin ; the offended party for a long time preserved
the privilege of choosing between composition and Avar, of re-
fusing the wehrgeld, and having recourse to vengeance. The
chronicles and documents of all kinds leave no doubt on the
subject. I am inclined to think that at the eighth century
composition was obligatory, and the refusal to be contented
therewith was regarded as a violence, not as a right ; but
assuredly, it had not always been so, and composition was at
first only a rather inefficacious attempt to put an end to the
disorderly contest of individual force — a kind of legal offer
from the offender to the offended.

In Germany, and especially in later times, a far higher idea
has been attached to it. Men of learning and of rare minds
have been struck, not only with the respect for the power and
liberty of man which appears in this kind of penalty, but with
many other characteristics which they think are to be recog-
nized in it. I shall arrest your attention but upon one : what,
from the time that we consider things under an elevated and
moral point of view, what is the radical vice of modern penal
legislation ? They strike, they punish, without troubling
themselves to know whether the guilty party accepts the pe-
nalty or not, whether he acknowledges his wrong, whether
his will does or does not concur with the will of the law; they
act only by constraint, justice cares not to appear to him she
condemns, under other features than those of force.

Composition has, so to speak, an entirely different penal
physiognomy; it supposes, it involves the avowal of wrong by
the offender ; it is, in its way, an act of liberty; he may refuse
it, and run the risk of the vengeance of the offended ; when
he submits to it, he acknowledges himself guilty, and offers
reparation for the crime. The offended party, on his side,
in accepting the composition, reconciles himself with the
offender ; he solemnly promises to forget, to abandon ven-
geance : so that composition as a penalty has characteristics
much more moral than the punishments of more learned legis-
lations ; it gives evidence of a profound feeling of morality
and liberty.

I here resume, in bringing them to more precise terms, the
ideas of some modern German writers ; among others, of a
young man lately dead, to the great sorrow of science, M.
Rogge, who has set them forth in an Essay upon the Judicial
System of the Germans, published at Halle, in 1820. Among

198 HISTORY OF

many ingenious views, and some probable explanations of th«
ancient social German state, there is, I think, in this system
a universal mistake, a great want of understanding man and
barbaric society.

The source of the error, if I mistake not, is the very false
idea which is frequently formed of the liberty which seemed
to exist in the earliest age of nations. There can be no doubt,
but that, at this epoch, the liberty of individuals was, in fact,
very great. On the one hand, there existed between men
inequalities but little varied, and little powerful ; those which
arose from wealth, from antiquity of race, and from a multi-
tude of complex causes, could not yet have been developed,
or have produced anything more than very transitory effects.
On the other hand, there was no longer any, or scarcely any,
public power capable of holding in check or restraining indi-
vidual wills. Men were firmly governed neither by other
men nor by society : their liberty was real ; each did almost
what he wished according to his power, at his own risk and
perils. I say according to his power ; this co-existence of in-
dividual liberties was, in fact, at this epoch a mere contest of
powers ; that is, warfare between individuals and families,
war incessant, capricious, violent, and barbarous as the men
who carried it on.

This was not society: and it was not long before they found
this out ; efforts were made on all sides to escape from such a
state, in order to enter upon social order. The evil every-
where sought its remedy. Thus it was ordered by this mys-
terious life, this secret power which presides over the destinies
of the human race.

Two remedies appeared : 1st, inequality between men de-
clared itself; some became rich, others poor; some noble,
some obscure ; some were patrons, others clients ; some mas-
'ers, others slaves. 2dly. Public power developed itself; a
collective force arose, which, in the name and interest of so-
ciety, proclaimed and executed certain laws. Thus origi-
nated, on the one side, aristocracy, and on the other, govern-
ment— that is to say, two methods of restraining individual
will, two means of subduing many men to a will different
from their own.

In their turn the remedies became evils ; the aristocracy
tyrannized, and the public power tyrannized ; this oppression
led to a disorder, different from the first, but profound and
intolerable. Still, in the heart of social life, by the sole effect

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 19P

of its continuance, and by the concurrence of numerous influ-
ences, individuals, the sole real beings, developed, enlightened,
and perfected themselves ; their reason was less contracted,
their will less irregular ; they began to perceive that they
might live very well in peace without so great an amount of
inequality or public power — that is to say, that society could
subsist very well without so dear a sacrifice to liberty. At
this time, just as there had been an effort for the creation of
public power, and for inequality between men, so now there
commenced an effort which tended to the attainment of a con-
trary end, towards the reduction of the aristocracy and the
government ; that is to say, society tended towards a state
which, externally at least, and judging only from that point
of view, resembled what it had been in its earliest age, at the
free development of individual wills, in that situation in which
each man did what he pleased, and at his own risk and peril.
If I have explained myself clearly, you now know where
the great mistake lies of the admirers of the barbarous state :
Struck, on the one hand, by the slight development, whether
of public power, or of inequality, and on the other, by the
extent of individual liberty which they met with, they thence
concluded that society, despite the rudeness of its forms, was
at bottom, in its normal state, under the empire of its legi-
timate principles, such, in fact, as, after its noblest pro-
gressions, it evidently tends again to become. They forgot
but one thing ; they did not trouble themselves to compare men
themselves, in these two terms of social life ; they forgot that
in the first, coarse, ignorant and violent, governed by passion,
and always ready to have recourse to force, they were inca-
pable of living in peace according to reason and justice — that
is to say, of living in society, without an external force com-
pelling them. The progress of society consists, above all
in a change in man himself, in his being rendered capable
of liberty — that is to say, of governing himself according to
reason. If liberty perished at the beginning of the social
career, it was because man was incapable, while keeping it,
of advancing in it ; his recovering and exercising it more and
more, is the end and perfection of society, but it was by
no means the primitive state, the condition of barbarous
life. In the barbarous life, liberty was nothing but the
empire of force — that is to say, the ruin, or rather the absence,
of society. It is thence that so many men of talent have
leceived themselves concerning the barbaric legislations, and

200 HISTORY OF

particularly concerning that which now occupies us. They
have there seen the principal external conditions of liberty,
and in the midst of these conditions they have placed the
sentiments, ideas, and men of another age. The theory of
composition, I have just stated, has no other source : its inco-
herence is evident ; and instead of attributing so much moral
worth to this kind of penalty, it should be regarded only
as a first step out of a state of warfare and the barbarous
struggle of forces.

III. With regard to criminal procedure, the manner of the
prosecution and judgment of offences, the Salic law is very
imperfect, and almost silent ; it takes the judicial institutions
as a fact, and speaks neither of tribunals, judges, nor forms.
One meets here and there, as to summoning, the appear-
ance in court, the obligations of witnesses and judges, the
proof by hot water, &c, a few special dispositions : but in
order to complete them, to reconstruct the system of institu-
tions and manners to which they attach themselves, it is
necessary to carry our investigations far beyond the text, and
even the object of the law. Among the features of informa-
tion which they contain concerning criminal procedure, I
shall arrest your attention upon two points only, the distinction
of fact and law, and the compurgators or conjuratores.

When the offender, upon the citation of the offended party,
appeared in the mal, or assembly of free men, before the
judges, no matter whom, called upon to decide, counts, rachim-
burgs, ahrimans, &c, the question submitted to them was,
what the law commanded as to the alleged fact : people did
not come before them to discuss the truth or falsehood of
the fact ; they fulfilled before them the conditions by which
this first point should be decided ; then, according to the
law under which the parties lived, they were required to
determine the rate of composition and all the circumstances
of the penalty.

As to the reality of the fact itself, it was established
before the judges, in various ways, by recourse to the judg-
ment of God, the test of boiling water, single combat, &c,
sometimes by the depositions of witnesses, and most fre-
quently by the oath of the conjuratores. The accused
came attended by a certain number of men, his relations,
neighbors, or friends — six, eight, nine, twelve, fifty, seventy-
two, in certain cases even a hundred — who came to make oath
that he had not done what was imputed to him. In certain

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 201

uases, the offended party also haa his conjuratores. There
was there neither interrogation, nor discussion of evidence, nor,
properly speaking, examination of the fact ; the conjuratores
simply attested, under oath, the truth of the assertion of the
offended party, or the denial of the offender. This, as regards
the discovery of facts, was the great means and general system
of the barbarous laws : the conjuratores are mentioned less
frequently in the law of the Salian Franks than in the other
barbarous laws — in that of the Ripuarian Franks, for instance ;
yet there is no doubt that they were everywhere equally in
use, and the foundation of criminal procedure.

This system, like that of composition, has been an object
of great admiration to many learned men ; they have seen
in it two rare merits; the power of the ties of family,
friendship, or neighborhood, and the confidence placed by
the law in the veracity of man : " The Germans," says Rogge,
" have never felt the necessity for a regular system of proofs.
What may appear strange in this assertion vanishes, if one is
thoroughly impressed, as I am, with a full faith in the nobility
of character, and, above all, the unbounded veracity of our
ancestors."1

It would be amusing to pass from this sentence to Gregory
of Tours, the poem of the Niebelungen, and all the poetical
or historical monuments of the ancient German manners :
to the artifice, deceit, and want of faith, shown there at every
step, sometimes with the most dexterous refinement, and
sometimes with the coarsest audacity. Can you believe that
the Germans were any different when before their tribunals
than in common life, and that the registers of their law-suits,
if such things as registers then existed, should give the lie to
their history ?

I do not attach any special reproach to them for these
vices; they are the vices of all barbarous nations, in all
epochs, and under every zone ; American traditions bear
witness to it as well as those of Europe, and the Iliad as
well as the Niebelungen. I am far, too, from denying that
natural morality in man, which abandons him in no age
or condition of society, and mixes itself with the most brutal
empire of ignorance or passion. But you will readily com.
prehend, what, in the midst of such manners, the oaths of the
conjuratores must very frequently have been.

1 Ueber das gerichtwesen der Germanen, Preface, p. 6.

imm'

SWS TF ACKERS C"L'P«E

SA TA iudidi *«..— _....

202 HISTORY OF

With regard to the spirit of tribe or family, it is true, it
was powerful among the Germans ; of this, among many
other proofs, the conjuratores give one ; but it had not all the
causes, nor did it produce all the moral consequences which
are attributed to it : a man accused was a man attacked ; his
neighbors followed and surrounded him before the tribunal
as at a combat. It was between families that the state of
warfare subsisted in the heart of barbarism : can we be sur-
prised that they should group and put themselves in move-
ment when, under such a form, war menaced them ?

The true origin of the conjuratores was, that all other
means of establishing facts were almost impracticable. Think
what such an inquiry exacts, what a degree of intellectual
development and public power are necessary in order to con-
front the various kinds of proofs, to collect and contest
the evidence, to bring the witnesses before the judges, and
to obtain truth from them in the presence of the accusers
and the accused. Nothing of this was possible in the society
governed by the Salic law ; and it was neither from choice
nor moral combination that they then had recourse to the
judgment of God and the oath of relations, but because they
could neither do, nor apprehend anything better.

Such are the principal points of this law which seemed to
me to merit your attention. I say nothing of the fragments
of political law, civil law, or civil procedure, which are
found dispersed through it, nor even of that famous article
which orders that " Salic land shall not fall to woman ; and
that the inheritance shall devolve exclusively on the males."
No person is now ignorant of its true meaning. Some dis-
positions, relative to the forms by which a man may separate
himself from his family,1 the getting free of all obligation of
relationship, and entering upon an entire independence, are
very curious, and give a great insight into social life ; but
they hold an unimportant place in the law, and do not de-
termine its end. I repeat, that it is essentially a penal code,
and you now comprehend it under this view. Considering it
in its whole, it is impossible not to recognize in it a complex,
uncertain, and transitory legislation. One feels at every
moment the passage from one country into another, from one
social state into another social state, from one religion into
another religion, and from one language into another language;

1 Tit. liii. § 1—3.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 203

a.most every metamorphosis which can take place in the life
of a nation is stamped upon it. Its existence also was pre-
carious and brief j from the tenth century, perhaps, it was
replaced by a multitude of local customs, to -which, of a
surety, it had contributed a great deal, but which were
likewise drawn from other sources, in the Roman law, the
canon law, and the necessities of circumstances ; and when,
in the fourteenth century, they invoked the Salic law, in
order to regulate the succession to the crown, it had certainly
been a long time since it had been spoken of, except in re-
membrance, and upon some great occasion.

Three other barbarian laws ruled over the nations esta-
blished in Gaul, those of the Ripuarians, the Burgundians,
and the Visigoths j these will form the subject of our next
leoture.

204 history or

TENTH LECTURE.

Object of the lecture- — Is the transitory character of the Salic law
found in the laws of the Ripuarians, the Burgundians, and the Visi-
goths ? — 1st, The law of the Ripuarians — The Ripuarian Franks-
History of the compilation of their law — Its contents — Difference
between it and the Salic law — 2d, The law of the Burgundians—
History of its compilation — Its contents — Its distinctive character —
3d, The law of the Visigoths — It concerns the history cf Spain
more than that of France — Its general character — Effect of Roman
civilization upon the barbarians.

In our last lecture, the character which, on summing up,
appeared to us dominant and fundamental in the Salic law,
was that of being a transitory legislation, doubtless essentially
German, yet distinguished by a Roman stamp ; which would
have no future ; and which showed, on the one hand, the
passage from the German into the Roman social state, and on
the other, the decay and fusion of the two elements for the
good of a new society, to which they both concurred, and
which began to appear amidst their wreck.

This result of the examination of the Salic law will be
singularly confirmed, if the examination of the other barba-
rous laws likewise lead us to it ; still more, if we find in these
various laws, different epochs of transition, different phases
of transformation, which may be imperfectly discovered in the
other ; if we recognize, for example, that the law of the Ripu-
arians, the law of the Burgundians, and the law of the Visi-
goths, are in some measure placed in the same career as the
Salic law, at unequal distances, and leave us, if the term be
permitted, products more or less advanced in the combination
of the German and Roman society, and in the formation of
the new state which was to be the result.

It is to this, I believe, that the examination of the three
laws will, in fact, conduct us, that is to say, of all those which,
within the limits of Gaul, exercised any true influence. The
distinction between the Ripuarian Franks and the Salian
Franks is known to you ; these were the two principal tribes,
or rather the two principal collections of tribes of the great
confederation of the Franks. The Salian Franks probably

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 20?>

took their name from the river Yssel (Ysala), upon the banks
of which they were established, after the movement of nations
which had driven them into Batavia ; their name was there-
fore of German origin, and we may suppose that it was given
them by themselves. The Ripuarian Franks, on the con-
trary, evidently received theirs from the Romans. They
inhabited the banks of the Rhine. As the Salian Franks
advanced towards the south-west, into Belgium and Gaul, the
Ripuarian Franks spread also towards the west, and occupied
the territory between the Rhine and the Meuse, to the forest
of Ardennes. The first became, or well nigh, the Franks of
Neustria; the last, the Franks of Austrasia. These two names,
without exactly corresponding to the primitive distinction,
reproduce it faithfully enough.

At the beginning of our history, the two tribes appear for
a time re-united in a single nation and under a single empire.
I will read to you, upon this subject, the account of Gregory
of Tours ; always, without his knowing it, the truest painter
of the manners and events of this epoch. You will there
see what, at that time, was understood by the words union of
nations and conquest.

" When Clovis came to battle against Alaric, king of the
Goths, he had for an ally the son of Sigebert-Claude (king
of the Ripuarian Franks, and who resided at Cologne), named
Chloderic. This Sigebert limped, from a blow on the knee
which he had received at the battle of Tolbiac, against the
Germans. . . . King Clovis, during his sojourn at Paris, sent
secretly to the son of Sigebert, saying to him : ' Your father
is aged, and he limps with his bad leg : if he should die, his
kingdom belongs to you of right, as well as our friendship.'
Seduced by this ambition, Chloderic formed the project of
killing his father.

"Sigebert had gone out of the town of Cologne, and,
having passed the Rhine, was walking in the forest of Bu-
conia ; he slept at noon in his tent ; his son sent assassins
against him and procured his death, in the hope that he
should possess his kingdom. But, by the judgment of God,
he fell into the very grave which he had maliciously dug for
his father. He sent to king Clovis messengers announcing
the death of his father, and said to him : ' My father is dead,
and I have in my power his treasures and his kingdom. Send
to me and I will willingly give you what treasures you please.'
Clovis returned for answer : ' I return thee thanks for thy

206 HISTOKY OF

good will, and pray thee show thy treasures to my deputies,
after which thou shalt possess them all.' Chloderic then
showed his father's treasures to the deputies. Whilst they
examined them, the prince said : ' This is the coffer in which
my father was accustomed to amass his gold coin.' They
said to him, ' Plunge your hand to the bottom, in order to find
all.' Having done this, and while he stooped low, one of the
deputies raised his axe and broke his skull. Thus did this
unworthy son suffer the same death which he had inflicted
on his father. Clovis learning that Sigebert and his son were
dead, came to this same town, and having convoked all the
people, he said to them : ' Listen to what, has happened.
While I was sailing upon the river Scheld, Chloderic, my
cousin's son, alarmed his father by telling him that I wished
to kill him. As Sigebert fled through the forest of Buconia,
Chloderic sent murderers after him, who put him to death ;
he himself was assassinated, I know not by whom, at the
moment of his opening his father's treasures. I am no accom-
plice in these things. I could not shed the blood of my
friends, because it is forbidden ; but since these things have
happened, I have some advice to give you. If it is agreeable
to you, follow it. Have recourse to me ; put yourselves under
my protection.' The people answered these words by plaudits
of hand and mouth ; and having raised him upon a shield,
they created him their king. Clovis then received the king-
dom and treasures of Sigebert. Every day God caused his
enemies to fall into his hands, and augmented his kingdom,
because he walked with an upright heart before the Lord,
and did the things that were pleasing in his sight."1

This union of the two nations, if such a fact may bear the
name, was not of long duration. On the death of Clovis, his
son, Theodoric, was king of the eastern Franks ; that is
to say, of the Ripuarian Franks ; he resided at Metz. To
him is generally attributed the compilation of their law.
This, in fact, is indicated by the preface to the Gallic law,
which I have already read, and which is likewise found at
the beginning of the Bavarian law. According to this
tradition, then, the law of the Ripuarians should be placed
between the years 511 and 534. It could not have, like
the Salic, the pretension of ascending to the right-hand

i Gregory of Tours, in my Collection des Memoir cs de V Histoire dt
France, i. pp. 104—107.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 207

bank of the Rhine, and to ancient Germany. Still its
antiquity must be great. I am inclined to abridge it, in
its actual form at least, of nearly a century of existence. The
preface, which describes it as digested under Theodoric,
attributes to this chief also the law of the Germans ; now it
is almost certain that this was not digested until the reign of
Clotaire II., between the years 613 and 628 ; this is what
the best manuscripts give us reason to suppose. The author-
ity of this preface, therefore, becomes very doubtful with
regard to the law of the Ripuarians ; and, after an attentive
comparison of the evidence, I am inclined to believe that
it was only under Dagobert I., between the years 628
and 638, that it took the definite form under which it has
reached us.

Let us now pass to the history of its contents. I have
submitted it to the same analysis as the Salic law. It con-
tains 89 or 91 titles, and (according to various distributions)
224 or 227 articles; namely, 164 of penal law, and 113 of
political or civil law, and civil or criminal procedure. Of
the 164 articles of penal law, we reckon 94 for violence
against persons, 16 for cases of theft, and 64 for various
offences.

At the first glance, according to this simple analysis, the
Ripuarian law a good deal resembles the Salic law ; it is also
an essentially penal legislation, and gives evidence of nearly
the same state of manners. Still, when regarded more closely,
we discover important differences. I spoke to you at our last
meeting of the conjuratores, or compurgators, who, without,
properly speaking, bearing witness, came to attest by their
oath the truth or falsehood of the facts alleged by the offc nded,
or the offender. The conjuratores held a specially important
place in the law of the Ripuarians. There is mention made of
them in fifty-eight articles of this law, and on every occasion it
minutely regulates the number of the compurgators, the forms
of their appearance, &c. The Salic law speaks much more
rarely of them — so rarely, that some persons have doubted
whether the system of the conjuratores was in force among
the Salian Franks. This doubt does not seem well founded.
If the Salic law has scarcely spoken of it, it is because it looked
upon the system as an established and understood fact, of
which there was no need to write. Besides, everything
indicates that this fact was real and powerful. What were
the reasons for its frequent insertion in the law of the Ripu-

«!08 HISTORY OF

arians ? I will presently give the only explanation of this
that I can catch a glimpse of.

Another custom is also much more frequently mentioned
in the Ripuarian than in the Salic law ; I mean judicial
combat. There are many traces of it in the Salic law ; but
the Ripuarian law formally institutes it in six distinct articles.
This institution, if such a fact merits the name of institution,
played too important a part in the middle ages to allow of our
not endeavoring to understand it at the moment that it appears
for the first time in laws.

I have endeavored to .show how composition — properly
speaking, the only punishment of the Salic law — was a first
attempt to substitute a legal system in place of the right of
war, in place of vengeance, and the contest of physical force.
Judicial combat was an attempt of the same kind ; its aim was
to subdue war itself, individual vengeance, to certain forms and
rules. Composition and judicial combat were intimately con-
nected, and simultaneously developed themselves. A crime
had been committed, a man offended ; it was generally be-
lieved that he had a right to revenge himself, to pursue by
force the reparation of the wrong to which he had been
subjected. But a commencement of law, a shadow of public
power interfered, and authorized the offender to offer a certain
sum to repair his crime. But, originally, the offended party
had the right to refuse the composition, and to say — " I
will exercise my right of vengeance, I desire war." Then
the legislator, or rather the customs, for we personify, under
the name legislator, mere customs which for a long period
had no legal authority, the customs then interfered, saying
— "If you wish to revenge yourself, and make war upon
your enemy, you must do so according to certain terms, and in
the presence of certain witnesses."

Thus was judicial combat introduced into the legislation as
a regulation of the right of war, a limited arena opened to
vengeance. Such was its first and true source ; the recourse
to the judgment of God, the truth proclaimed by God him-
self in the issue of the combat, are ideas whose association
with it is of later date, when religious creeds and the Christian
clergy played an important part in the thought and life of the
barbarians. Originally, judicial combat was only a legal form
of the right of the strongest — a form much more explicitly
"ecognized in the law of the Ripuarians than in the Salic law.

Judging from the two differences, one would be, for the

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 209

moment, inclined to suppose that the first of these two laws
was the most ancient. In fact, there can be no doubt that
the system of the conjuratores and judicial combat belonged to
the primitive German society. The Ripuarian, therefore,
would seem their most faithful image. It was nothing of the
kind. And, first, these two differences, which seemed to
give to this law a more barbarous physiognomy, themselves
indicate an effort, a first step out of barbarism, for they give
evidence of the design, if not to abolish it, at all events to
regulate it.

Silence upon this subject leaves all things under the em-
pire of custom — that is to say, of violence and chance : the
Ripuarian law attempted in writing, by determining the
custom, to convert it into law — that is to say, to render it
fixed and general. A certain symptom of a more modern
date, and of a society rather more advanced.

Besides, there were other differences between these two
laws which incontestably prove this result.

1st, You have seen, by the simple enumeration of the
articles, that civil law held a greater place in the Ripuarian
than in the Salic law. There penal law always dominated.
Still the law is less exclusively a penal code ; the procedure,
the rule of evidence, the state of persons, property and its
various modes of transmission — in a word, all parts of legisla-
tion not penal, are, at least, indicated in it, and often with a
great deal of precision.

2d, Moreover, and this is an important fact, royalty
appeared more in the Ripuarian law than in the other. It
appeared but little in a political relation : it was not a question
of royal power, nor the manner of exercising it j but it was
a question of the king, as of an individual more important
in all respects, and with whom the law should specially
occupy itself. It regarded him, above all, as a proprietor or
patron, as having vast domains, and upon these domains serfs
who cultivated them — men engaged in his service or placed
under his protection ; and by reason of this title they accorded
to him, to himself or those belonging to him, numerous and
very important privileges. I will give a few examples.

" I. If any one carry off by violence anything belonging to
one of the king's men, or to any one attached to the church,
he shall pay a composition treble what he would have had to
pay had the crime been committed towards any other Ripu-
arian."—Tit. xi. § 4.

210 HISTORY OF

" II. If tha crime be committed by a man attached to the
church, or to one of the king's domains, he shall pay half the
composition which another Frank would have paid. In case
of denial, he must appear with thirty-six compurgators."—
Tit. xviii. § 5.

" III. A man attached to the domains of the king, Roman
or freedman, cannot be the object of a capital accusation."—
Tit. lx. § 22.

" IV. If he be summoned to appear in justice, he shall
make known his condition by a declaration which he shall
affirm upon the altar ; after which proceedings with regard
to him shall be different from those with regard to the Ripu-
arians."— Ibid. § 23.

V. Slaves belonging to the king or to a church do not
plead by means of a defender ; but they defend themselves,
and are allowed to justify themselves by oath, without being
obliged to answer the summonses which may be addressed to
them."— Ibid. § 24.

" VI. If any one shall seek to overthrow a royal charter
without being able to produce another repealing the first, he
shall answer this attempt with his life." — Tit. lvii. § 7.

" VII. Whoever shall commit treason towards the king
shall forfeit his life, and all his goods shall be confiscated." —
Tit. lxxi. § 1.

The Salic law says nothing of this kind ; here royalty has
evidently made an important progress.

3d. The same difference exists between the two laws with
regard to the church ; the articles which I have just read
completely prove it ; the church is everywhere assimilated to
royalty ; the same privileges are accorded to her lands and
her laborers.

4th. One discovers, also, in the Ripuarian law, a rather
more marked influence of the Roman law ; it does not confine
itself to mentioning it merely in order to say that the Romans
lived under its empire ; it accepts some of its provisions.
Thus, in regulating the formulae of enfranchisement, it says :

" We desire that every Ripuarian Frank, or freedman,
who, for the good of his soul, or for a sum, wishes to free his
slaves in the forms indicated by the Roman law, present, him-
self at the church, before the priests, deacons, and all the
clergy and people. . . ." (The formulae of enfranchisement
follow.)— Tit. lx. §1.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 211

This, though a slight, is a real indication of a more ad.
yanced society.

5th. Lastly, when we read the Ripuarian law attentively
in its whole, we are struck with a character less barbarous
than that of the Salic law. The provisions are more precise
and extensive ; we discover more purpose in them, and pur-
pose more matured and political, and inspired by more univer-
>?al views. They are not always mere customs which they
digest ; the legislators say at times, " We establish, we
order."1 In fact, everything indicates that this legislation, if
not in its form, at least in the ideas and manners which are
its foundation, belongs to a posterior epoch, to a state some-
what less barbarous, and shows a new step in the transition
from the German to the Roman society, and from these two
societies to a new society arising from their amalgamation.

From the law of the Ripuarians let us pass to that of the
Burgundians, and let us see if we shall there find the same
fact.

The compilation of the law of the Burgundians fluctuates
between the year 467 or 468, the second of the reign of Gon-
debald, and the year 534, the time of the fall of this kingdom
under the arms of the Franks. Three parts, probably of dif-
ferent dates, compose this law. The first, which compre-
hends the first forty-one titles, evidently belongs to king Gon-
debald, and appears to have been published before the year
501. From the forty-second title, the character of the legis-
lation changes. The new laws are scarcely anything more
than modifications of the old ones ; they explain, reform,
complete, and announce them definitely. From the conside-
ration of many facts, into the details of which I shall not
enter here, one is inclined to believe that this second part was
digested and published towards the year 517, by Sigismond,
the successor of Gondebald. Lastly, two supplements form
a third part, added to the law, under the positive name of
Addilamenta, probably also by Sigismond, who died in 523.

The preface, placed in front of the text, confirms these
conjectures ; it is evidently composed of two prefaces of dif-
ferent epochs ; one by King Gondebald, and the other by
King Sigismond. Some manuscripts have attributed the lat-
ter also to Gondebald ; but those which give it to Sigismond
certainly merit the preference.-

1 Tit lxxvi. §1, lit. xc

212 m HISTORY OF

This preface throws light upon questions much more im.
portant than the date of the law, and at once clearly distin
guishes it from the two laws which have just occupied oui
attention. It is necessary that I should read it to you through-
out.

" The most glorious king of the Burgundians, after having,
for the interest and repose of our people, deliberately reflected
upon our institutions and those of our ancestors, and upon
what, in every matter and every business, is expedient for
honesty, regularity, reason, and justice, we have weighed all
this in our great assemblies ; and as much by our advice as
theirs, we have ordered the following statutes to be written,
to the end that the laws may remain eternal : —

" By the grace of God, in the second year of the most
glorious Lord King Sigismond, the book of ordinances touch-
ing the eternal maintenance of the laws past and present, made
at Lyons on the 4th day of the calends of April.

" By love of justice, through which God becomes favorable
to us, and by which we acquire power upon earth, having first
held counsel with our counts and nobles, we have applied our-
selves to regulate all things in such a manner that integrity
and justice in judgments may dispel all corruption. All
those who are in power, counting from this day, must judge
between the Burgundian and the Roman according to the
tenor of our laws, composed and amended by common accord ;
in such manner that no person shall hope or dare, in a judg-
ment or law-suit, to receive anything of one of the parties by
way of gift or advantage ; but that the party having justice
on his side shall obtain it, and that to this end the integrity of
the judge shall suffice. We think it our duty to impose this
duty on ourselves, to the end that no one, in what case soever,
shall tempt our integrity by solicitations or presents, thus,
from love of justice, repelling far from ourselves, what,
throughout our kingdoms, we interdict all judges from doing.
Our treasury shall no longer pretend to exact more as penalty
than is found established in the laws. Let the nobles, counts,
counsellors, domestics, and mayors of our house, the chancel-
lors and counts of cities and districts, both Burgundians and
Romans, as well as all deputy judges, even in case of war,
know then that they are to receive nothing for causes treated
or judged before them ; and that they shall ask nothing of the
parties by way of promise or recompense. The parties shall
not be forced to compound with the judge in such a manne?

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 213

that he shall receive anything. If any of the said judges
allow themselves to be corrupted, and, despite our laws, be
convicted of receiving a recompense in a law-suit or judg-
ment, however justly tried, for the example of all, if the crime
be proved, let him be punished with death, in such a manner,
however, that he who is convicted of venality, having been
punished himself, his possessions be not taken from his chil-
dren or legitimate heirs. With regard to the secretaries of
deputy judges, we think that, for their fee in cases, a third of
a penny should be allowed them in causes above ten solidi ;
below that sum they must demand less. The crime of venality
being interdicted under the same penalties, we order that
Romans be judged according to Roman laws, as was done by
our ancestors ; and let these latter know that they shall
receive in writing the form and tenor of the laws according
to which they shall be judged ; to the end that no person can
excuse himself upon the score of ignorance. As regards
what may have been ill-judged formerly, the tenor of the
ancient law must be preserved. We add this, that if a judge
accused of corruption cannot in any way be convicted, the
accuser shall be liable to the penalty which we have ordered
to be inflicted upon a prevaricating judge.

" If some point be found unprovided for in our laws, we order
that it be referred to our judgment, upon that point only. If
any judge, whether barbarian or Roman, through simplicity or
negligence, judge not a cause upon which our law has deter-
mined, and if he be exempt from corruption, let him know
that he shall pay thirty Roman solidi, and that the parties
being interrogated, the cause shall be judged anew. We add
that if, after having been summoned three times, the judges
decide not ; and if he whose cause it is thinks it should be
referred to us ; and if he prove that he has summoned his
judges three times, and has no been heard, the judge shall
be condemned to a fine of twelve solidi. But if any person,
in any case whatsoever, having neglected to summon the
judges three times, as we have prescribed, dares to address
himself to us, he shall pay the fine which we have established
for a tardy judge. And in order that a cause may not bo
delayed by the absence of the deputy judges, let no Roman
or Burgundian count presume to judge a cause in the absence
of the judge before whom it should be tried, to the end that
those who have recourse to the law may not be uncertain as
to the jurisdiction. It has pleased us to confirm this serie»

24

214 HISTORY OF

of our ordinances by the signature of the counts, t> the end
that the rule which has been written by our will, and the will
of all, be preserved by posterity, and have the solidity of an
eternal compact." (Here follow the signatures of thirty-two.
counts.)

Without going further, from this preface only the differ-
ence of the three laws is evident ; this latter is not a mere
collection of customs, we know not by whom digested, nor
at what epoch, nor with what view ; it is a work of legisla-
tion, emanating from a regular power, with a view to public
order, which offers some truly political characteristics, and
gives evidences of a government, or, at least, the design of a
government.

Let us now enter into the law itself; it does not belie the
preface.

It contains 110 titles, and 354 articles, namely: 142 arti-
cles of civil law, 30 of civil or criminal procedure, and 182
of penal law. The penal law is divided into 72 articles for
crimes against persons, 62 for crimes against property, and
44 for various crimes.

These are the principal results to which we are conducted
by the examination of the provisions thus classified :

I. The condition of the Burgundian and the Roman is the
same ; all legal difference has vanished : in civil or criminal
matters, whether as offended or offenders, they are placed
upon a footing of equality. The texts abound in proofs of it.
I select some of the most striking : —

1. "Let the Burgundian and the Roman be subjected to
the same condition." — Tit. x. § 1.

2. <4 If a young Roman girl be united to a Burgundiau
without the consent or knowledge of her parents, let her
know that she shall receive none of her parents' possessions."
—Tit. xii. § 5.

3. " If any free Burgundian enter into a house for anv
quarrel, let him pay six solidi to the master of the house,
and twelve solidi as a fine. We wish in this that the same
condition be imposed upon the Romans and the Burgundians."
—Tit. xv. § 1.

4 " If any man, travelling on his private business, arrive
at the house of a Burgundian and demand hospitality of him,
and if the Burgundian show him the house of a Roman, and
this can be proved, let the Burgundian pay three solidi to him

CIVILIZATION IN FKANCE. 215

whose house he pointed out, and three solidi by way of fine."
— Tit. xxxviii. § 6.

These regulations certainly exhibit care to maintain the
two people on the same footing. We thus read in Gregory
of Tours : " King Gondebald instituted, in the country now
named Burgundy, the most mild laws, in order that the Ro-
mans might not be oppressed."1

II. The penal law of the Burgundians is not the same as
that of the Franks. Composition had always existed in it,
but it was no longer the sole penalty ; corporal penalties ap-
peared ; we find also certain moral penalties; the legislator
attempted to make use of shame.2 Already, even, it invented
strange punishments, such as are so often found in the legis-
lation of the middle ages. If, for example, a hunting spar-
row-hawk was stolen, the robber was condemned to let the
sparrow-hawk eat six ounces of flesh from his body, or to pay
six solidi. This is but a piece of fantastical savageness ; but
it indicated attempts at punishment very different from the
ancient German customs. The difference manifests itself
also by other symptoms ; crimes are much more various,
fewer of them are against persons, and we see some arise
which bespeak more regular and complicated social relations.

III. Civil right and procedure also occupy a much greater
place in the law of the Burgundians than in the two preced.
ing laws. They form the subject of nearly half the articles ;
in the law of the Ripuarians they only occupy two-fifths, and
only the sixth of the Salic law. One need only open the
laws of Gondebald and Sigismund in order to perceive there
a multitude of provisions upon successions, testaments, be-
quests, marriages, contracts, &c.

IV. One even meets there with some positive marks of the
Roman law. We could scarcely discover any traces of such
a fact in the Ripuarian law ; here it is plainly visible, par-
ticularly in what concerns civil law ; nothing can be more
simple ; civil law was rare and weak in barbarous laws; from
the time that the progress of civil relations furnished the mat-
ter, as it were, it was from the Roman legislation that they
were obliged to borrow the form.

Here are two provisions where the imitation is certain :

1 Tom. i., p 96, of my Collection dea Mimoires relatift a rffis-
totre de France.

* See the first Supplement, tit. x.

216 HISTORY OF

1. 1.

" If a Burgundian woman, after " Let no person be ignorant that
the death of her husband, enters, if women, the lawful time being
as happens, into a second or a passed, enter into a second mar-
third, marriage, and if she has sons riage, having children by the form-
by each marriage, let her possess in er marriage, they shall preserve,
usufruct, while she lives,1 the during their life, the usufruct of
nuptial donation ; but after her what they received 2at the time of
death, each of her sons shall come their marriage, the property com-
into the possession of what his fa- ing entire to their children, to
ther gave to his mother ; and thus whom the most sacred laws pre-
the woman has no right to give, serve the right of it after their pa-
sell, or alienate anything that she rents' death." — Cod. Theod., liv
received as a nuptial donation." — iii. tit. viii. 1. 3 ; Ibid. 1. 2.
Tit. xxiv. § 1.

2. 2.

" Bequests and testaments made " In codicils that are not preced-
among our people shall be valid ed by a testament, as in wills, the
when five or seven witnesses have mediation of five or seven witness-
set thereto, as best they can, their es must never be wanting." — Cod
seal or signature." — Tit. xliii. § 2. Theod. liv. iv., tit. iii. 1. 1.

I might indicate other apparent analogies.

V. Lastly, the law of the Burgundians clearly shows that
royalty had made great progress among that people. Not
that it is more in question there than elsewhere ; it was not
in question at all in a political point of view; the Burgundian
law is the least political of the barbarian laws, the one which
most exclusively confines itself to penal and civil law, and
contains the fewest allusions to general government ; but by
this law in its whole, by its preface, and by the tone and spirit
of its compilation, one is reminded at every step that the king
is no longer merely a warrior chief, or merely a great pro-
prietor j and that royalty has left its barbarous condition, in
order to become a public power.

You see all this gives evidence of a more developed and
better regulated society ; the Roman element prevails more
and more over the barbarous element ; we visibly advance in
the transition from one to the other, or rather in the work of
fusion which is to combine them together. What the Bur-
gundians appear to have chiefly borrowed from the Roman
empire, independently of some traits of civil law, is the idea
of public order, of government properly so called ; hardly can
we catch a glimpse of any trace of the ancient German assem.

1 Dum advivit usufructu possideat.

8 Dum advixerit in usufructu possideat (Interpret.)

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 217

blies ; the influence of the clergy does not appear dominant j
it was royalty which prevailed, and strove to reproduce the
imperial power.

The Burgundian kings seem to have the most completely
followed the emperors and reigned after their model. Per-
haps the cause should be sought for in the date of their king-
dom, which was one of the earliest founded, while the organi.
zation of the empire still existed, or nearly so ; perhaps, also,
their establishment, enclosed within narrower limits than those
of the Visigoths or the Franks, may have promptly invested
it with a more regular form. However this may be, the fact
is certain, and characterizes the nation and its legislation.

It continued in vigor after the Burgundians had passed
under the yoke of the Franks ; the formulas of Marculf and
the capitularies of Charlemagne prove it.1 We find it even
formally mentioned in the ninth century by the bishops
Agobard and Hincmar ; but few men, they observe, now live
under this law.

III. The destiny of the law of the Visigoths was more im-
portant, and of greater duration. It formed a considerable
collection, entitled Forum judicum, and was successively
digested, from the year 466, the epoch of the accession of
king Euric, who resided at Toulouse, to the year 701, the
time of the death of Egica or Egiza, who resided at Toledo.
This statement alone announces that, in this interval, great
changes must have taken place in the situation of the people
for whom the law was made. The Visigoths were first
established in the south of Gaul ; it was in 507 that Clovis
drove them hence, and took from them all Aquitaine ; they
only preserved on the north of the Pyrenees a Septimani.
The legislation of the Visigoths, therefore, is of no importance
in the history of our civilization until this epoch ; in later
times, Spain is almost solely interested in it.

While he reigned at Toulouse, Euric caused the customs
of the Goths to be written ; his successor, Alaric, who was
killed by Clovis, collected and published the laws of his Ro-
man subjects under the name of Breviarium. The Visigoths,
then, at the commencement of the sixth century, were in the
same situation as the Burgundians and the Franks ; the bar-
barous law and the Roman law were distinct j each nation
retained its own.

I Marculf, b. i., f. 8 ; capit. 2 a 813. Baluze, 1505.

218 HISTORY OF

When the Visigoths were driven into Spain, tms state wat
altered ; their king, Chindasuinthe (642-652), fused the two
laws into one, and formally abolished the Roman law ; there
was from that time but one code, and one nation. Thus was
substituted among the Visigoths the system of real laws, or
according to territory, in the place of personal laws, or ac-
cording to origin or races. This last had prevailed and still
prevailed among all barbarous nations, when Chindasuinthe
abolished it from among the Visigoths. But it was in Spain
that this revolution was completed ; it was there that from
Chindasuinthe to Egica (642-701) the Forum judicum was
developed, completed, and took the form under which we now
see it. As long as the Visigoths occupied the south of Gaul,
the compilation of their ancient customs and the Breviarium
alone ruled the country. The Forum judicum has, therefore,
for France, only an indirect interest ; still it was for some
time in vigor in a small portion of southern Gaul ; it occupies
a great place in the general history of barbarous laws, and
figures there as a very remarkable phenomenon. Let me,
therefore, make you acquainted with its character and its
whole.

The law of the Visigoths is incomparably more extensive
than any of those which have just occupied our attention.
It is composed of a title which serves as a preface, and twelve
books, divided into 54 titles, in which are comprehended 595
articles, or distinct laws of various origins and date. All the
laws enacted or reformed by the Visigoth kings, from Euric
to Egica, are contained in this collection.

All legislative matters are there met with ; it is not a col-
lection of ancient customs, nor a first attempt at civil reform ;
it is a universal code, a code of political, civil, and criminal
law : a code systematically digested, with the view of provid-
ing for all the requisites of society. It is not only a code, a
totality of legislative provisions, but it is also a system of
philosophy, a doctrine. It is preceded by, and here and there
mixed with dissertations upon the origin of society, the nature
of power, civil organization, and the composition and publica-
tion of laws, and not only is it a system, but also a collection
of moral exhortations, menaces, and advice. The Forum
judicum, in a word, bears at once a legislative, philosophical,
and religious character ; it partakes of the several properties
pf a law, a science, and a sermon.

The course is simple enough ; the law of the Visigoths was

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 219

the work of the clergy; it emanated from the coutcils of
Toledo. The councils of Toledo were the national assemblies
of the Spanish monarchy. Spain has this singular charac-
teristic, that, from the earliest period of its history, the clergy
played a much greater part in it than elsewhere ; what the
field of Mars or May was to the Franks, what the Witten-
agemote to the Anglo-Saxons, and what the general assembly
of Pavia was to the Lombards, such were the councils of
Toledo to the Visigoths of Spain. It was there that the laws
were digested, and all the great national affairs debated.
Thus, the clergy was, so to speak, the centre around which
grouped royalty, the lay aristocracy, the people and the
whole of society. The Visigoth code is evidently the work
of the ecclesiastics ; it has the vices and the merits of their
spirit; it is incomparably more rational, just, mild, and
exact ; it understands much better the rights of humanity, the
duties <5f government, and the interests of society ; and it
strives to attain a much more elevated aim than any other of
the barbarous legislations. But, at the same time, it leaves
society much more devoid of guarantees ; it abandons it on
one side to the clergy, and on the other to royalty. The
Frank, Saxon, Lombard, and even Burgundian laws, respect
the guarantees arising from ancient manners, of individual
independence, the rights of each proprietor in his domains,
the participation, more or less regular, and more or less exten-
sive, of freemen in the affairs of the nation, in judgments,
and in the conduct of the acts of civil life. In the Forum
judicum, almost all these traces of the primitive German
society have disappeared ; a vast administration, semi-ecclesi-
astical and semi-imperial, extends over society. I surely need
not observe, for your thoughts will have outrun my words,
that this is a new and prodigious step in the route on which
we proceed. Since we have studied the barbarous laws, we
advance more and more towards the same result, the fusion of
the two societies becomes more and more general and profound ;
and in this fusion, in proportion as it was brought about, the
Roman element, whether civil or religious, dominated more
and more. The Ripuarian law is less German than the Salic ;
the law of the Burgundians less so than the Ripuarian law ;
and the law of the Visigoths still less so than that of the Bur.
gundians. It is evidently in this direction that the river flows,
towards this aim that the progress of events tends.

Singular spectacle ! Just now we were in the last age of

220 HISTORY OF

Roman civilization, and found it in full decline, without
strength, fertility, or splendor, incapable, as it were, of sub-
sisting ; conquered and ruined by barbarians ; now all of a
sudden it reappears, powerful and fertile ; it exercises a pro-
digious influence over the institutions and manners which
associate thsmselves with it; it gradually impresses on them
its character ; it dominates over and transforms its conquerors.

Two causes, among many others, produced this result ; the
power of a civil legislation, strong and closely knit ; and the
natural ascendency of civilization over barbarism.

In fixing themselves and becoming proprietors, the bar-
barians contracted, among themselves, and with the Romans,
relations much more varied and more durable, than any
they had hitherto known ; their civil existence became much
more extensive and permanent. The Roman law alone could
regulate it ; that alone was prepared to provide for so many
relations. The barbarians, even in preserving their customs,
even while remaining masters of the country, found them-
selves taken, so to speak, in the nets of this learned legis-
lation, and found themselves obliged to submit, in a great
measure, doubtless not in a political point of view, but in
civil matters, to the new social order. Besides, the mere
sight of Roman civilization exercised great influence on their
imagination. What now moves ourselves, what we seek with
eagerness in history, poems, travels, novels, is the represen-
tation of a society foreign to the regularity of our own ; it is
the savage life, its independence, novelty, and adventures
Very different were the impressions of the barbarians ; it
was civilization which struck them, which seemed to them
great and marvellous ; the remains of Roman activity, the
cities, roads, aqueducts, and amphitheatres, all that society
so regular, so provident, and so varied in its fixedness —
these were the objects of their astonishment and admira-
tion. Although conquerors, they felt themselves inferior to
the conquered ; the barbarian might despise the Roman in-
dividually, but the Roman empire in its whole appeared
to him something superior; and all the great men of the
age of conquests, the Alarics, the Ataulphs, the Theodorics,
and many others, while destroying and throwing to the
ground the Roman Empire, exerted all their power to
imitate it.

These are the principal facts which manifested themselves
in the epoch which we have just reviewed, and, above all,

CIVILIZATION IN PXANCE. 221

in the compilation and successive transformation of the bar.
baric laws. We shall seek, in our next lecture, what re.
mained of the Roman laws to govern the Romans themselves,
while the Germans were applying themselves to writing
their own.

222 HISTORY OF

ELEVENTH LECTURE.

Perpetuity of the Roman law after the fall of the Empire— Of the His-
tory of the Roman Law in the Middle Ages, by M. de Savigny—
Merits and deficiencies of this work — 1. Roman law among the
Visigoths — Breviarium Aniani, collected by command of Alaric —
History and contents of this collection — 2. Roman law among the
Burgundians — Papiani Responsorum — History and contents of this
law — 3. Roman law among the Franks — No new c ollection — The
perpetuity of Roman law proved by various facts — Recapitulation.

You are now acquainted with the state of German and Roman
society before the invasion. You know the general result of
their first approximation, that is to say, the state of Gaul
immediately after the invasion. We have just studied the
barbaric laws j that is, the first labor of the German nations
to adapt their ancient customs to their new situation. Let us
now study Roman legislation at the same epoch, that is to say,
that portion of the Roman law and institutions which survived
the invasion and continued to rule the Gallic Romans. This
is the subject of a German work, for some years past cele-
brated in the learned world, The History of the Roman Law in
the Middle Ages, by M. de Savigny. The design of the
author is more extended than ours, because he retraces the
history of the Roman law, not only in France, but throughout
Europe. He has also treated of what concerns France with
more detail than I have been able to give to it here ; and,
before beginning the subject, I must request your attention a
moment while I speak of his work.

The perpetuity of the Roman law, from the fall of the
Empire until the regeneration of sciences and letters, is its
fundamental idea. The contrary opinion was long and gene-
rally spread ; it was believed that Roman law had fallen with
the Empire, to be resuscitated in the twelfth century by the
discovery of a manuscript of the Pandects, found at Amalfi.
This is the error that M. de Savigny has wished to dissipate.
His first two volumes are wholly taken up by researches into
the traces of the Roman law from the fifth to the twelfth cen-
tury, and in proving, by recovering its history, that it had
never ceased to exist.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 223

The demonstration is convincing, and the end fully attained.
Still, the work, considered as a whole, and as an historical
production, leaves room for some observations.

Every epoch, every historical matter, if I may so speak,
may be considered under three different points of view, and
imposes a triple task upon the historian. He can, nay, he
should first seek the facts themselves ; collect and bring to
light, without any aim than that of exactitude, all that has
happened. The facts once recovered, it is necessary to know
the laws that have governed them ; how they were connected ;
what causes have brought about those incidents which are the
life of society, and propel it, by certain ways, towards certain
ends.

I wish to mark with clearness and precision the difference
of the two studies. Facts, properly so called, external and
visible events, are the body of history ; the members, bones,
muscles, organs, and material elements of the past ; their
knowledge and description form what may be called historical
anatomy. But for society, as for the individual, anatomy is
not the only science. Not only do facts subsist, but they are
connected with one another ; they succeed each other, and are
engendered by the action of certain forces, which act under
the empire of certain laws. There is, in a word, an organiza-
tion and a life of societies, as well as of the individual. This
organization has also its science, the science of the secret laws
which preside over the course of events. This is the physi-
ology of history.

Neither historical physiology nor anatomy are complete
and veritable history. You have enumerated the facts, you
have followed the internal and general laws which produced
them. Do you also know their external and living physiog-
nomy ? Have you them before your eyes under individual
and animate features ? This is absolutely necessary, because
these facts; now dead, have lived — the past has been the
present ; and unless it again become so to you, if the dead
are not resuscitated, you know them not ; you do not know
history. Could the anatomist and physiologist surmise man
if they had never seen him living ?

The research into facts, the study of their organization,
the reproduction of their form and motion, these are history
such as truth would have it. We may accept but one or
other of these tasks ; we may consider the past under such
or such a point of view, and propose such or such a design ;

224 HISTORY OF

we may prefer the criticism of facts, or the study of theii
laws, or the reproduction of the spectacle. These labors
may be excellent and honorable ; but it must never be for-
gotten that they are partial and incomplete ; that this is not
history — that history has a triple problem to resolve ; tha+
every great historical work, in order to be placed in its true
position, should be considered and judged of under a triple
relation.

Under the first, as a research of, and criticism upon, histo-
rical material elements, The History of the Roman Law in the
Middle Ages is a very remarkable book. Not only has M.
de Savigny discovered or re-established many unknown oi
forgotten facts, but (what is much more rare and difficult) he
nas assigned to them their true relation. When I say their
relation, I do not yet speak of the links which unite them in
their development, but merely of their disposition, of the place
which they occupy in regard to one another, and of their rela-
tive importance. Nothing is so common in history, even with
the most exact knowledge of facts, as to assign to them a place
other than that which they really occupied, of attributing to
them an importance which they did not possess. M. de Sa-
vigny has not struck on this rock ; his enumeration of facts is
learned and equal ; and he distributes and compares them
with like knowledge and discernment ; I repeat, that, in all
that belongs to the anatomical study of that portion of the past
which forms the subject of his work, he has left scarcely any-
thing to be desired.

As a philosophical history, as a study of the general and
progressive organization of facts, I cannot say so much for it.
It does not appear to me that M. de Savigny has proposed
this task to himself, or that he has even thought of it. Not
only has he omitted all attempt to place the particular history
upon which he occupied himself in relation with the general
history of civilization and of human nature, but even within
his own subject, he has troubled himself but little with any
systematic concatenation of facts ; he has not in the least
considered them as causes and effects, in their relation of
generation. They present themselves in his work, totally
isolated, and having between them no other relation than that
of dates, a relation which is no true link, and which gives to
facts neither meaning nor value.

Nor do we meet, in any greater degree, with poetical truth ;
r«cts do not appear to M. de Savigny under their living phy

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 225

Biognomy. It is true, upon such a subject, he had neithef
characters nor scenes to reproduce ; his personages are texts,
and his events publications or abrogations of laws. Still these
texts and legislative reforms belonged to a society which had
its manners and its life ; they are associated with events
more suited to strike the imagination — to invasions, founda-
tions of states, &c. There is among these a certain dramatic
aspect to seize ; in this M. de Savigny has failed ; his disser
tations are not marked with the hue of the spectacle witl.
which they are connected ; he does not reproduce the external
and individual traits of history any more than its internal and
general laws.

And do not suppose that in this there is no other evil than
that of a deficiency, and that this absence of philosophical
and poetical truth is without influence upon the criticism of
the material elements of history. More than once M. de
Savigny, from not properly taking hold of the laws and phy-
siognomy of facts, has been led into error regarding the facts
themselves; he has not deceived himself as to texts and
dates ; he has not omitted or incorrectly reported such or
such an event ; he has committed a species of error for which
the English have a word which is wanting in our tongue,
misrepresentation, that is to say, he has spread a false hue
over facts, arising, not from any inaccuracy in particular de-
tails, but from want of verity in the aspect of the whole, in
the manner in which the mirror reflects the picture. In
treating, for example, of the social state of the Germans be-
fore the invasion, M. de Savigny speaks in detail of the free
men, of their situation and their share in the national institu-
tions ;l his knowledge of historical documents is extensive
and correct, and the facts alleged by him are true ; but he
has not rightly considered the mobility of situations among
the barbarians, nor the secret contest between those two socie-
ties, the tribe and the warlike band, which co-existed among
the Germans, nor the influence of the latter in altering the
individual equality and independence which served as the
foundation of the former, nor the vicissitudes and successive
transformations to which the condition of the free men was
subjected by this influence. Hence arises, in my opinion, a
general mistake in the painting of this condition ; he has

1 T. i., pp. 160—195.

226 HISTORY OF

made it too fine, too fixed, and too powerful ; he has not, in
the least, represented its weakness and approaching fall.

The same fauk is seen, although in a less degree, in his
history of the Roman law itself, from the fifth to the twelfth
century ; it is complete and correct, as far as the collection
of facts goes ; but the facts are all placed there, so to speak,
upon the same level ; one is not present at their successive
modifications, one does not perceive the Roman law transform
Itself in proportion as the new society is developed. No moral
concatenation connects these so learnedly and ingeniously re-
established facts. Anatomical dissection, in a word, is the
dominant character of the work ; internal organization and
external life are alike wanting to it.

Reduced to its true nature, as a criticism of material facts,
M. de Savigny's book is original and excellent ; it ought to
serve as the basis of all studies whose subject is this epoch,
because it places beyond all doubt the perpetuity of Roman
law from the fifth to the twelfth century, and thus fully re-
solves the problem which the author proposed to himself.

Now that it is resolved, one is surprised that this problem
should ever have been raised, and that the permanence of
the Roman law, after the fall of the Empire, should ever have
been doubted. Not only do the barbaric laws everywhere
make mention of the Roman laws, but there is scarcely a
single document or act of this epoch which does not, directly
or indirectly, attest their daily application. Perhaps the error
which M. de Savigny has contested, has not been so general
nor so absolute as he appears to suppose, and as it is commonly
said to be. It was the Pandects which reappeared in the
twelfth century ; and when people have celebrated the resur-
rection of the Roman law at this period, it is above all of the
legislation of Justinian that they have spoken. On regarding
more closely, one will perceive, I think, that the perpetuity of
other portions of the Roman law in the west, the Theodosian
code, for example, and of all the collections of which it served
for the basis, has not been so entirely departed from, as the
work of M. de Savigny would give us to believe. But it
matters little ; more or less extended, the error upon this sub-
ject was real, and M. de Savigny, in dissipating it, has given
a prodigious progress to knowledge.

I shall now place before you the principal results of his
Work, but I shall do so in an order contrary to that which we
have followed in studying the German laws. We commenced

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 227

with the most barbarous, in order to finish with tnose in which
the Roman spirit had penetrated the deepest. We shall now,
on the contrary, first study the countries where the Roman
law preserved the greatest empire, in order to follow it in the
various degrees of its diminution of strength.

It follows that the kingdom of the Visigoths is the first
upon which we have to occupy ourselves. It was, you will
recall to mind, from the year 466 to 484 that king Euric,
who resided at Toulouse, for the first time caused the cus-
toms of the Goths to be written. In 506, his successor,
Alaric II., caused the laws of his Roman subjects to be col-
lected and published under a new form. We read, at the
beginning of some of the manuscripts of this collection, the
following preface : —

"In this volume are contained the laws or decisions of
equity, selected from the Theodosian code and other books,
and explained as has been ordered, the lord king Alaric being
in the twenty-second year of his reign, the illustrious count
Goiaric presiding at this work. Copy of the decree : — Letter
of advice to Timothy, Viscount. With the aid of God, occu-
pied with the interests of our people, we have corrected, after
mature deliberation, all that seemed iniquitous in the laws, in
such manner that, by the labor of the priests and other noble-
men, all obscurity in the Roman and in our own ancient laws
is dissipated, and a greater clearness is spread over it, to the
end that nothing may remain ambiguous, and offer a subject
for lengthened controversies for pleaders. All these laws,
then, being explained and re-united in a single book by the
choice of wise men, the assent of venerable bishops, and of
our provincial subjects, elected with this view, has confirmed
the said collection, to which is appended a clear interpreta-
tion. Our Clemency, then, has ordered the subscribed book
to be entrusted to count Goiaric, for the decision of affairs, to
the end that hereafter all processes may be terminated accord-
ing to its dispositions, and that it be not allowed to any person
to put forward any law or rule of equity, unless contained in
the present book, subscribed, as we have ordered, by the hand
of the honorable man Anianus. It is, therefore, expedient
that thou take heed that, in thy jurisdiction no other law or
form be alleged or admitted ; if, perchance, such a thing
•hould happen, it shall be at the peril of thy head, or at the
expense of thy fortune. We order that this prescript be
joined to the book that we send thee, to the end that the rule

228 HISTORY OF

of our will and the fear of tne penalty may restrain all-oui
subjects.

" ' I, Anianus, honorable man, according to the order of
the very glorious king Alaric, have subscribed and published
this volume of Theodosian laws, decisions of equity, and other
books, collected at Aire, the twenty-second year of his reign.
We have collated them.

" *■ Given the fourth day of the nones of February, the
twenty-second year of the reign of king Alaric, at Tou-
louse.' "

This preface contains all we know concern .jig the history
of the digestion of this code. I have a few explanations to
add to it. Goiaric was the count of the palace, charged with
the superintendence of its execution throughout the kingdom ;
Anianus, in quality of referendary, was to subscribe the va-
rious copies of it, and send them to the provincial counts ;
Timothy is one of these counts. The greater part of the
manuscripts being but copies made for private purposes, give
neither the preface nor any letter. The collection of Alaric
contains : 1st, the Theodosian code (sixteen books) ; 2d, the
books of civil law of the emperor Theodosius, Valentinian,
Marcian, Majorian, and Severus ; 3d, the Institutes of Ga'ius,
the jurisconsult ; 4th, five books of Paul, the jurisconsult,
entitled Receptee Sententia ; 5th, the Gregorian code (thirteen
titles) ; 6th, the Hermoginian code (2 titles) ; 7th, and lastly,
a passage from the work of Papinian, entitled Liber Respon-
sorum.

The Constitutions and Novels of the emperors are called
Leges ; the works of the jurisconsults, including the Gregorian
and Hermoginian codes, which did not emanate from any offi-
cial or public power, bear simply the name of Jus. This is
the distinction between law and jurisprudence.

The whole collection was called Lex Romana, and not
Brevianum ; the latter name was unknown before the six-
teenth century.1 Of the Brevianum Alaricianum, there is but
one separate edition, published in 1528, at Basle, by Sichard.
It has besides this been inserted, sometimes partially and
sometimes entire, in the various editions of the Theodosian
code.

1 In the preceding lecture it is said that Alaric caused the laws of
nis Roman subjects to be collected and published under the name of
Previarium. This is an oversight.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCr. 229

It is divided into two essential parts : 1st, a text or abstract
of the sources of the law which I have just enumerated; 2d,
an interpretation. The Institutes of Gaius is the only worli
in wnich the interpretation and the text are fused in one.

The text is merely the reproduction of the original text, it
is nor afways complete ; all ihe imperial constitutions, for ex-
ample, are not inserted in the Breviarium ; but those which it
did produce are not mutilated. There the ancient law appears
in all its purity, independent of the changes which the fall oi
the Empire must have introduced into it. The Interpretation,
on the contrary, digested in the time of Alaric by civil or
ecclesiastical jurisconsults, whom he had charged with this
work, takes cognizance of all these changes ; it explains, mo-
difies, and sometimes positively alters the text, in order to
adapt it to the new state of the government and of society ; it
is, therefore, for the study of the institutions and Roman laws
of this epoch, more important and curious than the text itself.
The mere existence of such a work is the most clear and con-
clusive proof of the perpetuity of Roman law. One need,
indeed, scarcely open it. Should we open it, however, we
shall everywhere find the trace of the Roman society, of its
institutions and magistrates, as well as of its civil legislation.
The municipal system occupies an important place in the In-
terpretation of the Breviarium ; the curia and its magistrates,
the duumvirs, the defensores, &c, recur at every step, and
attest that the Roman municipality still subsisted and acted.
And not only did it subsist, but it acquired more importance
and independence. At the fall of the Empire, the governors
of the Roman provinces, the presides, the consulares, the cor-
rectors, disappeared ; in their place we* find the barbarian
counts. But all the attributes of the Roman governors did
not pass to the counts ; they made a kind of partition of
them ; some belonged to the counts ; and these, in general,
were those in which the central power was interested, such
as the levying of taxes, men, &c. ; the others, those which
only concerned the private life of the citizens, passed to the
curise and the municipal magistrates. I have not cared to
enumerate all these changes ; but here are some examples
drawn from the Interpretation.

1st. That which was formerly done by the proetor (alibi the

{•resident) shall now be executed by the judges of the city.—
nterp. Paul, 1, 7, § 2 j Int. C. Th., xi., 4, 2.

230 HISTOKY OF

2d. Emancipation, which has usually been done before the
president, must now be done before the curia. — Gaius 1, 6.

3d. Guardians were nominated at Constantinople by the
prefect of the town, ten senators, and the prastor. The Inter-
pretation puts in their place " the first of the city with the
judge" (probably the duumvir). — Int. C. Th., iii., 17, 3.

5th. Wills must be opened in the curia. — Interp. C. Th.,
iv., 4, 4.

Cases of this kind are numerous, and do not allow of a
doubt, but that, so far from perishing with the Empire, the
municipal system acquired long after the invasion, at least in
Southern Gaul, more extension and liberty.

A second considerable change is also visible. In the an-
cient Roman municipality, the superior magistrates, the du-
umvir, the quinquennalis, &c, exercised their jurisdiction as
a personal right, not by any means by way of delegation, or
in quality of representatives of ?he curia ; it was to them-
selves, not to the municipal body, that the power apper-
tained. The principal of the municipal system was more
aristocratical than democratical. Such was the result of the
ancient Roman manners, and especially of the primitive
amalgamation of the religious and political powers in the su-
perior magistrates.

In the Breviarium the aspect of the municipal system
changes ; it was no longer in its own name, it was in the
name and as the delegate of the curise that the defensor ex-
ercised his power. The jurisdiction belonged to the curia in
a body. The principle of its organization became democrati-
cal ; and already the transformation was in preparation, which
was to make of the Roman municipality the corporation of
the middle ages.

These are the principal results of M. de Savigny's worK,
with regard to the permanence of Roman law under the Visi-
goths. I hardly know whether he has measured its whole
extent and all its consequences in the history of modern
society, but he has certainly caught glimpses of it ; and in
general his ideas are as precise as his learning is correct
and extensive. Of all German savans who have occupied
themselves on this subject, he is certainly the most exempt
from all German prejudices, who least allows himself to be
carried away by the desire to enlarge upon the power of the
ancient German institutions and manners in modern civi-
.ization, and who makes the Roman element constitute the

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 231

Detter part. Sometimes, however, the prepossession of the
national spirit, if I may so express myself, has still deceived
him, and of this I will cite a single example. He says at
the end of the chapter upon the municipal system under the
Visigoths : —

" The text of the Code orders that at Rome, in order to
pronounce upon a criminal accusation against a senator, five-
senators be appointed by lot : the Interpretation renders this
rule general, and requires five of the principal citizens of the
same rank as the accused, that is to say, decurions or plebeian,
according to the condition of the accused himself. . . . May wo
not here conjecture the influence of the German Scabini Vn

Thus M. de Savigny supposes that, according to the Inter-
pretation of the Breviarium, the judges drawn by lot, in
criminal matters, were, under the Visigoths in the sixth cen-
tury, to be of the same condition as the accused, that every
man was to be judged by his peers ; for it is thus that they
commonly digest the principle of the institution of the jury,
according to German manners. Here is the Latin sentence
upon which this induction is founded.

" Cum pro objecto crimine, aliquis audiendus est, quinque
nobilissimi viri judices, de reliquis sibi similibus, missis sortibus
eligantur."

That is to say :

" If any one be cited to appear on accusation of crime, let
five nobles be appointed by lot, from among co-equals, to be
judges '

These words, de reliquis sibi similibus, evidently signify
that the five judges shall be drawn by lot from the same class,
and not from the class of the accused. There is, therefore,
no trace iu it of the idea that the judges must be of the same
rank and condition of the accused. The words nobilissimi
viri might have convinced M. de Savigny, and prevented his
error : how, indeed, can they apply to plebeian judges ?

Let us pass from the Visigoths to the Burgundians, and see
what was the state of the Roman legislation at the same epoch,
among the latter.

The preface to their law contains, as you will recollect,
this sentence :

" We order that Romans be judged according to Roman

* Yol. i., p. 265. * IntcrD. Cod. Th., xi., 1, 13.

282 HISTORY OF

laws, as was done by our ancestors, and that they receive it
writing the form and tenor of the laws according to which
they shall be judged, to the end that no person can excuse
himself upon the score of ignorance."

The Burgundian Sigismond, therefore, intended to do in
517, what Alaric, the Visigoth, had done eleven years before,
to collect the Roman laws for his Roman subjects.

In 15G6, Cujas found in a manuscript a law work which he
published under the title of Papiani Responsum, or Liber
Responsorum, and which has always since borne that name.
It is divided into 47 or 48 titles, and offers the following
characteristics :

1st. The order and heading of the titles corresponds almost
exactly with those of the barbaric law of the Burgundians ;
title II. de homicidiis, to title II. de homicidiis ; title III. de
libertatibus, to title III. de libertatibus servorum nostrorum,
and so on. M. de Savigny has drawn up a comparative view
of the two laws,1 and the correlativeness is evident.

2d. We read in title II. of this work, de homicidiis :

" And as it is very clear that the Roman law has regulated
nothing concerning the value of men killed, our lord has
ordered that according to the quality of the slave, the mur
derer shall pay to his master the following sums, namely :

For an intend ant, 100 solidi

For a personal servant, 60

For a laborer or swineherd, 30

For a good gold- worker, 100

For a smith, 50

For a carpenter, 40

" This must be observed according to the order of the king."

The enumeration and the composition, under the corre-
sponding title, are the same in the law of the Burgundians.

3d. Lastly, two titles of the first supplement of this law
(tit. I. and XIX.) are textually borrowed from the Papiani
Responsum, published by Cujas.

It is evident that this work is no other than the law pro-
claimed by Sigismond to his Roman subjects, at the time that
ae published the law of his barbaric subjects.

Whence comes the title of this law ? Why is it called
■ ii ■ i i

1 Vol. ii., pp. 13—16.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 233

Papiani Responsum ? Is it, in fact, a repetition of a work
of Papinianus, often called Papian by the manuscripts ?
Nothing is less probable. M. de Savigny has very inge-
niously resolved this question. He conjectures that Cujas
found the manuscript of the Roman law of the Burgundians
at the end of a manuscript of the Breviarium of Alaric, with-
out marking the separation of the two works ; and that the
Breviarium finishing by a passage of the Liber Responsorum
of Papinianus, Cujas has inadvertently ascribed this passage
and given this title to the work following. The examination
of many manuscripts confirms this conjecture, and Cujas
himself was doubtful of error.

As the Breviarium of Alaric preceded the law of the Roman
Burgundians by only a few years, some people have supposed
the latter to be merely an abstract of it. This is an error.
Much more brief and incomplete than the Breviarium, the
Papiani Responsum, since it keeps that name, has still, more
than once, drawn from the sources of the Roman law, and
furnishes upon this point many important indications.

It probably fell into disuse when the kingdom of the Bur-
gundians fell under the yoke of the Franks. Everything
indicates that the Breviarium of Alaric, more extensive and
better satisfying to the various wants of civil life, progres-
sively replaced it, and became the law of the Romans in all
the countries of Gaul that the Burgundians, as well as the
Visigoths, had possessed.

The Franks remain to be considered. When they had con-
quered, or almost conquered the whole of Gaul, the Brevia-
rium, and, for some time also, the Papian, continued in vigor
in the countries where they had formerly prevailed. But in
the north and north-east of Gaul, in the first settlements of the
Franks, the situation was different. We there find nothing
of a new Roman code, no attempt to collect and digest the
Roman law for the ancient inhabitants. It is certain, how-
ever, that it continued to rule them ; here are the principal
facts which do not admit of a doubt of this.

1st. The Salic and Ripuarian laws continually repeat that
the Romans shall be judged according to the Roman law.
Many decrees of the Frank kings — among others, a decree oi
Clotaire I., in 560, and one of Childebert II., in 595, renew
this injunction, and borrow from the Roman law some of its
provisions. The legislative monuments of the Franks, there-
fore, attest its perpetuity.

234 HISTORY OF

2d. A different kind of monuments, no less authentic, like*
wise prove it. Many of you know the formulae, or models of
forms, according to which, from the sixth to the tenth cen-
tury, the principal acts of civil life, wills, bequests, enfran-
chisements, sales, &c, were drawn up. The principal
collection of formulae is that published by Marculf the monk,
towards the end, as it seems, of the eighth century. Many
men of learning — Mabillon, Bignon, Sirmond, and Linden-
brog — have recovered others of them from old manuscripts.
A large number of these formulae reproduced, in the same
terms, the ancient forms of Roman law concerning the en-
franchisement of slaves, bequests, testaments, prescriptions,
&c, and thus prove that it was still of habitual application.

3d. All the monuments of this epoch, in the countries
occupied by the Franks, are full of the names of the Roman
municipal system — duumvirs, advocates, curia, and curial,
and present these institutions as always in vigor.

4th. Many civil acts, in fact, exist, testaments, bequests,
sales, &c, which passed according to the Roman law in the
curia, and were so inscribed upon the registers.

5th. Lastly, the chroniclers of the time often speak of men
versed in the knowledge of the Roman law, and who make
an attentive study of it. In the sixth century, the Auvergnat
Andarchius " was very learned in the works of Virgil, the
books of the Theodosian law, and in the art of calculation."1
At the end of the seventh century, Saint Bonet, bishop ot
Clermont, " was imbued with the principles of the grammari-
ans, and learned in the decrees of Theodosius."* Saint
JJidier, bishop of Cahors, from 629 to 654, " applied himself,"
Kays his life in manuscript, " to the study of the Roman
laws."

Of a surety there were then no erudits ; there was then nc
A.cade"mie des Inscriptions, and people did not study the
Roman law for mere curiosity. There can, then, be nc
reason for doubting that among the Franks, as well as among
the Burgundians and Visigoths, it continued in vigor, particu-
larly in the civil legislation and in the municipal system.
Those among you who would seek the proofs in detail, the
original texts upon which the results which I have just stated
are founded, will find a large number of them in the work of

1 Greg, of Tours, 1. 4, c. 47. a Acta sane Juana, c. 1, No. 3.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 235

M. de Savigny (vol. i., p. 267—273; vol. ii., p. 100—118),
and still more in the Histoire du Regime Municipal de France,
published by M. Raynouard — a work replete with curious
researches, researches so complete upon certain questions
that, in truth, one might almost tax them with superfluity.

You see the fact which I proposed to bring forward is indu-
bitable. Monuments of all kinds show it, doubtless in unequal
degrees among different nations, but everywhere real and
permanent. Its importance is great, because it proclaimed to
Gaul a social state entirely different from that in which it had
hitherto lived. It was hardly more than five centuries since
it had fallen beneath the power of the Romans, and already
scarcely a trace of the ancient Gaulish society remained.
Roman civilization had the terrible power of extirpating the
national laws, manners, language, and religion — of fully assi-
milating its conquests to itself. All absolute expressions are
exaggerated ; still, in considering things in general at the
sixth century, we may say, everything in Gaul was Roman.
The contrary fact accompanies barbaric conquest : the Ger-
mans leave to the conquered population their laws, local insti-
tutions, language, and religion. An invincible unity followed
in the steps of the Romans : here, on the contrary, diversity
was established by the consent and aid of the conquerors.
We have seen that the empire of personality and individual
independence, the characteristic of modern civilization, was of
German origin ; we here find its influence ; the idea of per-
sonality presided in laws as in actions ; the individuality of
peoples, while subject to the same political domination, was
proclaimed like that of man. Centuries must pass before the
notion of territory can overcome that of race, before personal
legislation can become real, and before a new national unity
can result from the slow and laborious fusion of the various
elements.

This granted, and the perpetuity of Roman legislation
being established, still do not let this word deceive you : there
is in it a great deal that is illusory ; because it has been seen
that the Roman law continued, because the same names and
forms have been met with, it has been concluded that the
principles, that the spirit of the laws had also remained the
same : the Roman law of the tenth century has been spoken
of as that of the Empire. This is erroneous language;
when Alaric and Sigismond ordered a new collection of the
Roman laws for the use of their Roman subjects, they did

236 HISTORY OF

exactly what had elsewhere been done by Theodoric and
Dagobert, in causing the barbaric laws to be digested for theh
Frank subjects. As the Salic and Ripuarian laws s it forth
ancient customs, already ill suited to the new state of the
German people, so the Breviarium of Alaric and the Papiani
Responsum collected laws already old, and partly inapplica-
ble. By the fall of the Empire and by the invasion, the
whole social order was entirely changed ; the relations be-
tween men were different, and another system of property
commenced ; the Roman political institutions could not sub-
sist ; facts of all sorts were renewed over the whole face of
the land. And what laws were given to this rising society, so
disordered and yet so fertile ? Two ancient laws : the ancient
barbarous customs and the ancient Roman legislation. It is
evident that neither could be suitable ; both must be modified,
must be profoundly metamorphosed, in order to be adapted to
the new facts.

When, therefore, we say that at the sixth century the
Roman law still lasted, and that the barbarous laws were
written ; when we find in posterior centuries always the same
words, Roman law, and barbaric laws, it must not be supposed
that the same laws are spoken of. In perpetuating itself, the
Roman law altered ; after having been written, the barbaric
laws were perverted. Both are among the number of the
essential elements of modern society ; but as elements enter-
ing into a new combination, which will arise after a long fer-
mentation, and in the breast of which they will only appear
transformed.

It is this successive transformation that I shall attempt to
present to you ; historians do not speak of it ; unvarying
phrases hide it ; it is an internal work, a profoundly secret
spectacle ; and at which one can only arrive by piercing
many inclosures, and guarding against the illusion caused by
the similitude of forms and names.

We now find ourselves at the end of our researches con-
cerning the state of civil society in Gaul, from the sixth tc
the middle of the eighth century. In our next lecture, we
shall study the changes which happened in the religious
society at the same epoch, that is to say, the state and consti-
tution of the church.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 237

TWELFTH LECTURE.

Object of the lecture — State of the church in Gaul, from the sixth to
the middle of the eighth century — Analogy between the primitive
state of the religious society and the civil society — The unity of the
church or the spiritual society — Two elements or conditions of
spiritual society ; 1st Unity of truth, that is to say, of absolute iea-
son ; 2d. Liberty of minds, or individual reason — State of these two
ideas in the Christian church, from the sixth to the eighth century
— She adopts one and rejects the other — Unity of the church in
legislation — General councils — Difference between the eastern and
the western church as regards the persecution of heretics — Relations
of the church with the state, from the sixth to the eighth century :
1st, in the eastern empire ; 2d, in the west, especially in Frankish
Gaul — Interference of the temporal power in the affairs of the
church — Of the spiritual power in the affairs of the state — Recapitu-
lation.

We re-enter a route over which we have already gone ; we
again take up a thread which we have once held : we have
to occupy ourselves with the history of the Christian church
in Gaul, from the completion of the invasion to the fall of the
Merovingian kings, that is to say, from the sixth to the middle
of the eighth century.

The determination of this epoch is not arbitrary ; the acces-
sion of the Carlovingian kings marked a crisis in religious
society as well as in civil society. It is a date which consti-
tutes an era, and at which it is advisable to pause.

Recall the picture which I have traced of the state of the
religious society in Gaul, before the decisive fall of the Roman
empire, that is to say, at the end of the fourth and the begin-
ning of the fifth century. We have considered the church
under two points of view : 1st, in her external situation, in.
her relations with the state ; 2d, in her internal constitution,
in her social and political organization. Around these two
fundamental problems we have seen that all the particular
questions, all the facts collect.

This two-fold examination has enabled us to see, in the
first five centuries of the church, the germ of all the solutions
of the two problems, some example of all the forms, and trials
of all the combinations. There is no system, whether in re*

25

238 HISTORY OF

gard to the external relations of the church, or her interna,
organization, which may not be traced to this epoch, and
there find some authority. Independence, obedience, sove-
reignty, the compromises of the church with the state,
presbyterianism or episcopacy, the complete absence of the
clergy, or its almost exclusive domination, we have found all
these.

We have just examined the state of civil society after the
invasion, in the sixth and seventh centuries, and we have
arrived at the same result. There, likewise, we have found
the germ, the example of all the systems of social organization,
and of government : monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy ;
the assemblies of free men ; the patronage of the chief of the
land towards his warriors, of the great proprietor towards the
inferior proprietor, royalty, absolute and impotent, elective
and hereditary, barbarous, imperial, and religious: all the
principles, in a word, which have been developed in the life
of modern Europe, at that time simultaneously appeared
to us.

There is a remarkable similarity in the origin and primi-
tive state of the two societies : wealth and confusion are alike
in them ; all things are there ; none in its place and propor-
tion ; order will come with development ; in being developed,
the various elements will be disengaged and distinguished j
each will display its pretensions and its own powers, first in
order to combat, and afterwards to become reconciled. Such
will be the progressive work of ages and of man.

It is at this work that we have hereafter to be present ; we
nave seen in the cradle of the two societies all the material
elements, and all the rational principles of modern civilization ;
we are about to follow them in their struggles, negotiations,
amalgamations, and in all the vicissitudes both of their special
and their common destiny This, properly speaking, is the
history of civilization ; we have as yet only arrived at the
theatre of this history, and named its actors.

You will not be surprised that in entering upon a new era
we should first encounter the religious society : it was, as you
are aware, the most advanced and the strongest ; whether in
the Roman municipality, in the palace of the barbarous
kings, or in the hierarchy of the conquerors now become pro-
prietors, we have everywhere recognized the presence and
influence of the heads of the church. From the fourth to the
.hirteenth century, it was the church that took the lead in the

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 23ft

career of civilization. It is natural, then, that, during this
period, every time that we have made a halt, and again moved
forward, it should be with her that we recommence.

We shall study her history from +he sixth to the eighth
century, under the two points of view already indicated ;
1st, in her relations with the state ; 2dly, in her peculiar and
internal constitution.

But before approaching either of these questions, and the
facts which are attached thereto, I must call your attention to
a fact which dominates over all, which characterizes the
Christian church in general, and has, as it were, decided her
destiny.

This fact is the unity of the church, the unity of the Chris-
tian society, despite all the diversities of time, place, domina-
tion, language, or origin.

Singular phenomenon ! It was at the very time that the
Roman empire fell to pieces and disappeared, that the Chris-
tian church rallied, and definitively formed herself. Poli-
tical unity perished, religious unity arose. I know not how
many nations, of various origins, manners, language, and
destiny, are thrown upon the scene ; all becomes partial and
local ; every extended idea, every general institution, every
great social combination vanishes ; and at this Very moment
the Christian church proclaims the unity of her doctrine, the
universality of her right.

This is a glorious and powerful fact, and one which, from
the fifth to the thirteenth century, has rendered immense
services to humanity. The mere fact of the unity of the
church, maintained some tie between countries and nations
that everything else tended to separate ; under its influence,
some general notions, some sentiments of a vast sympathy
continued to be developed ; and from the very heart of the
most frightful political confusion that the world has ever
known, arose perhaps the most extensive and the purest idea
that has ever rallied mankind, the idea of spiritual society ;
for that is the philosophical name of the church, the type
which she wished to realize.

What sense did men, at this period, attach to these words,
and what progress had they already made in this path ?
What was actually, in minds and in facts, this spiritual socie-
y, the object of their ambition and respect ? How was it
conceived and practised ? These questions must be ajaswered
in order to know what is meant when we speak of the unity

240 HISTORY OF

of the church, and what ought to be thought of its principle!
and results.

A common conviction, that is to say, an identical idea,
acknowledged and received as true, is the fundamental basis,
the secret tie of human society. One may stop at the most
confined and the most simple association, or elevate oneself
to the most complicated and extensive ; we may examine
what passes between three or four barbarians united for a
hunting expedition, or in the midst of an assembly convoked
to treat of the affairs of a great nation ; everywhere, and
under all circumstances, it is in the adhesion of individuals to
the same thought, that the fact of association essentially
consists : so long as they do not comprehend one another,
they are mere isolated beings, placed by the side of one
another, but not holding together. A similar sentiment
and doctrine, whatever may be its nature or object, is the
first condition of the social state ; it is in the midst of
truth only, or in what they take for truth, that men become
united, and that society takes birth. And in this sense, a
modern philosopher1 was right in saying that there is no
society except between intellects ; that society only subsists
upon points and within limits, where the union of intellects is
accomplished ; that where intellects have nothing in common,
there is no society ; in other words, that intellectual society is
the only society, the necessary element, and, as it were, the
foundation of all external and visible associations.

Now, the essential element of truth, and precisely what is,
in fact, the social tie, par excellence, is unity. Truth is one,
therefore the men who have acknowledged and accepted it
are united ; a union which has in it nothing accidental nor
arbitrary, for truth neither depends upon the accidents of
things, nor upon the uncertainties of men ; nothing transitory,
for truth is eternal ; nothing confined, for truth is complete
and infinite. As of truth, unity then will be the essential
characteristic of the society which shall have truth alone for
its object, that is to say, of the purely religious society.
There is not, there cannot be, two spiritual societies ; it is,
from its nature, sole and universal.

Thus did the church take birth : hence that unity which
she proclaims as her principle, that universality which has

1 M. l'Abbe de Lamennais.

CIVILIZATION IN FEANCE. 241

always been her ambition. In degrees more or less evident,
and more or less strict, it is the idea which rests at the bottom
of all her doctrines, which hovers over all her works. Long
before the sixth century, from the very cradle of Christianity,
it appears in the writings and acts of its most illustrious inter-
ureters.

But unity of truth in itself is not sufficient for the rise and
subsistence of the religious society ; it is necessary that it
should be evident to minds, and that it should rally them.
Union of minds, that is to say, spiritual society, is the conse-
quence of the unity of truth ; but so long as this union is not
accomplished, the principle wants its consequence, spiritual
society does not exist. Now, upon what condition do minds
unite themselves in truth ? Upon this condition, that they
acknowledge and accept its empire : whoever obeys truth with-
out knowing it, from ignorance and not from light, or who-
ever, having knowledge of the truth, refuses to obey it, is
not part of the spiritual society ; none form a part of it if
they do not see nor wish it ; it excludes, on one side, igno-
rance, and on the other, constraint ; it exacts from all its
members an intimate and personal adhesion of intellect and
liberty.

Now, at the epoch upon which we are occupied, this second
principle, this second characteristic of spiritual society, was
wanting to the church. It would be unjust to say that it
was absolutely unknown to her, and that she believed that
spiritual society could exist between men without the consent
of their intellect or liberty. Thus put in its simple and
naked form, this idea is offensive and necessarily repulsed ;
besides, the full and vigorous exercise of reason and will was
too recent and still too frequent in the church, for her to fall
into so entire an oblivion. She did not affirm that truth had
a right to employ constraint ; on the contrary, she incessantly
repeated that spiritual arms were the only arms of which
she could and ought to avail herself. But this principle, if I
may so express myself, was only upon the surface of minds,
and evaporated from day to day. The idea that truth, one
and universal, had a right to pursue by force the conse-
quences of its unity and universality, became from day to day
the aommant, active, and efficacious idea. Of the two con-
ditions of spiritual society, the rational unity of doctrine,
and the actual unity of minds, the first almost solely occu
Vol. II.— 21

242 HISTORY OF

pied the church ; the second was incessantly forgotten 01
violated.

Many centuries were necessary in order to give to it its
place and power, that is to say, to bring out the true nature
of spiritual society, its complete nature, and the harmony of
its elements. It was iong the general error to believe that
the empire of truth — that is, of universal reason — could be
established without the free exercise of individual reason,
without respect to its right. Thus they misunderstood spiritual
society, even in announcing it ; they exposed it to the risk of
being but a lying illusion. The employment of force does far
more than stain it, it kills it ; in order that its unity may be,
not only pure, but real, it is necessary that it shine forth in
the midst of the development of all intellects and all liber-
ties.

It will be the honor of our times to have penetrated into
the essence of spiritual society much further than the world
has ever yet done, to have much more completely known and
asserted it. We now know that it has two conditions : 1st,
the presence of a general and absolute truth, a rule of
doctrines and human action : 2d, the full development of all
intellects, in face of this truth, and the free adhesion of souls
to its power. Let not one of these conditions ever allow
us to forget the other; let not the idea of the liberty of
minds weaken in us that of the unity of spiritual society :
because individual convictions should be clear and free, let
us not be tempted to believe that there is no universal truth
which has a right to command ; in respecting the reason of
each, do not lose sight of the one and sovereign reason.
The history of human society has hitherto passed alternately
from one to the other of these dispositions. At certain epochs
men have been peculiarly struck with the nature and rights
of this universal and absolute truth, the legitimate master to
whose reign they aspired : they flattered themselves that at
last they had encountered and possessed it, and in their foolish
confidence they accorded to it the absolute power which soon
and inevitably engendered tyranny. After having long sub-
nutted to and respected it, man recognized it, he saw the
name and rights of truth usurped by ignorant or perverse
force ; then he was more irritated with the idols than occupied
with God himself ; the unity of divine reason, if I may be
permitted to use the expression, was no longer the object of
his habitual contemplation ; he above all thought upon the

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 243

right of human reason in the relations of men, and often
finished by forgetting that, if it is free, the will is not arbitra-
ry ; that if there is a right of inquiry for individual reason, it
is still subordinate to that general reason which serves for the
measure and touchstone of all minds. And even as in the
first instance there was tyranny, so in the second there was
anarchy, that is to say, the absence of general and powerful
belief, the absence of principles in the soul, and of union in
society. One may hope that our time is called to avoid each
of these sand-banks, for it is, if I may so speak, in possession
of the chart which points them both out. The development
of civilization must be accomplished hereafter under the
simultaneous influence of a two-fold reverence j universal
reason will be sought as the supreme law, the final aim ; in-
dividual reason will be free, and invoked to develope itself as
the best means of attaining to universal reason. And if
spiritual society be never complete and pure — the imperfec-
tion of humanity will not allow it — at least its unity will no
longer run the risk of being factitious and fraudulent. You
have had a glance at the state of minds concerning this great
idea, at the epoch upon which we are occupied : let us pass
to the state of facts, and see what practical consequence had
already been produced by that unity of the church, of which
we have just described the rational characteristics.

It was seen above all in the ecclesiastical legislation, and it
was so much the more conspicuous there, from being in con-
tradiction to all that passed elsewhere. We have studied in
our last lectures civil legislation from the fifth to the eighth
century ; and diversity, which gradually increased, has ap-
peared to us its fundamental trait. The tendency of religious
society is very different ; it aspired to a unity in laws, and
attained it. And it is not that she exclusively drew her laws
from the primitive monuments of religion, from the sacred
books, always and everywhere the same : in proportion as she
was developed, new desires were manifested, new laws were
necessary, or a new legislator. Who should it be ? The
east was separated from the west, the west was daily parcelled
out into distinct and independent states. Should there be, for
the church thus dispersed, many legislators ? Shall the
councils of Gaul, Spain, or Italy, give them religious laws ?
No ; there shall be an universal and sole legislation for the
whole church, superior to all the diversities of national
churches and councils, and to all the differences which are

244

HISTORY OP

necessarily introduced into discipline, worship, and usages
The decrees of the general councils shall everywhere be oh.
ligatory and accepted. From the fourth to the eighth cen-
tury there were six oecumenical or general councils ; they
were all held in the east, by the bishops of the east, and un-
der the influence of the eastern emperors ; there were scarcely
any bishops from the west among them.1 Yet, despite so
many causes for misunderstanding and separation, despite the
diversity of languages, governments, and manners, and more-
over, despite the rivalry of the patriaichs of Rome, Constanti-
nople, and Alexandria, the legislation of the general councils
was everywhere adopted ; the west and the east alike yielded
to it j a few only of the decrees of the fifth council were for
a moment contested. So powerful already was the idea of
unity in the church ; such was the spiritual tie dominating all
things !

With regard to the second principle of spiritual society,
liberty of minds, some distinction must be made between the
east and the west ; the state of facts was not the- same in
them.

In setting forth the state of the church in the fourth and fifth
centuries, I have made you acquainted with the disposition
of the legislation, and of minds generally, with regard tc
heresy. The principle of persecution, you will recollect, was
neither clearly established, nor constantly dominant ; still it
gradually prevailed ; in spite of the generous protestations of
some bishops, in spite of the variety of cases, the laws of
Theodosius, the persecution of the Arians, the Donatists, the
Pelagians, and the punishment of the Priscillianists, do not
admit a doubt of this.

• Table of the General Councils from the Fourth to the Eighth
Century.

Date.

Place.

Present.

Eastern.

Western.

325

Nicea . . .

318

315

3

381

Constantinople

150

149

1

431

Ephesus . .

68

67

1

451

Chalcedonia .

353

350

3

553

Constantinople

164

158

6

680

Constantinople

56

51

5

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 245

Dating from the sixth century, and in the Empire of the
east, the true successor and continuator of the Roman empire,
events and ideas followed the same course ; the principle of
persecution was developed ; the history of the Monophysites
and Monothelites, that of many other heresies, and the legis-
lation of Justinian, give proof of this.

In the west, the invasion and all its consequences for some
time delayed its progress ; almost all intellectual movement
came to a stand still. Amidst the incessant confusion of life,
what room could be left for contemplation and study ? Here-
sies were rare ; the contest continued between the Arians and
the orthodox ; but we see but few new doctrines arise, and
those which attempted to introduce themselves were scarcely
anything more than a weak echo of the heresies of the east.
Persecution, therefore, so to speak, wanted matter and occa-
sion. Besides, the bishops did not in any way provoke it ;
more pressing affairs occupied them ; the situation of the
church was perilous ; she not only was under the necessity
of occupying herself about her temporal interests, but her
safety, her very existence, was in danger ; they cared little
for minor varieties of opinion. Fifty-four councils were held
in Gaul in the sixth century ; two only, that of Orange and
that of Valentia, in 529, occupied themselves with dogmas ;
they c nidemned the heresy of the semi-Pelagians, which the
fifth century had bequeathed to them.

Lastly, the barbaric kings, the new masters of the soil, took
but little interest, and rarely any part in such debates. The
emperors of the east were theologians as well as bishops; they
had been born and bred in theology ; they had personal and
fixed opinions concerning its problems and quarrels. Jus-
tinian and Heraclius willingly engaged upon their own
account in the suppression of heresy. Unless impelled by
some powerful political motive, neither Gondebald, Chilperic,
nor Gontran, troubled themselves in the matter. Numerous
actions and words have come down to us of the Burgundian,
Gothic, and Frank kings, which prove how little they were
disposed to exert their power in such causes. " We cannot
command religion," said Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths ;
" no one can be forced to believe, in spite of himself."1 . . .
" Since the Deity suffers various religions," said King Theo-

i Cassiod. Variar. Ep. 1. xi.,ep. 27.

246 HISTOUY OF

dobat, " we dare not prescribe a single one. We remembei
having read that God must be sacrificed to willingly, and not
under the constraint of a master. Those, therefore, who at-
tempt to do otherwise, evidently oppose themselves to the
divine commands."1

Doubtless, Cassiodorus here lends to the two Gothic kings
the superiority of his reason ; but they adopted his language ;
and in many other cases, whether it be ignorance or good
sense, we find the barbaric princes manifesting the same dis-
position.

In fact, therefore, from the concurrence of various causes,
the second condition of spiritual society, liberty of minds, was
at this epoch less violated in the west than in the east. It is
necessary, however, not to be mistaken in this matter ; it was
but an accident, the temporary effect of external circum-
stances ; at bottom the principle was equally overlooked, and
the general course of things tended equally to bring about the
prevalence of persecution.

You see that, in spite of some differences, the unity of the
church, with all the consequences attached thereto, was every-
where the dominant fact, alike in the west and in the east ;
alike in the social state and in minds generally. That was
the principle which, in religious society, presided over opinions,
laws, and actions, the point from which they always started ;
the end to which they incessantly tended. From the fourth
century, this idea was, as it were, the star under whose influ-
ence religious society was developed in Europe, and which it
is necessary to keep always in view, in order to follow and to
comprehend the vicissitudes of its destiny.

This point agreed upon, and the characteristic fact of this
epoch being well established, let us enter upon the particular
examination of the state of the church, and seek what were :
first, her relations with civil society and its government ;
secondly, her peculiar and internal organization.

I would pray you to recall what I said when speaking of
the church in the fifth century : it appeared to us that her re-
lations with the state might be determined into four different
systems : 1st, the complete independence of the church : the
unnoticed and unknown church, receiving neither law nor
B'oport from the state ; 2dly, the sovereignty of the state over

Cassiod. Variar. Ep. 1. x., ep. 26

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. r 247

tho church : religious society governed, if not completely, at
least in its principal elements, by the civil power ; 3dly, the
sovereignty of the church over the state : the temporal govern,
ment, if not directly possessed, at least completely dominated
by the spiritual power ; 4thly, and lastly, the co-existence of
the two societies, the two powers, which, though separate, were
allied by certain various and variable conditions, which united
without confounding them.

We, at the same time, recognized that in the fifth century
this latter system prevailed ; that the Christian church and
the Roman empire both existed, as two distinct societies, each
having its government and laws, but adopting and mutually
sustaining each other. In the midst of their reliance, we
discovered traces still visible of another principle, of an ante-
rior state, the sovereignty of the state over the church, the
intervention and decided preponderance of the emperors in
her administration ; lastly, but only in the distance, we
caught a glimpse of the sovereignty of the church over the
state, the domination over the temporal government by the
spiritual power.

Such appeared to us, in its whole, the situation of the
Christian cnurch of the fifteenth century in her relations with
the state.

In the sixth century, if we regard the eastern empire, ovei
which it is always necessary to extend our view in order to
comprehend properly what happened in the west, and the
changes which the barbaric invasion brought about in the
course of things, we shall be struck by two simultaneous
facts : —

1st. The clergy, especially the episcopacy, unceasingly
procured from the emperors new fa»ors and privileges. Jus-
tinian gave to the bishops: 1st, the civil jurisdiction over
monks and nuns, the same as over clerks ;l 2d, the inspec-
tion of property ir cities, and the preponderance in all muni-
cipal administration ;2 3d, the enfranchisement from paternal
power ;3 4th, he forbad the judges calling them as witnesses,
and demanding an oath of them.4 Herodius granted them
the criminal jurisdiction over clerks.5 The influence and

1 JVov.. Justin., 79, 83 ; a.d. 535. » Cod. Justin , i., tit iv., 1 26

• JVov. 81. * JVov. 123, c. 7

• Gieaeler, Lehrbuchder ITirchengeachichte, t. i., p. 602.

248 * HISTORY OF

immunities of religious society in civil society were ever in
creasing.

2d. The emperors, however, mixed themselves more and
more in the affairs of the church ; not only in her relations
with the state, but in her internal affairs, constitution, and
discipline. And not only did they meddle with her govern-
ment, but they interfered in her creeds ; they gave decrees in
favor of such and such a dogma ; they regulated the faith.

Upon the whole, the authority of the eastern emperors over
religious society was more general, active, frequent, despotic,
than it had ever been hitherto ; despite the progress of her
privileges, the situation of the church with regard to the civil
power was weak, inferior, and fallen off from what it was in
the ancient Empire.

Two contemporaneous texts will prevent your doubting
this.

In the middle of the sixth century, the Franks sent an em-
bassy to Constantinople ; the clergy of Italy wrote to the
Frank envoys to give them, as to the empire of the east, such
information as they believed might be beneficial to the success
of their mission :

" The Greek bishops," it said to them, " have great and
opulent churches, and they cannot bear being suspended two
months from the government of ecclesiastical affairs ; so ac-
commodating themselves to the age, and to the will of princes,
they consent without contest to all that is demanded of
them."1

The next is a document which speaks still more emphati-
cally. Maurice, emperor of the east (582 — 602), had inter-
dicted all persons occupied in civil functions from becoming
clerks or entering a monastery ; he had sent this law to Rome,
to pope Gregory the Great, in order that he might spread it
in the west. Rome was only held to the Greek empire by a
feeble tie ; Gregory had not in reality anything to fear from
the emperor ; he was ardent and proud ; the decree of Mau-
rice offended him; he wished to mark his disapprobation,
perhaps even attempt some resistance , he thus terminated his
letter :

" I, who say these things to my lords, what am I, but dus*
or an earth-worm ? Still, as I think that this law goes against

Mansi. Cone, t. ix , p. 153

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 24S

God, the author of all things, I cannot conceal this thought
from my lords ; and see what Christ answers to it, in saying
to you, through me, the last of his servants and yours : ' From
secretary I have made thee count of the guards, from count
of the guards, Caesar, from Caesar, emperor, and not only em-
peror, but also father of an emperor ; I have confided my
priests to thy hands, and thou withdrawest thy soldiers from
my service.' I pray thee, most, pious lord, say to thy ser-
vant, what wilt thou answer at the day of judgment to thy
God, who will come and say these things to thee ?

" As for me, submitting to thy order, I have sent this law
to the various countries of the earth, and I have said to my
serene lords, in this paper, whereon I have deposited my re-
flections, that this law goes against that of the all-powerful
God ; I have therefore fulfilled my duty upon each side ; I
have rendered obedience to Caesar, and I have not been silent
as to what appeared to me against God.'n

Of a surety, from such a man, in such a situation, and
with such a design, the tone of this letter is singularly mild
and modest. Some centuries later, Gregory would have used
a very different language towards even the nearest and most
redoubtable sovereign. The language which he adopts here,
can have no other cause than the habits of subordination and
dependence of the church towards the eastern emperors,
amidst the continual extension of her immunities.

The church 3f the tvest, after the invasion and under the
barbaric kings, offers a different spectacle. Her new masters
mixed themselves in no manner with her dogmas ; they left
her, in matters of faith, to act and govern herself as she
pleased. They interfered almost as little in her discipline,
properly so called, in the relations of the clergy among them-
selves. But in all which concerned the relations between the
religious and civil societies, in all that could interest temporal
power, the church lost independence and privilege ; she was
less free, and not treated so well as under the Roman empe-
rors. 1st. You have seen that, before the fall of the Empire,
the bishops were elected by the clergy and the people. The
emperor only interfered in rare cases, in the election for the
most considerable towns. It was no longer so in Gaul after
he establishment of the barbaric monarchies. The churchea

1 Oreg. M. Epist , 1. iii., ep. 65, to the emperor Maurice.

250 HISTORY OF

were wealthy ; the barbaric kings made them a means of re,
compensing their servants and enriching themselves. In nu-
merous instances, they directly nominated the bishops. The
church protested ; she claimed the election ; she did not
always succeed therein ; many bishops were retained in the
«ees where they had been placed by the kings alone. Still
(iie fact was not changed into a matter of right, and continued
10 pass for an abuse. The kings themselves admit this on
«nany occasions. The church, by degrees, regained the elec-
tion ; but she also gave way in her turn ; she granted that
after the election the confirmation of the king was necessary.
The bishop, who formerly took possession of his see, from the
lime that he was consecrated by the archbishop, now ascended
not his throne until after obtaining the sanction of royalty.
Such w not only the fact, but the religious and civil law.

" Let no person be permitted," orders the council of Or-
leans in 549, " to acquire a see by means of money ; but with
the consent of the king, let him who shall have been elected
by the clergy and the people, be consecrated bishop by the
archbishop and his suffragans."

" Upon the death of a bishop," says Clotaire II., in 615,
" he who is to be ordained in his place by the archbishop
and his suffragans, shall be elected by the clergy and the
people, and ordained by the order of the prince."

The contest between election and royal nomination was
often reproduced ; but in every case the necessity of confir-
mation was acknowledged.

2d. As under the Roman empire, councils could not be
convoked but with the consent of the prince, and he threat-
ened the bishops when they attempted to evade it. " We have
learnt from public report," wrote king Sigbert to Didier,
bishop of Cahors, in the seventh century, " that you have
been convoked by . . . the bishop of Vulfoleud, to hold a
council in our kingdom, the 1st of September . . . with the
others . . . bishops of your province. . . . Although we desire
to maintain the observance of the canons and ecclesiastical
rules, as they were preserved by our ancestors, still because
we have not been made acquainted with the convocation of this
assembly, we have agreed, with our great men, not to suffer this
council to be held without our knowledge in our states ; and
that no bishops of our kingdom shall assemble at the approach-
ing calends of September. In future, if we have timely
intimation of the object of a council, whether it meets in

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 25 i

irder to regulate the discipline of the church, or for the good
of the state, or for other affairs, we shall not refuse our con-
sent to its meeting; provided, however, that information is
first given us of it. The reason we write you this letter is,
to forbid your attending this assembly." The monuments,
the very acts of thirteen councils assembled in the sixth and
seventh centuries, formally express tha they were convoked
by the order, and held with the consent of the king.1 I do
not doubt, however, but in this, the fact was very often con-
trary to the acknowledged right, and that a number of coun-
cils, especially the mere provincial councils, met and regulated
their affafrs without any authorization.

3d. Some writers2 have thought that the independence of
the church also suffered from an institution which was more
developed among the Franks than elsewhere ; I mean the
chapel of the king, and the priest who had the direction of it,
under the name of Archicapellanus, Abbas regii oratorii Apo-
crisiarius. At first charged only with the exercise of wor-
ship in the interior of the palace, this superior of the chapel
assumed gradually more importance, and became, to speak
in the language so little applicable of our own times, a kind
of minister of ecclesiastical affairs for the whole kingdom ;
it is supposed these were managed almost entirely by his in-
termediation, and that by his means royalty exercised a great
influence over them. It may be that this influence was real
a* certain times, under such or such a king, under Charle-
p-*cne. for example ; but I very much doubt that in general,

These are :

1.

The

:o\incil of Orleans, in 511.

2.

—

(i

Orleans, in 533.

3.

—

«<

Clermont, in 535

4.

—

M

Orleans, in 549

5.

—

M

Paris, in 556.

6.

—

<(

Tours, in 567.

7.

—

cc

Lyons, in 575.

8.

—

M

Chalons, in 579.

9.

—

<t

Macon, in 581.

10.

—

it

Valencia, in 5S4.

11.

—

M

Verdun

12.

—

«

Paris, in 615.

13.

—

(1

Chalons, in 650.

■ Among others,

M. Planck,

in his History of the Constitution < f

the Christian Church (in German), a work of rare science and impa- -

Utility. — See vol. ii

., 147.

252 HISTORY OF

and of itself, the institution was efficacious ; it would serv»
rather the power of the church over the king, than that of the
king in the church.

4th. There was something more real in the restrictions tc
which, at this epoch, the ecclesiastical privileges were subject-
ed. They were numerous and important. For example, it
was forbidden any bishop to ordain a free man as priest with-
out the consent of the king.1 Priests were exempt from mili-
tary service ; the king did not choose that free men should
relieve themselves at will by means of this title. The church,
therefore, at this epoch was peopled with slaves ; it was espe-
cially among her own slaves, among the serfs and laborers of
her domains, that she recruited herself; and this circum-
stance, perhaps, is one of those which have not least contri-
buted to the efforts of the church for ameliorating the condi-
tion of the serfs. Many priests were taken from among
them ; and, independently of religious motives, they knew the
miseries of their situation, they bore some sympathy for those
who were plunged in it. In criminal matters, the priests in
the west had not obtained the privilege which Heraclius had
granted to those in the east ; they were tried by the ordinary
lay judges. In civil matters the clergy judged itself, but only
in cases where the cause interested simply priests ; if the
difference was between a priest and a layman, the layman
was not bound to appear before the bishop ; on the contrary,
he had the priest before his judges. With regard to public
charges, there were certain churches whose domains were
exempt, and the number of these daily increased ; but the
immunity was by no means general. Upon the whole, imme-
diately after the invasion, in 'ts principal relations with the
temporal power, the clergy of Frankish Gaul seemed less in-
dependent, and invested with less privileges, than it was in
Roman Gaul.

But means were not wanting both to regain in time advan-
tages, and to assure herself of large compensations. By not
in any way interfering in dogmatical points, that is, in the in-
tellectual government of the church, the barbaric kings left
to her the most fertile source of power. She knew how to
draw largely upon it. In the east, the laity took part in the-
ology and in the influence which it conferred. In the west,

i Council of Orleans, in 511, can. 6.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 253

the clergy alone addressed itself to minds, and alone waa
master of them. It alone spoke to the people, and alone ral.
lied them around certain ideas which became laws. It was
by this means especially that it re-acquired power, and repaired
the losses to which the invasion had subjected it. Towards
the end of the epoch upon which we are occupied, this had
already become visible. The church evidently recovered
from the shocks which had been given her by the disorder of
the times and the brutal avidity of the barbarians. She made
her right of asylum acknowledged and consecrated. She
acquired a kind of right of superintendence and revision over
the lay judges of an inferior order. The consequences of
her jurisdiction over all sins were developed. By wills and
marriages, she penetrated more and more into the civil order.
Ecclesiastical judges were associated with lay judges every
time a priest was concerned in the suit. Lastly, the presence
of the bishops, whether with the king, in the assembly of
great men, or in the hierarchy of proprietors, assured them a
powerful participation in the political order ; and if the sove-
reign power meddled in church afairs, the church, in her
turn, extended her action and power more and more into the
affairs of the world.

This is the dominant character of this epoch, as regards the
reciprocal situation of the civil and religious society. The
temporal and spiritual powers approached, penetrated, and
encroached more and more upon each other. Before the in-
vasion, when the Empire was still erect, although the two so-
cieties were already strongly entwined with one another, still
there was a profound distinction. The independence of the
church was sufficiently complete in what directly concerned
her ; and in temporal matters, although she had much influ-
ence, she had hardly any direct action except upon the muni-
cipal system, and in the midst of cities. For the genera,
government of the state, the emperor had his machinery all
prepared, his councils, magistrates, and armies ; in a word,
the political order was complete and regular, apart from the
religious society and its government. After the invasion,
amidst the dissolution of the political order, and the universal
trouble, the limits of the two governments vanished ; they
lived from day to day without principles, without settled con-
ditions ; they encountered everywhere, clashing, confounded,
disputing the means of action, struggling together in darkness
and by chance. Of this irregular co-existence of temporal

254 HISTORY OF

and spiritual power, this fantastical entanglement of theL
attributes, these reciprocal usurpations, this uncertainty as to
their limits, all this chaos of church and state, which has
played so great a part in our history, which has brought forth
so many events and theories, it is to the epoch which now oc-
cupies us that the origin must be assigned ; that only is its
most striking feature.

In our next lecture we shall occupy ourse ves with the
internal organization of the church, and the changes which
haopened in it during the same period.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 25fi

THIRTEENTH LECTURE.

Of the internal organization and state of the Gallo-Frankish church,
from the sixth to the eighth century — Characteristic facts of the
Gaulish church at the fifth century — What became of then; after the
invasion — The exclusive domination of the clergy in the religious
society continues— Facts which modify it : 1. Separation of ordina-
tion and tenure ; priests not ecclesiastics — 2. Patronage by laymen
of the churches which they founded — 3. Oratories, or particular
chapels— 4. Advocates of the churches— Picture of the general orga-
nization of the church — Parishes and their priests — Archpriests and
archdeacons — Bishops — Archbishops — Attempts to establish the pa-
triarchates in the west — Fall of the archbishops — Preponderance
and despotism of the episcopacy — Struggle of the priests and
narishes against the bishops — The bishops triumphant — Despotism
corrupts them — Decline of the secular clergy — Necessity for a re-
formation.

We have seen what were the relations between the church
and the state, and their principal modifications, in Frankish
Gaul, from the sixth to the eighth century. We shall now
examine the peculiar and internal organization of the church
at the same epoch ; it is curious and full of vicissitudes.

It will be recollected that a religious society may be con-
stituted according to two principal systems. In one, the faith-
ful, the laymen, as well as the priests, take part in the govern-
ment ; the religious society is not under the exclusive empire
of the ecclesiastical society. In the other system, power be-
longs to the clergy alone ; laymen are strangers to it ; it is
the ecclesiastical society which governs the religious society.

This fundamental distinction once established, we have seen
that in each of these two great systems, totally various modes
of organization might be developed : where religious society
governed itself, for example, it might be — 1st, that the local
associations were united in one general church, under the
direction of one or more assemblies, where the ecclesiastics
and the laity were together ; 2dly, that there should be no
general and sole church, that each particular congregation,
each local church should govern itself; 3dly, that there should
be no clergy, properly so called, no men invested with per-
manent spiritual power ; that the laity should fulfil the reli-
gious functions. These three modes of organization have

256 HISTORY OF

been realized by the Presbyterians, the Independents, and th«
Quakers.

If the clergy alone dominates, if the religious society is
under subjection to the ecclesiastical society, this latter may
be monarchically, aristocratically, or democratically consti.
tuted and governed, by the papal power, the episcopacy, or
by assemblies of priests, equal among themselves. The ex-
ample of these various constitutions is likewise met with in
history.

In fact, in the Gaulish church of the fifth century, two of
these principles had already prevailed : 1st, the separation of
the religious society and the ecclesiastical society, of the
clergy and the people, was consummated ; the clergy alone
governed the church — a domination, however, palliated by
some remains of the intervention of the faithful in the election
of bishops. 2dly, in the bosom of the clergy, the aristocrat-
ical system prevailed ; episcopacy alone dominated ; a domi-
nation which was likewise palliated, on one hand by the
intervention of the simple priests in the election of bishops,
on the other by the influence of councils, a source of liberty
in the church, although none but bishops sat in them.

Such were the dominant facts, the characteristic features
of the Gaulish church at the time of the invasion : what did
they become after the invasion : did they remain or disappear 1
to what modifications were they subjected from the sixth to
the eighth century ? These are the questions which musl
occupy us at present.

I. And, first, there cannot be a doubt but that the separa-
tion of the clergy and the people, the exclusive domination of
the ecclesiastics over the laity, was kept up. Immediately
after the invasion, it appeared to waver for a moment ; in the
common peril, the clergy and the people were brought together.
This fact is nowhere positively written and visible ; but it is
seen by glimpses, it is everywhere felt: in going over the
documents of this epoch, one is struck with I know not what
new intimacy between the priests and the faithful ; these latter
lived in the churches, so to speak : on numberless occasions,
the bishops met them, spoke with them, consulted them ; the
solemnity of the times, the community of sentiments and des-
tinies, obliged the government to establish itself in the midst
of the population ; it sustained the power which protected it :
in sustaining it, it took part therein.

This effect was of short duration. You will recollect the

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 251

principal cause to which I have attributed the exclusive domi-
nation of the clergy over the people. It appeared to me
especially to result from the inferiority of the people, an infe
riority of intellect, of energy, of influence. After the inva
sion, this fact did not alter, it was rather aggravated. The
miseries of the time made the Gaulish-Roman population fall
still lower. The priests, on their side, when once the con-
querors were converted, no longer felt the same want of close
union with the conquered ; the people, therefore, lost the
momentary importance which it seemed to have acquired.
The barbarians inherited none of it ; they were in no way
capable of associating with the government of the church ;
they had not the least wish so to do ; and kings were soon the
only laymen who took part in it.

Many facts, however, combated this isolation of the eccle-
siastical society in the religious society, and gave influence to
the laity in default of power.

1st. The first, which, in my opinion, has been oo little
marked, and which has had enduring and important con-
sequences, was the separation of ordination and tonsure.
Down to the sixth centuiy, the tonsure took place at the time
of entering into orders ; it was regarded as the sign of ordi-
nation, signum ordinis. Dating from the sixth century, we
find the tonsure conferred without any admission into orders ;
instead of being signum ordinis, it was called signum destina-
tionis ad ordinem. The principle of the church had hitherto
been, ionsura ipsa est ordo, " tonsure is the order itself." She
maintained this principle, with this ex-planation :

Tonsure is the order itself, but in the largest sense of the
term, and as a preparation to the divine service. In a word,
everything attests that, from that time, tonsure and ordina-
tion were distinct ; and that many men were tonsured with-
out entering into orders ; became clerks without becoming
ecclesiastics.1

1 M. Plank even says that they often cave the tensure to children ;
and he refers to the 6th canon of the 10th council of Toledo, held in
650, which forbids its being conferred before the age of ten. But
there is some confusion in this: this canon only concerns children
•rought up in monasteries, and whom the tonsure devoted to a reli-
gious life. This fact has no analogy with that which occupies us, and
to the support of which M. Plank invokes it.— Hist de la Constit da
I'Eglise Chretienne, ii., p. 13, not. 8. Labhe\ Cone, t. vi., c»l. 463.

258 HISTORY OF

They wished tj participate in the immunities of the
church ; she received them into her ranks in the same way
as she opened her temples to the proscribed ; she therebj
gained an extension of her credit and her forces. But the
religious society gained thereby, in its turn, a means of action
upon the ecclesiastical society ; those who were merely ton-
sured did not share completely either the interests or the
esprit-de corps, or the life of the clergy, properly so called ;
they preserved, to a certain degree, the habits and feelings
of the lay population, and introduced them into the church.
More numerous than they are generally supposed, this class
of men has played a considerable part in the history of the
middle ages. Bound to the church without belonging to her,
enjoying her privileges without falling under the yoke of her
interests and manners, protected and not enslaved, it was in
its breast that that spirit of liberty was developed which we
shall see burst forth towards the end of the eleventh century,
and of which Abailard was then the most illustrious interpre-
ter. From the eighth century, it mitigated that separation
of the clergy and the people which was the dominant cha-
racteristic of the epoch, and prevented it from bearing all its
fruit.

2dly. A second fact concurred to the same result. From
the time that Christianity became powerful, it was, as you
know, a frequent custom to found and to endow churches.
The founder enjoyed, in the church which owed its origin to
him, certain privileges which, at first, were purely honorary ;
they inscribed his name in the interior of the church, they
prayed for him, they even granted him some influence over
the choice of the priests charged with the divine offices. It
happened that bishops wished to found churches beyond
their diocese, whether in their native town, in the midst of
some domain, or from some other motive. Their right to
choose the priest called to perform the duties was unhesitat-
ingly recognized ; many councils occupied themselves in
regulating the exercise of this right, and the relations of the
bishop who founded the church with the bishop in the diocese
where the foundation was situated.

" If a bishop," says the council of Orange, " wishes to
build a church in the territory of a city, whether for the
interest of his domains, for the benefit of the Church, or for
any other reason, after having obtained permission for this,
which cannot be denied him without crime, let him not

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 259

meddle with its consecration, which is absolutely reserved to
the bishop of the see where the new church is situated.
But this grace shall be granted to the bishop who founded it,
that the bishop of the place shall ordain whatever priests the
founder may desire to see in his foundation ; or, if they be
already ordained, the said bishop of the place shall accept
them."1

This ecclesiastical patronage soon led to a lay patronage of
the same nature. Foundations by the laity became more and
more frequent. Their conditions and forms were very
various. Sometimes the founder reserved a portion of the
revenues with which he endowed his church ; he sometimes
even went so far as to stipujate that he should enter into a
participation' of the offerings which the church should require
in addition ; so that men founded and endowed churches
out of speculation, to run the chance of their fortune, and
to associate themselves in their future prosperity. The
councils took measures against this abuse, but they recog-
nized and consecrated the right of the founders, whether
laymen or ecclesiastics, to influence the choice of the official
priests.

" Moved by a pious compassion," say the bishops of Spain,
met in council at Toledo, " we have decided that as long as
the founders of churches shall live they shall be permitted to
have the care of them, and they must especially make it their
business to present, for the ordination of bishops, worthy
priests for these churches ; if they do not propose such, then
those whom the bishop of the place shall judge pleasing to
God shall be consecrated to his worship, and, with the con-
sent of the founders, shall officiate in their church. If,
in contempt of the founders, the bishop ^performs an ordina-
tion, it shall be null, and he shall be constrained, to his
shame, to ordain for the place suitable persons chosen by the
founders."*

By this means, therefore, the laity exercised a certain
influence in the church, and took some part in her govern
ment.

1 Council of Orange, in 441, c. 20.

* Ninth council of Toledo, held in C55, c. 2. I shall often cite tha
Spanish councils, because they have committed to writing more ex-
plicitly and more clearly facts which took place also in Gaul.

260 HISTORY OF

3dly. At the same time, and in proportion as the sociaj
state became a little fixed, the custom was introduced among
the great proprietors in the country, and even in the towns,
of instituting at home, in the interior of their house, an ora-
tory, a chapel, and of having a priest to officiate in it. These
chaplains soon became the object of lively solicitude on the
part of the bishops. They were placed under the depend-
ence of their lay patron far more than under that of the
neighboring bishops ; they were likely to participate in the
feelings of the house where they lived, and separate more or
less from the church. This was, besides, a means for the
powerful laity to procure the assistance of religion, and of
fulfilling its duties without depending wholly on the bishop of
the diocese. We accordingly find the councils of this epoch
carefully watching this non-embodied clergy, disseminated in
the lay society, and of which they seemed to fear sometimes
the serviture, somelimes the independence.

" If any one," orders the council of Agde, " wishes to have
an oratory on his own ground, besides the parish church, we
allow that in ordinary festivals he shall there cause mass to
be said for the accommodation of his own people ; but
Easter, Christmas, Epiphany, Ascension, Pentecost, the birth
of St. John the Baptist, and all the other days which should
be held as great festivals, must only be celebrated in cer-
tain churches. The priests who, without the order or
permission of the bishop, shall, on the above enumerated fes-
tivals, say or hear mass in oratories, shall be excluded from
the communion."1

" If rectories," says the council of Orleans, " are established
in the houses of powerful men, and the priests who officiate
there, warned by the archdeacon of the city, neglect, in favor
of the power of the master of the house, that which, according
to the degree of their order, is their duty in the house of the
Lord, let them be corrected according to ecclesiastical dis-
cipline. And if by the agents of the lords, or by the lords
themselves, the said priests are opposed in the performance
of any ecclesiastical duty, let the authors of such iniquity
be removed from the holy ceremonies until, being amended,
they shall re-enter into the peace of the church."*

" Many of our brothers and bishops," says likewise the

Council of Agde, in 506, c 21. 2 Council of Orleans, 541, c. 2Q

CIVILIZATION IH FRANCE. 261

council of Chalons, " have complained to the holy convocation,
upon the subject of the oratories, long since constructed in
the country houses of the great men of the state. Those to
whom these houses belong, dispute with the bishops property
which has been given to these oratories, and do not allow that
even the priests who officiate in them are under the juris-
diction of the archdeacon ; it is important that this should be
reformed : accordingly, let the property of the oratories, and
the priests who officiate in them, be under the power of the
bishop, in order that he may acquit himself of what is due to
these oratories and to the divine service ; and if any one
oppose himself thereto, let him be excommunicated, according
to the tenor of the ancient canons."1

It was not without reason that the bishops, having an eye
to their power, looked upon this domestic clergy with so much
mistrust : an example of it is met with in modern times, which
shows us its effects. In England, under the reign of Charles I.,
before the breaking out of the revolution, during the struggle
between the English church and the puritan party, the
bishops drove from their cures all the ecclesiastics suspected
of puritan opinions. What was the consequence ? — the
gentry, the great proprietors, who shared these opinions, took
into their houses, under the name of chaplains, the expelled
ministers. A large portion of the clergy who were suspected
by the bishops, accordingly, placed themselves under the
patronage of the lay society, and there exercised an influence
formidable to the official clergy. In vain the English church
pursued her adversaries, even into the interior of families;
when tyranny is forced to penetrate so deep, it soon becomes
enervated, or hastens towards its ruin : the inferior nobility,
the high bourgeoisie of England, defended their chaplains
with the most persevering energy ; they concealed them, they
changed them from house to house ; they eluded or they braved
the episcopal anathemas. The bishops might manoeuvre,
oppress ; they were no longer the only, the necessary clergy ;
the population harbored in its breast a clergy foreign to the
legal church, and more and more at enmity with it. From
the sixth to the eighth century, the danger was not the same ;
the bishops had to fear neither schism nor insurrection. Stil .
the institution of the chaplains had an analogous effect : it

1 Council of Chalons, in 050, c. 11.
26

262 HISTORY OF

tended to form an inferior clergy, less closely united to th«
body of the church, nearer to the laity, more disposed to
share their manners, in fine, to make common cause with the
age and the people. Accordingly, they did not cease atten-
tively to overlook and curb the chaplains. They, however,
by no means destroyed them ; they dared not attempt it : the
development of the feuda] system even gave to this institution
a fixity which at first was wanting to it : and this was also
one of the ways by which the laity regained that influence in
the government of the religious society, which its legal and
.nternal constitution refused to it.

4thly. The bishops themselves were constrained to j>pen
another way to it. The administration of the temporal
affairs and property of the church was often a source of
embarrassment and danger to them ; they had not only differ-
ences to decide, and suits to maintain, but, in the fearful dis-
order of the time, the property of the church was exposed to
continual devastations, engaged and compromised in numerous
quarrels, in private wars ; and when it was necessary to
make a defence, when the church, in behalf of her domains
or her rights, had some robbery to repel, some legal proof,
perhaps even, in some cases, a judicial combat to maintain,
pious menaces, exhortations, excommunications even did
not always suffice ; she wanted temporal and worldly arms.
In order to procure them, she had recourse to an expedient.
For some time past certain churches, especially in Africa, had
been in the habit of selecting defenders who, under the name of
causidici, iutores, vice-domini, were charged with the duty of
appearing for them before justice, and of protecting them ad-
versus potentias divitum. An analogous necessity, and one far
more pressing, led the churches of Frankish-Gaul to seek
among their neighboring laity a portion who, under the name
of advocatus, took their cause in hand and became their man,
not only in judicial disputes, where they had need of him,
but against any robberies which might threaten them. From
the sixth to the eighth century, the advocates of the church
did not yet appear with the development nor under the
forms which they received at a later period, in the feudal-
system ; we do not as yet distinguish the advocati sagati,
or armed, from the advocati togati, charged merely with civil
affairs. But the institution was not the less real and effica.
sious ; we find numerous churches choosing advocates ; they
were careful to take powerful and brave men ; kings some.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 263

times gave them to churches who as yet had no advocates,
and the laity were thus called in to participate in the temporal
administration of the church, and to exercise an important
influence over her affairs.

It was generally by granting them certain privileges, espe-
cially in giving them the usufruct of some domain, that the
churches thus solicited the support, and paid the services of
some powerful neighbor.

We may already see, if I may so express myself, four
doors opened to religious society to enter the ecclesiastical
society, and there exercise some power ; the separation of ordi-
nation and tonsure, that is to say, the introduction into the
church of many clerks who were not ecclesiastics ; the rights
attached to the foundation and to the patronage of churches ;
the institution of private oratories ; and lastly, the interven
tion of advocates in the administration of the temporal inte-
rests of the church ; such were the principal causes which, at
the epoch which occupies us, combated the exclusive domina-
tion of ecclesiastical society over religious society, and
weakened or retarded its effects. I might point out many
others which I omit, because they are less general and less
evident. A priori, such a fact was easy to presume : this
separation of the governing and the governed could not be so
absolute as the official institutions of the church at this epoch
would lead us to suppose. If it had been so, if the body
of the faithful had been strangers to the body of priests to
such a degree, and deprived of all influence over its govern-
ment, the government, in its turn, would have soon found
itself a stranger to its people, and deprived of all power. It
must not be supposed that servitude is complete wherever
the forms or even the principles of tyranny are found. Pro-
vidence does not permit evil to be developed in all the rigor
of its consequences ; and human nature, often so weak, so
easily vanquished by whomsoever wishes to oppress it, has
yet infinite ability and a wonderful power for escaping from
the yoke which it seems to accept. There can be no doubt
but that, from the sixth to the eighth century, the religious
society bore that of the ecclesiastical society, and that the
separation of the clergy and the people, already a source of
much evil, one day was to cost both of them dearly ; but it
was much less complete than it appeared ; it only took place
with a crowd of restrictions and modifications which alone
rendered it possible, and alone can explain them.

264 HISTORY OF

II. Let us now enter into the bosom of ecclesiastical society
itself, and let us see what became of its internal organization
from the fifth to the eighth century, especially of that prepon-
derance of the episcopacy which in the fifth century was its
dominant characteristic.

The organization of the clergy at this epoch was complete,
and almost the same, at least in its essential forms, as it has
remained up to modern times. I can therefore place it before
you in its ensemble ; you will so better follow the variations.

The clergy comprehended two orders, the minor orders and
the major orders. The first were four in number : the aco-
lytes, the porters, the exorcists, and the readers. They called
major orders, the under-deacons, the deacons, and the priests.
The inequality was great ; the four minor orders were pre-
served scarcely more than in name, and out of respect for
ancient traditions ; although they were reckoned as clergy,
they did not, truly speaking, form a part of it ; they had not
imposed upon them, they were not even recommended to
celibacy : they were looked upon rather as servants than
as members of the clergy. When, therefore, the clergy and
the ecclesiastical government of this epoch is spoken of, it is
only the major orders that are meant.

Even in the major orders the influence of the first two
named, the under-deacons and deacons, was weak ; the dea-
cons were occupied rather in administering the property of the
church, and the distribution of her alms, than in religious
government properly so called. It is to the order of priests,
truly speaking, that this government was confined ; neither
the minor orders, nor the two others of the major orders, really
participated in it.

The body of priests were subject, in the first six centuries,
to numerous and important vicissitudes. The bishop, in my
opinion, ought to be considered as its primitive and fundamen-
tal element ; not that the same functions, the same rights,
have always been indicated by this word ; the episcopacy of
the second century greatly differed from that of the fourth ; it
is no less the starting point of ecclesiastical organization. The
bishop was, originally, the inspector, the chief of the religious
congregation of each town. The Christian church took birth
in towns ; the bishops were its first magistrates.

When Christianity spread into the rural districts, the mu-
nicipal bishop no longer sufficed. Then appeared the chore-
piscopi, or rural bishops, moving, ambulatory bishops, epis-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE 265

topi vagi, considered, sometimes as the delegates, sometimes
as the equals, the rivals even of the metropolitan bishops, and
whom the latter attempted at first to subject to their power,
and afterwards to abolish.

They succeeded therein : the rural districts once Christian,
the chorepiscopi in their turn no longer sufficed : something
more fixed, more regular, was necessary ; something less con-
tested by the most influential magistrates of the church, that
is to say, the metropolitan bishops. Then parishes were
formed ; each Christian agglomeration at all considerable be-
came a parish, and had a priest for its religious head, natur-
ally subordinate to the bishop of the neighboring town, from
whom he received and held all his powers ; for it seems that
originally parish priests acted absolutely only as representa-
tives, as delegates of the bishops, and not in virtue of their
own right.

The union of all the agglomerated parishes around a town,
in a circumscription for a long time vague and variable,
formed the diocese.

After a certain time, and in order to bring more regularity
and completeness into the relations of the diocesan clergy,
they formed a small association of many parishes under the
name of the rural cliapter, and at the head of the rural chap-
ter was placed an archpriest. At a later period many rural
chapters were united in a new circumscription under the
name of district, which was directed by an archdeacon. This
last institution had scarcely arisen at the epoch of which we
treat : it is true that long before we find archdeacons in the
dioceses ; but there was but one, and he did not preside over
a territorial circumscription ; established in an episcopal town,
in the same town with the bishop, he took his place, some-
times in the exercise of his jurisdiction, sometimes in the
visitation of the diocese. It was only at the end of the
seventh, or, at least, at the commencement of the eighth cen-
tury, that we see many archdeacons in the same diocese, re-
siding at a distance from the bishop, and each placed at the
head of a district. We still encounter at this epoch, in
Frankish Gaul, some chorepiscopi ; but the name and charge
were not long in disappearing.

The diocesan organization was then complete and defini.
live. The bishop, as you see, had been its source, as he re-
mained its centre. He was much changed himself, but it

266 HISTORY OF

was around him, and under his influence, that almost all
other changes were brought about.

All the dioceses in the civil province formed the ecclesias-
tical province, under the direction of the metropolitan or arch-
bishop. The quality of the archbishop was but the expres-
sion of this fact. The civil metropolis was generally more
wealthy, more populous than the other towns of the province ;
its bishop had more influence ; people met around him on all
important occasions ; his residence became the chief place of
the provincial council ; he convoked it, and was the president
of it ; he was moreover charged with the confirmation and
consecration of the newly electeu bishops of the province ;
with receiving accusations brought against bishops, and the
appeals from their decisions, and with carrying them, after
having made a first examination, to the provincial council,
which alone had the right of judging them. The archbishops
unceasingly attempted to usurp this right, and make a per-
sonal power of it. They often succeeded ; but, in truth, as to
all important circumstances, it was to the provincial council
that it appertained ; the archbishops were only charged with
superintending the execution of it.

In some states finally, especially in the east, the organiza-
tion of the church extended beyond the archbishops. As they
had constituted parishes into the diocese, and the dioceses
into the province, they undertook to constitute provinces into
national churches, under the direction of a patriarch. The
undertaking succeeded in Syria, in Palestine, in Egypt, in the
Eastern Empire ; there was a patriarch at Antioch, at Jeru-
salem, at Constantinople ; he was, with regard to archbishops,
what archbishops were to bishops ; and the ecclesiastical or-
ganization corresponded in all degrees of the hierarchy with
the political organization.

The same attempt took place in the west, not only on the
part of the bishops of Rome, who labored at an early period
to become the patriarchs of the whole west, but independently
of their pretensions, and even against them. There are
scarcely any of the states formed after the invasion, which
did not attempt, from the sixth to the eighth century, to be-
come a national church, and to have a patriarch. In Spain,
the archbishop of Toledo; in England, the archbishop of Can.
terbury ; in Frankish Gaul, the archbishop of Aries, of Vi.
enne, of Lyons, of Bourges, bore the title of primate or patri.
arch of Gaul, of Great Britain, of Spain, and attempted to ex

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 267

ercise all its rights. But the attempt everywhere failed : the
western states had scarcely taken rise ; their limits, their
government, their very existence were incessantly in ques-
tion. Gaul, particularly, was divided between many nations,
and, in the heart of each nation, between the sons of the
kings ; the bishops of a kingdom were unwilling to acknow-
ledge the authority of a foreign primate ; the civil govern-
ment was equally opposed to it. Besides, the bishop of Rome,
already in possession of great influence, even where his offi-
cial supremacy was not acknowledged, warmly contested the
establishment of the patriarchs ; in Gaul, the principle upon
which he acted was constantly to transfer the primacy from
one metropolitan to another, so as to prevent its remaining too
long attached to one particular see ; at one time he favored
the pretensions to the primacy of the metropolitan of Vienne,
then those of the bishop of Aries ; at another time ihose of the
bishop of Lyons ; and then again those of the bishop of Sens ;
so as, by this constant fluctuation and uncertainty in the reli-
gious and civil order, to prevent the institution from attaining
force or fixity.

The same causes which operated against this particular in-
stitution, extended their influence beyond it ; in the same way
that they had prevented the system of the patriarchate from
taking root, they weakened and finally broke down the archi-
episcopal system. From the sixth to the eighth century, the
metropolitan bishops fell from time to time lower and lower ;
so that, at the accession of the Carlovingians, they could
hardly be said to exist at all. The circumstance alone of the
parcelling out of Gaul into different states, was calculated to
be of fatal consequence to them. The circumscription of the
religious society no longer agreed with that of the civil
society. Within the province of the archbishop of Lyons,
for instance, there were bishops subject to the kingdom of
the Visigoths, and to the kingdom of the Franks, and
who, on all occasions, eagerly availed themselves of this
pretext for evading their spiritual superior's authority,
quite certain of being supported by the temporal sovereign.
Moreover, as you have seen, the preponderance of the metropo-
litans was based upon that of the town in which they respec-
tively resided, and upon its former quality as a metropolis.
Now, in the general disorder occasioned by the invasion, con.
siderable changes took place in the relative importance of
towns ; rich, important cities, metropoles, truly so called, be-
came poor and depopulated. Others, on whom fortune

268 HISTORY OF

smiled more favorably, acquired a wealth and population pre-
viously unknown to them. With the disappearance from a
city of its importance, disappeared the cause which had ren-
dered its bishop a metropolitan, and the word metropolitan
became, by degrees, a falsehood, a circumstance highly dan-
gerous to the power which it outwardly expressed. Besides,
it was in the very nature of the institution to be assailed at
once, on the one hand, by the bishops, who were not desirous
of having a spiritual superior ; on the other by the bishop of
Rome, who naturally wished to have no rivals ; the result
was what might have been expected. The bishops preferring,
as their general metropolitan, the bishop of Rome, who lived
at a distance, and took care to conciliate them, not having
them as yet within his power, adopted the course of support-
ing the bishop of Rome against their more immediate metropo-
litans. Thus attacked on both sides, the metropolitans daily
declined in influence and power ; the bishops ceased to pay
any attention to their mandates, or even to thei:1 exhortations ;
the body of the church to have recourse in any way to their
intervention ; and when, in 744, Pepin-le-Bref consulted pope
Zachary on the best means of restoring order to the confused
and agitated church, one of his first questions was, what
course he should adopt for procuring respect for the metropo-
litans at the hands of the bishops and parochial priests.

In point of fact, the whole government of the church, at
this period, was in the hands of the bishops and of the priests :
they were the only members of it who were at all active and
powerful. What were their mutual relations? how was
power divided between them ?

The general manifest fact was, the exclusive domination
and, we may say, despotism of the bishops. Let us seek
closely for the causes of this : it is the best means of properly
understanding the situation of the church

1. And first, the fall of the metropolitans left the bishops
without superiors, or very nearly so. With the head of the
ecclesiastical province declined the provincial synod, which i;
was his privilege to assemble and -preside over. These synods,
heretofore the unquestionable superiors of the bishops, to
which appeals were carried from the decisions of the bishops,
and which took cognizance of all the causes which the bishops
could not of themselves decide, became rare and inactive. In
the course of the sixth century, there were held in Gaul fifty-
four councils of every description ; in *he seventh century.

CIVILIZATION IN FEANCE.

269

only twenty ; in the first half of the eighth century only
seven, and five of these were held in Belgium, or on the banks
of the Rhine.

Table of the Gaulish Councils of the Sixth Century.

Date
506

507
511
515
516
517
517
517
524
527
529
529
529
530
533
535
538
540
541
545
549

549
550
550
554

555

555
557
563
567
567
573
575
577
578

579
579

Place.
Agde

Toulouse

Orleans

St. Maurice

Lyons.

Place uncertain

Epaonense

Lyons

Aries

Carpentras

Orange

Valencia.

Vaison .-..

Angers

Orleans

Clermont

Orleans

Orleans

Orleans

Aries.

Orleans

Aries

Toul.
Metz.
Aries

Place uncertain in
Brittany.

Paris

Paris

Saintes

Lyons

Tours

Paris

Lyons.

Paris.

Auxerre

Chalons.
Saintes.

Present.

25 bishops, 8 priests, 2 deacons, re-
presenting their bishops

32 bishops

4 bishops, 8 counts.

16 bishops.

25 bishops.
11 bishops.

14 bishops, 4 priesfe.
19 bishops.

14 bishops, 8 viri illustres.

11 or 12 bishops.

5 bishops.

26 bishops, 5 priests.

15 bishops.

19 bishops, 7 priests.

38 bishops, 11 priests, 1 abbot.

5 bishops, 21 priests, archdeacons,

or abbots
10 bishops.

11 bishops, 8 priests, deacons, or
archdeacons.

27 bishops.
16 bishops.

8 bishops, 5 priests, 1 deacon.
7 bishops.
32 bishops, 1 priest.

The bishop of Auxerre, 7 abbots, 34
priests, 3 deacons, all of the dio-
cese of Auxerre.

270

HISTORY OF

Table of the Gaulish Councils of the Sixth Cent ury— continued.

Date.

Place.

Present.

580

Braines.

581

Lyons.

581
583

21 bishops.
8 bishops, 12 delegates of bishops.

584

Valencia.

585

43 bishops, 15 delegates, 16 bishops
without sees

587

Andelot.

588

Clermont.

588

Place uncertain

589

Sourcy, near Soi^sons.

5§9

Chalons.

589
590

7 bis Hops.

Upon the confines of

Auvergne,of Rouer-

gue, and of Givau-

dan.

590

Poictiers.

6 bishops

590

Metz.

591

Nanterre.

594

Chalons.

Table of the Councils of Gaul in the Seventh Century.

Date.

603

615
shortly >
afterwards )

625

627

628

633

638

648
650 or 645

650

658

664

669

670

670

679
684 or 685

688
692 or 682

Place.

Chalons.
Paris.

Place uncertain

Rhcims

Macon.

Clichy

Clichy

Paris

Bourges.
Orleans.

Chalons

Nantes.

Paris

Clichy

Sens

Autun.

Place uncertain

In the palace of the

king.
Ibid.
Rouen

Present.

41 bishops.

Bishops and high laymen.
15 bishops, Dagobert, great men.
9 bishops, Dagobert, great men.

38 bishops, 5 abbots, 1 archdeacon

25 bishops.

Bishops and great men.

30 bishops.

16 bishops, 4 abbots, 1 legate, 3
archdeacons, many priests and
deacons.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 271

Table of the Councils of Gaul in the first half of the Eighth Century

Date.

729
742
743
744

746
748
752

Place

Maestricht.
In Germany
Septines.

Present.

23 bishops, many priests and high
laymen.

In Germany.

Ibid.

Vermeric.

Thus gradually freed from individual superiors, and from
assemblies of their equals, the bishops found themselves in an
almost entirely independent position. There was a change,
too, in the system of episcopal elections. You have seen that
the election by the clergy and the people, although still legal
and of frequent occurrence at the epoch which occupies us,
was still far more uncertain and far less real. A foreign
force, royalty, constantly interfered therein, in order to bring
trouble and impotence into it : kings unceasingly directly
nominated bishops, despite the continual protestations of the
church, and, in all cases, the elected required their confirma-
tion. The ties which united the bishops to their priests be-
came accordingly very much weakened ; it was almost solely
by election that the clergy influenced the episcopacy, and this
influence, if it was not destroyed, was at least enervated and
disputed.

2dly. There resulted from this another circumstance
which still more separated the bishops from their priests :
when the clergy elected them, it took them from its own
bosom ; it selected men already known and accredited in the
diocese. When, on the contrary, a crowd of bishops received
their title from kings, the greater part arrived strangers, un-
known, alike without credit and without affection among the
clergy whom they had to govern. Taken even in the diocese,
they were there often destitute of consideration ; intriguers
who had succeeded, by disgraceful means, or even by money,
in obtaining the royal preference. Thus were still farther
broken the ties which united the bishops to the clergy ; thus
the episcopal power, which no longer possessed any superior
power, was alike released from the influence of its people j as

272 HISTORY OF

the clergy was separated from the lay population, so was tne
episcopacy separated from the clergy.

3dly. This is not all : the clergy itself declined ; not only
did it lose its power, but its position, and, so to speak, its
quality was diminished. You have seen that, at this epoch,
a great number of slaves entered into the church, and by
what causes. The bishops soon perceived that a clergy thus
formed was without principle, without power, far more easy
to govern and to conquer, if it attempt to resist. In many
dioceses they took care to recruit it from the same source, to
aid themselves the natural course of things ; this origin of a
crowd of priests long contributed to the sovereignty of the
episcopacy.

4thly. Here we have a fourth cause, even more powerful
and extensive. The bishops were the sole administrators of
the property of the church. This property was of two kinds :
on one side, foundation property, every day more considera-
ble, for it was under this form that the greater part of dona-
tions to churches were made ; on the other, the offerings of
the faithful in the churches themselves. I shall say a word,
in passing, of a third kind of ecclesiastical revenue, which at
a later period played an important part, but which, at the
seventh century, was not yet well established ; I mean the
tithe. From the earliest ages, the clergy made continual
efforts to bring back or to generalise this Hebrew institution ;
it preached it, it praised it ; it recalled the Jewish traditions
and manners. Two Gaulish councils of the sixth century,
that of Tours, in 567, and that of Macon, in 585, made it the
subject of formal provisions. But they felt, by their very
tone, that these dispositions were rather exhortations than
laws : " We urgently caution you," writes the council of
Tours to the faithful, " that, following the examples of Abra-
ham, you do not fail to offer to God the tenth of all your pro-
perty, to the end that you may preserve the rest ;5" and these
exhortations were of but little effect.

It was at a later period, and only under the Carlovingians,
that, with the aid of the civil power, the clergy attained its
end, and rendered the tithe general and regular. At the
epoch of which we treat, the foundation property and the
offerings were her only revenues. Now it must not be sup-

i Labbe, vol. v., col. 868.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 273

posed that these revenues belonged to a particular church oi
parish, where the source of them lay : the produce of all the
adjacent domains, of all offerings received in the diocese,
formed a mass of which the bishop alone had the disposition :

" Let the domains, estates, vineyards, slaves, the peculium,
.... which are given to parishes," says the council of Or-
leans, " remain in the power of the bishop."1 Charged with
the cost of dispensing worship and the maintenance of the
priests, in the whole diocese, it was the bishop who determined
the part allotted to each parish. Certain rules, it is true,
were soon established with regard to this matter : three parts
were usually made of the revenues of a parish ; one third
was appropriated to the priest who performed its duties;
another to the expense of worship ; and a third returned to the
bishop. But in spite of this legal injunction, often repeated
by the canons, the centralization of the ecclesiastical reve-
nues continued : the general administration belonged to the
bishop, and it was easy to foresee the extension of this means
of power.

5th. He disposed of persons almost as of things, and the
liberty of the parish priests was scarcely better guaranteed
than their revenue. The principle of the servitude of the
glebe, if I may so express myself, was introduced into the
church : we read in the acts of the councils :

" It is said, in the law concerning the laborers of the field,
that each must remain wherever he began to live. The
canons likewise order, that the priests who work for the
church remain where they commenced."3

" Let no bishop raise in degree a strange priest."3

" Let no one ordain a priest who does not first promise to
remain where he shall be placed."4

Never was power over persons more expressly established.

6th. The progress of the political importance of the bishops
turned equally to the profit of their religious domination.
They entered into the national assemblies ; they surrounded
and counselled kings. How could the poor priests struggle
with any advantage against such superiors? Besides, such
was the disorder of the times, and both the difficulty and the

1 Council of Orleans, in 611, c. 14, 15.

• Council of Seville, in 819, c. 3. 3 Council 0*" Angers, in 453, c. 9

* Council of Valencia, in 524, c. 6.

274 HISTORY OF

necessity of maintaining some general tie, some unity in thft
administration of the church, that the course of things agree-
ing with the passions of men, tended to strengthen the central
power. The despotism of the episcopal aristocracy prevailed
by the same causes which caused that of the feudal aristo-
cracy to prevail ; this was, perhaps, at this epoch, the com-
mon and dominant want, the only means of maintaining
society.

But it redounds to the honor and safety of human nature,
that an evil, although inevitable, is never accomplished with-
out resistance, and that liberty, incessantly protesting and
struggling against necessity, prepares the enfranchisement,
even at the moment that it submits to the yoke. The bishops
strangely abused their immense power : the priests, and the
revenues of their diocese, were the prey to violences and
exactions of all kinds ; the acts of the councils, composed of
bishops only, are, in this respect, the most unexceptionable
testimony.

" We have learned," says the council of Toledo, " that the
bishops treat their parishes, not episcopally, but cruelly ; and
while it has been written ' neither as being lords over God's
heritage, but being ensamples to the flock,' they load their
dioceses with loss and exactions. It is for this reason that
the things which the bishops appropriate to themselves are to
be refused them, with the exception of what the ancient insti-
tutions grant them ; let the priests, whether parochial or dio-
cesan, who shall be tormented by the bishop, carry their com-
plaints to the metropolitan, and let the metropolitan delay not
to repress such excesses."1

" Those who have already obtained ecclesiastical degrees,
that is to say, the priests," says the council of Braga, " must
in no way be subject to receive blows, except for grave and
deadly faults. It is not suitable that each bishop should, ac-
cording to his inclination and when it pleases him, strike with
blows and cause his honorable ministers to suffer, for fear he
lose the respect which is his due from those who are subject
to him."2

The priests did not lose all respect for the bishops, nor any
more did they accept all their tyranny. An important fact,
and one too little remarked, is seen here and there during the

» Council of Toledo, in 5S9, c. 20, a Council of Braga, in 675, c. 7

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 275

course of this epoch : this is the contest of the parochial
priests against the bishops. Three principal symptoms in the
acts of the councils must not be overlooked :

1st. The parochial priests, the inferior clerks, leagued
among themselves to resist : they formed conjuratios against
the bishops similar to those conjuratios, to those fraternities
formed at a later period by the burghers against their lords.

" If any priests, as has happened lately in many places, at
the instigation of the devil- should rebel against authority,
unite in a conspiracy, should take a common oath among
themselves, or unite in a common bond, let such audacity be
concealed under no pretext, and, the thing once known, let
the bishops, assembled in synod, punish the guilty according
to their rank and quality."1

" If any priests, for the purpose of revolt, should combine
in a common bond, whether verbal or written, and should
cunningly lay snares for their bishop, and once warned to
give up these practices should refuse to obey, let them be de-
graded from their rank."2

2d. The priests have constantly recourse against their
bishops, to the aid of the laity, probably to that of the lord of
the manor, or any other powerful person in the district with
whom they are in connexion. We find this injunction re-
peatedly in the acts of the councils :

" Let not the priests rise up against their bishops by the
aid of secular power."3

3d. But while repeating this prohibition, while proscribing
the conjurationes of the priests, the councils themselves en-
deavored to apply some remedy to the evils combined against :
complaints were constantly addressed to them from all quar-
ters, to which they felt themselves compelled to pay atten-
tion : a few passages from their acts will be more elucidatory
on this point than any comments of ours :

" As some complaints have reached us, of certain bishops
having taken possession of things given by the faithful for
the use of their parishes, so that little or nothing is left to the
churches upon which these gifts were really bestowed, it has

« Council of Orleans, in 538, c. 28.

* Council of Rheims in 625, c. 2 ; see also the council of Narbonno,
•a 589, c. 5.

• Council of Clermont, in 535, c. 4.

276 HlSTORi" OF

appeared to us just and reasonable, and we hereby declare
that, if the church of the city wherein the bishop resides is
so well provided, that, by the grace of Christ, it wants for
nothing, all that remains to the parishes should be distributed
among the clerks who officiate in them, or employed in re-
pairing their churches. But if the bishop is involved in
much expense, without sufficient revenue to meet it, there
shall be given to the richer parishes that which is fitting and
reasonable, whether for priests, or for the support of the
buildings, and let the bishop appropriate the surplus to his
own use, in order that he may provide for his expenses."1

" If offerings have been made to the basilicas established in
cities, of lands, goods, or any other things whatsoever, let
them be at the disposition of the bishop, and let them be free
to employ what is suitable, whether in the repair of the basi-
lica, or in the support of priests who officiate in it. With re-
gard to parochial property or basilicas established in boroughs,
dependent upon cities, let the custom of each place be ob-
served." 2

" It has been decided that no bishop, in the visitation of his
diocese, shall receive from any church anything beyond what
is due to him, as a mark of honor to his see ; he shall not
take the third of all the offerings of the people in the parish
churches, but this third shall remain for the lighting and re-
pairs of the churches ; and each year the bishop shall have
an account of it. For if the bishop take this third, he robs
the church of its light and the support of its roof."3

" Avarice is the root of all evil, and this guilty thirst seizes
even the hearts of the bishops. Many of fhe faithful, from
love for Christ and the martyrs, raise basilicas in the parishes
of the bishops, and deposit offerings therein ; but the bishops
seize upon them and turn them to their own use. Thence it
follows that priests are wanting to perform Divine service,
because they do not receive their fees. Dilapidated cathe-
drals are not repaired because sacerdotal avarice has carried
off all the funds. The present orders, therefore, that bishops
govern their churches without receiving more than is due to
them according to the ancient decrees, that is to say, the third
of the offerings and of the parochial revenues ; if they take

1 Council of Carpentras, in 527. Council of Orleans, in 533, c. 5
* Council of Braga. in 572, c. 2.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 271

more than this, the council will cause it to be returned on the
demand of either the founders of the church themselves if
they be living, or of their descendants. Nevertheless, the
founders of churches are not to suppose that they retain any
power whatever over the property with which they have en-
dowed the said churches, seeing that according to the canons,
not only the church itself, but the property with which it is
endowed, is under the jurisdiction, duly administered, of the
bishop."!

" Among the things which it behoves us to regulate by
common consent, it is more especially necessary to meet dis-
creetly, the complaints of the parochial priests of the province
of Galacia, touching the rapacity of their bishops, which has
grown to such a height as to compel the priests to demand
public inquiry into them ; such inquiry having been made, it
has clearly resulted that these bishops overwhelm their paro-
chial churches with their exactions ; and that while they
themselves wallow in luxury, they have brought many of the
churches to the verge of ruin ; in order to put a stop to such
abuses we order that, according to the regulations of the
synod of Braga, each of the bishops of the said province shall
receive annually from each of the churches in his diocese the
sum of two solid?,2 and no more. And when the bishop visits
his diocese, let him be burdensome to no one from the multi-
tude of his attendants, let him have no more than five car-
riages with him, and let him stay no longer than one day at
each church."3

The extracts here given are amply sufficient to prove the
oppression and the resistance, the evil and the attempt to reme-
dy it ; — the resistance was abortive, the remedy ineffectual :
episcopal despotism continued to take deeper and wider root.
Thus, at the commencement of the eighth century, the church
had fallen into a etate of disorder almost equal to that preva-
lent in civil society. Without superiors, without inferiors at
all to be dreaded — relieved from the superintendence of the
metropolitans and of the councils, rejecting the influence of
the priests — a crowd of bishops were seen yielding themselves
up to the most scandalous excesses. Masters of the ever in-
creasing wealth of the church, ranking amongst the great

> Council of Toledo, in G38, c. 33 * About :*

* Council of Toledo, in 646, c. 4.

278 HISTORY OF

landed proprietors, they adopted their interests and their man
ners ; they relinquished their ecclesiastical character and led
a wholly secular life ; they kept hounds and falcons, they wenl
from place to place surrounded by an armed retinue, the}
took part in the national warfare ; nay more, they undertook,
from time to time, expeditions of violence and rapine against
their neighbors on their own account. A crisis was inevita-
ble: everything prepared the necessity foi reformation, every •
thing proclaimed it, and you will -see that in point of fact,
snortly after the accession of the Carlovingians, an attempt
at reformation was made by the civil power, but the church
herself contained the germ of a remedy : side by side with
the secular clergy, there had been rising up another order,
influenced by other principles, animated with another spirit,
and which seemed destined to prevent that dissolution with
which the church was menaced ; I speak of the monks.
Their history from the sixth to the eighth century will be the
object of our next lecture.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 279

FOURTEENTH LECTURE

History of the regular clergy, or the monks, from the sixth to th«
eighth century — That the monks were at first laymen — Importance
of this fact — Origin and progressive development of the monastic
life in the east — First rules — Importation of the monks into the west
— They are ill received there — Their first progress — Difference be-
tween eastern and western monasteries — Opinion of Saint Jeron.e,
as to the errors of the monastic life — General causes of its extension
— State of the monks in the west in the fifth century — Their power
and their want of coherence — Saint Benedict — His life — He founds
the monastery of Monte Cassino — Analysis and estimate of his rule '
— It diffuses itself throughout the west, and becomes predominant
in almost all the monasteries there.

Since we resumed the history of religious society in Frank-
ish Gaul, we have considered : 1, the general dominant fact
which characterized the church from the sixth to the eighth
century — that is to say, its unity ; 2, its relations with the
state ; 3, its internal organization, the mutual position of the
governors and the governed, the constitution of the govern,
ment — that is to say, of the clergy.

We have seen that, towards the middle of the eighth cen-
tury, the government of the church, the clergy, had fallen
into a state of great disorder and decay. We have recog-
nized a crisis, the necessity for reformation ; I mentioned to
you that a principle of reform already existed in the bosom of
the clergy itself; I named the regular clergy, the monks ; it
is with their history of the same period that we are now about
to occupy ourselves.

The term, regular clergy, is calculated to produce an illu-
sory effect ; it gives one the idea that the monks have always
been ecclesiastics, have always essentially formed a part of
the clergy, and this is, in point of fact, the general notion
which has been applied to them indiscriminately, without re.
gard to time, or place, or to the successive modifications of the
institution. And not only are monks 'regarded as ecclesias-
tics, but they are by many people considered as, so to speak,
the most ecclesiastical of all ecclesiastics, as the most com-
pletely of all olerical bodies separated from civil society, as
the most estranged from its interests and from its manners.

28C HIST0KY OF

This, if I mistake not, is the impression which the mere men
tion of their name at present, and for a long time past, natu
rally arouses in the mind ; it is an impression full of error ;
at their origin, and for at least two centuries afterwards, the
monks were not ecclesiastics at all ; they were mere laymen,
united together indeed by a common religious creed, in a com-
mon religious sentiment, and with a common religious object,
but altogether apart from the ecclesiastical society, from the
clergy, especially so called.

And not only was such the nature of the institution at its
origin, but this primitive character, which is so generally un-
heeded, has prominently influenced its whole history, and
alone enables us to comprehend its vicissitudes. I have
.already made some remarks upon the establishment of monas-
teries in the west, more especially in the south of Gaul . I
will now, in renewing the subject, trace back the facts to their
remotest sources, and follow them more closely in their de-
velopment.

You are all aware it was in the east that the monks took
their rise. The form in which they first appeared, was very
different from that which they afterwards assumed, and in
which the mind is accustomed to view them. In the earlier
years of Christianity, a few men of more excitable imagina-
tions than their fellows, imposed upon themselves all sorts of
sacrifices and of extraordinary personal austerities ; this, how-
ever, was no Christian innovation, for we find it, not only in
a general tendency of human nature, but in the religious
manners of the entire east, and in several Jewish traditions.
The ascetes (this was the name first given to these pious
enthusiasts ; a^cty, exercises, ascetic life) were the first form
of monks. They did not segregate, in the first instance, from
civil society ; they di'.d not retire into the deserts : they only
condemned themselves to fasting, silence, to all sorts of aus-
terities, more especially to celibacy.

Soon afterwards they retired from the world : they went ic
live far from mankind, absolutely alone, amidst woods and
deserts, in the depths of the Theba'id. The ascetes became
hermits, anchorites ; this was the second form of the monastic
life.

AAer some time, from causes which have left no traces be-
hind them — yielding, perhaps, to the powerful attraction of
Borne more peculiarly celebrated hermit, of Saint Anthony,
for instance, or perhaps simply tired of complete isolation;

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 281

the anchorites collected together, built their huts side by side,
and while continuing to live each in his own abode, performed
their religious exercises together, and began to form a regular
community. It was at this time, as it would seem, that they
first received the name of monks.1

By and bye they made a further step ; instead of remaining
in separate huts, they collected in one edifice, under one roof :
the association was more closely knit, the common life more
complete. They became cenobites ;2 this was the fourth form
of the monastic institution, its definitive from, that to which
all its subsequent developments were to adapt themselves.

At about this period we see arising, for the conduct of
these houses of cenobites, for these monasteries, a certain dis-
cipline mutually agreed upon, certain written rules, directing ,
the exercises of these small societies, and laying down the
obligations of their members ; among these primitive rules
of the eastern monks, the most celebrated are those of Saint
Anthony, Saint Macharius, .Saint Hilarius, and Saint Paco-
mus ; all these rules are brief and general, directed to a few
leading circumstances of life, but without any pretension to
govern the whole life ; they are precepts, in fact, rather than
rules, customs, rather than laws. The ascetes, the hermits,
and the other different classes of monks, continued to subsist,
concurrently with the cenobites, in all the independence of
their first condition.

The spectacle of such a life, of so much rigidity and en-
thusiasm, of sacrifice and of liberty, strongly excited the
imagination of the people. The monks were multiplied with
a prodigious rapidity, and varied to infinity. As you may
suppose, I shall not enter into the detail of all the forms
which, under this name, were taken by the exaltation of the
faithful ; I shall only indicate the extreme terms, so to speak,
>f the career which it ran through, and its two effects, at once
•he most strange and the most various. While, under the
name of Messalians, or o^ira, numerous bands of fanatics
overran Mesopotamia, Armenia, &c, rejecting the legal wor-
ship, merely celebrating irregular spontaneous prayer, and
abandoning themselves in the towns, upon public plocesj to
all sorts of extravagances ; others, in order to separata th*oi.

> Monachus, povaxof, from povot, alone.
• Cenobitae, toivofltoi, from koivos, common,

and fiiof, life

282 HISTORY OF

pelves more completely from all human intercourse, esta.
blished themselves, after the example of Sair.t Simeon of
Antioch, on the summit of a column, and under the name of
stylites, devoted their life to this fantastical isolation; and
neither one nor the other were in want of admirers and
imitators.1

In the last half of the fourth century, the rule of Saint
Basil brought some regularity into the new institution.
Digested into the form of answers to questions of all kinds/
it soon became the general discipline of the monasteries of the
west — of all those, at least, which had neither any entirety nor
fixity. Such could not fail to be. the result of the influence
of the secular clergy over the monastic life, of which the most
illustrious bishops, Saint Athanasius, Saint Basil, Saint
Gregory Nazianzen, and numerous others, then declared
themselves the patrons. This patronage could not fail to
introduce into it more order and system. Still, the monaste-
ries remained purely lay associations — strangers to the clergy,
to its functions, to its rights. For the monks, there was no
ordination, no ecclesiastical engagements. Their dominant
characteristic was always religious exaltation and liberty.
They entered into the association, they went out from it, they
chose their own abode, their own austerities ; enthusiasm took
the form and entered the path which pleased it. The monks,
in a word, had nothing in common with the priests, except
their doctrines and the respect with which they inspired the
population.

Such was the state of the monastic institution in the east
at the last half of the fourth century. It was somewhere
about this period that it was introduced into the west. Saint
Athanasius, driven from his see, retired to Rome ;3 he took
there with him some monks, and there celebrated their virtues
and glory. His accounts, and the spectacle offered by the
first monks, or those who followed their example, were ill
received by the western population. Paganism was still
very strong in the west, especially in Italy. The superior
classes who had abandoned its doctrines wished at least to
preserve its manners, and a part of the inferior orders still

1 There were stylites in the east down to the twelfth century.
» It contained 203 questions, and as many answers.
• In 341.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 283

preserved its prejudices. The monks, at their first appear-
ance, were then an object of contempt and of anger. At the
funeral of Blesilla, a young Roman nun, who died, it was
said, from excessive fasting, in 384, the people cried : " When
will they drive this detestable race of monks from the town ?
Why do they not stone them ? Why don't they throw them
into the river ?" It is St. Jerome who records these popular
ebullitions.1

" In the cities of Africa," says Salvienus, " and more espe-
cially in Carthage, no sooner did a man in a cloak make his
appearance, pale, and with his head shaved, than the miser-
able infidel populace assailed him with curses and abuse ;
and if some servant of God, from the monasteries of Egypt, or
the holy city of Jerusalem, or the venerable retreat of some
hermitage, proceeded to that city to fulfil some pious duty, the
people pursued him with odious insults, ridiculing and hissing
him.2

I have already mentioned Rutilius Numatianus, a Gaulish
poet, who resided for a long time at Rome, and has left us a
poem, celebrating his return to his native country ; in the
course of this poem, he says, in reference to the Isle of
Gorgon a :

" I detest those rocks, scene of the recent shipwreck of one
I hold dear : it was there a fellow-townsman of my own de-
scended living into the tomb. He was one of our own nobles,
possessor of a splendid fortune, blessed in a happy and dig-
nified marriage ; but, impelled by madness, he abandoned
God and men, and now, a credulous exile, foolishly takes
delight in a foul retreat in this island. Unfortunate man,
who seeks celestial food amidst filthy garbage, and, more cruel
to himself than are his ofiended gods, persists in his miserable
solitude. This Christian sect, with its delusions, is more fatal
than are the poisons of Circe : these only change the body ;
that perverts the mind."3

Rutilius, I admit, was a pagan, but numbers of men in the
west were so too, and received the same impressions.

Meantime, the revolution which had filled the east with
monks, pursued its course in the west, bringing about gra-
dually the same results. Paganism after awhile disappeared,

» Letters to Paul, Lett. 22, al. 25.

• Jk Gtibernatione Dei, viii., 4. s Itin. i., 517.

284 HISTORY OF

and the new creed, the new manners, took possessior. of
society at large ; and the monastic life, as in the east, had
soon the greatest bishops for patrons, the whole population
for admirers. St. Ambrose at- Milan, St. Martin at Tours,
St. Augustin in Africa, celebrated its praises, and themselves
founded monasteries. St. Augustin drew up a sort of rule
for the nuns of his diocese, and ere long the institution was in
full vigor throughout the west.

It assumed there, however, from the outset, as I have
already had occasion to observe, a peculiar character. Un-
doubtedly the original desire was to imitate what had taken
place in the east, and minute inquiries were made into the
discipline and manners of the eastern monasteries ; a descrip-
tion of these, as you are aware, formed the materials of two
books, published at Marseilles by Cassienus ; and in the
establishment of many of the new monasteries, great pains
weie taken to conform to them. But the genius of the
western character differed far too widely from that of the
east for the difference not to be stamped upon the respective
regulations. The desire for retirement, for contemplation,
for a marked rupture with civil society, was the source and
fundamental trait of the eastern monks : in the west, on the
contrary, and especially in southern Gaul, where, at the
commencement of the fifth century, the principal monasteries
were founded, it was in order to live in common, with a view
to conversation as well as to religious edification, that the first
monks met. The monasteries of Lerens, of Saint Victor, and
many others, were especially great schools of theology, the
focuses of intellectual movement. It was by no means with
solitude or with mortification, but with discussion and activity,
that they there concerned themselves.

And not only was this diversity of situation and turn of
mind in the east and west real, but contemporaries them-
selves observed it, paid attention to it ; and in laboring to
extend the monastic institution in the west, clear-sighted
men took care to say that it was not necessary to servilely
imitate the east, and to explain the reasons why. In point of
fasts and austerities, the rules of the western monasteries
were, in general, less rigid. " Much eating," said Sulpicius
Severus, " is gormandizing among the Greeks, natural among
the Gauls."1

1 Sulp. Sev., Dial, i., 8.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 283

" The rigor of winter," says Cassien also, " does not permit
us to be contented with light stockings, nor with a coat with-
out sleeves, nor with a mere tunic ; and he who shall present
himself clothed in a small cloak, or in a thin mantle of goat's
hair, will be laughed at instead of edifying.'51

Another cause no less contributed to give a new direction
to the monastic institution in the west. It was only in the
first half of the fifth century that it spread and really esta-
blished itself there. Now, at this epoch, the monasteries of the
east had already taken their full development ; a.11 the extrava-
gances of ascetic exaltation had already there given a spec-
tacle to the world. The great bishops of the west, the chiefs
of the church and of mind in Europe, whatever their religious
ardor, were struck by these excesses of the rising monachism,
the acts of folly to which it led, the vices which it often covered.
Certainly no native of the west had more religious enthu-
siasm, a more lively, more oriental imagination, nor a more
fiery character, than Saint Jerome. He was, however, by no
means blind to the faults and dangers of the monastic life,
such as it was offered by the east. I will read some pas-
sages in which he expresses his thoughts upon this subject ;
they are among the number of the most interesting docu
ments of the period, and which give us the best information
upon it. " There are monks," says he, " who, from the
dampness of the cells, from immoderate fasts, from the weari.
ness of solitude, from excess of reading, fall into melancholy,
and have more need of the remedies of Hippocrates, than
of our advice ... I have seen persons of both sexes, in whom
the understanding has been affected with too much abstinence,
especially among those who live in cold and damp cells ;
they no longer knew what they did, nor how to conduct
themselves, nor when they should speak, nor when keep
silence,"2

And elsewhere : —

(< I have seen men who, renouncing the age only in habits
and name, have changed nothing of their old way of life.
Their fortune is rather increased than diminished. They
have the same cohorts of slaves, the same pomp of banquets.

l Cassien, de Instil, canob., 1. ii.

a Saint Jerome, lett. 93 (a/. 4), ad Rustic.um, 97 (a/. 8), ad D#-
metriadem.

27

286 HISTORY OF

It is gold that they eat upon miseiable diehes of delf 01
clay ; and amid the swarms of their servants, they have them-
selves called solitaries."1

" Avoid also men whom thou shalt see loaded with chains,
with the beard of a goat, a black cloak, and feet naked in
spite of cold . . . They enter into the houses of the nobles' •
they deceive poor women loaded with sins ; they are always
learning, and never arrive at the knowledge of truth ; they
feign sorrow, and, apparently abandoned to long fasts, they
make amends at night by secret feasts."2

And again : —

" I blush to say it, from the bottom of our cells we condemn
the world ; while rolling in sackcloth and ashes, we pronounce
our sentences upon bishops. What means this pride of a
king under the tunic of a penitent ? . . . . Pride quickly
creeps into solitude : that man has fasted a little ; he has
seen no one ; he already thinks himself a weighty personage ;
he forgets what he is, whence he came, where he goes ; and
his heart and language already wander on all sides. Contrary
to the will of the apostle, he judges other people's servants ;
he goes wherever his gluttony leads him ; he sleeps as long
and as often as he pleases ; he respects no one ; he does what-
ever he chooses ; he looks down on every one else as inferior
from himself ; he is oftener out in the town than in his cell,
and while he affects retiring modesty amongst his brethren,
in the publio streets he thrusts himself against any pas-
senger."3

Thus, the most impassioned, the most enthusiastic of tue
fathers of the west was not unacquainted either with the
insanity, hypocrisy, or the intolerable pride which from that
time the monastic life gave birth to ; and characterized them
with that indignant good sense, that satirical and passionate
eloquence which is his characteristic ; and he denounced them
loudly, for fear of the contagion.

Many of the most illustrious bishops of the west, Saint
Augustin among others, had the same foresight, and wrote in
the same strain ; they also applied themselves to the preven.

1 Saint Jerome, lett. 95 (al. 7), ad Rusticum.
9 Saint Jerome, lett. 18 (al. 22), ad Eustoehium.
3 Saint Jerome, lett. 15 (al. 77), adMarcum; 97 (al. 4), ad Rut
ticum.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 287

Hon of the absurd extravagances into which the monks ot
the east had failen. But in attending to this, in marking
the insanity or hypocrisy of which the monastic life served as
the groundwork, they incessantly labored to propagate it.
It was a means for them of drawing away from pagan civil
society, always the same in fact, despite its apparent con-
versation, a portion of the laity. Without entering into the
clergy, the monks followed the same path, served the same
influence ; the patronage of the bishops could not be wanting
to them. Had it been wanting to them, their progress pro-
bably would not have been diminished. It was not to any
ecclesiastical combination, nor even to the movement and the
particular direction that Christianity might impress upon
men's imaginations, that the monastic life owed its origin.
The general state of society at this epoch, was its true source.
It was tainted with three vices, idleness, corruption, and un-
happiness. Men were unoccupied, perverted, and a prey to all
kinds of miseries ; this is the reason that we find so many
turning monks. A laborious, honest, or happy people, would
never have entered into this life. When human nature could
not fully and harmoniously display itself, when man could not
pursue the true aim of his destiny, it was then that his de-
velopment became eccentric, and that, rather than accept
ruin, he ca6t himself, at all risks, into the strangest situations.
In order to live and act in a regular and reasonable manner,
mankind requires that the facts, in the midst of which it lives
and acts, should be, to a certain degree, reasonable, regular ;
that its faculties should find employment, that its condition
should not be too austere, that the spectacle of general cor-
ruption and abasement should not rebel against, should not
desolate strong souls, in which morality cannot be deadened.
The weariness, the disgust at an enervated perversity, and
the desire to fly from the public miseries, is what made the
monks of the east far more than the particular character of
Christianity or an access of religious exaltation. These same
circumstances existed in the west ; Italian, Gaulish, African
society, amidst the fall of the Empire, and the devastations of
the barbarians, was as unhappy, as depraved, as idle, as that
of Asia Minor or Egypt. The true causes of the continual
extension of the monastic life were, therefore, the same in
both countries, an.1 must have produced in them the *ame
effects.

Despite the diveisitics which I have remarked, the simili-

288 HISTORY OF

tude was also very great, and the compels of the most illustri-
ous bishops did not prevent the extravagances of the monks
of the east from finding imitators in the west. Neither her-
mits, recluses, nor any of the pious follies of the ascetic life
were wanting in Gaul. Saint Senoch, a barbarian by birth,
retired into the environs of Tours, inclosed himself within
four walls, so close together, that he could make no movemenl
with the lower part of his person, and lived many years in
this situation, an object of veneration to the surrounding popu-
lation.

The recluses, Caluppa in Auvergne, Patroclus in the terri-
tory of Langres, Hospitius in Provence, were not quite so ad-
mirable ; still their celebrity was great, as were their austeri-
ties.1 Even the stylites had competitors in the west ; and the
account which Gregory of Tours has left us concerning them,
paints the manners of the times with so much truth and inte-
rest, that I must read it to you entire. Gregory gives an ac-
count of his own conversation with the monk Wulfilaich, doubt-
less a barbarian, as his name indicates, and who was the first
in the west to attempt setting up as a rival for Saint Simeon
of Antioch.

" I went into the territory of Treves," says Wulfilaich to
Gregory ; " * I there constructed, with my own hands, upon
this mountain, the little dwelling which you see. I found
there an image of Diana, which the people of the place, still
infidels, adored as a divinity. I raised a column upon which
I remained with great suffering, and without any kind of
shoes or stockings ; and when the winter season arrived, I
was so affected with the rigors of the frost, that very often the
nails have fallen from my feet, and frozen water has hung
from my beard in the form of candles ; for this country has
the reputation of often having very severe winters.' We ear-
nestly asked him to say what was his nourishment and drink,
and how he had overthrown the idol of the mountain ; he
said — ' My food was a little bread and herbs, and a small
quantity of water. But a large number of people from the
neighboring villages began to flock towards me ; I continually
preached to them that Diana did not exist ; that the idol and
the other objects to which they thought it their duty to ad-
dress worship, were absolutely nothing. I also repeated to

1 See Gregory of Tours, vol. i., p. 231, 312, in my Collection da
Mfanoires relatifs a V Histoire de France.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 289

them that those canticles which they usually sang while
drinking, and amidst their debaucheries, were unworthy of
the Divinity, and that it would be far better if they offered
the sacrifices of their praises to the all-powerful God who made
heaven and earth ; I also often prayed the Lord to deign to
overthrow the idol, and draw these people from their errors.
The mercy of the Lord worked upon those gross minds, and
disposed them, lending an ear to my words, to quit their idols,
and follow the Lord. I assembled some of them, in order that
I might, with their help, thrown down the immense image
which I could not destroy by my own strength. I had alrea-
dy broken the other idols, which was more easy. Many as-
sembled around the statue of Diana; they threw cords around
it, and began to pull ; but all their efforts could not break it.
I then went to the cathedral, threw myself upon the ground,
and with tears implored the Divine mercy to destroy by the
powers of Heaven, what earthly efforts did not suffice to throw
down. After my prayer I left the cathedral, and immediately
returned to the laborers ; I toolc the cord, and we immediately
recommenced pulling. At the first effort the idol fell to the
ground ; it was afterwards broken, and reduced to powder by
iron mallets I felt disposed to return to my ordi-
nary way of life ; but the bishops, who wished to strengthen
me, in order that I might continue more perfectly the work
which I had commenced, came to me and said : — ' The way
that you have chosen is not the right way ; you are unwor-
thy, and cannot be compared with Saint Simeon of Antioch,
who lived upon his column. Besides, the situation of the
place does not permit of a like amount of suffering ; descend
rather, and live with the brothers that you have assembled.'
At these words, that I might not be accused of disobedience
towards the bishop, I descended, and I went with them, and
also took some repast with them. One day, the bishop having
despatched me to some distance from the village, sent laborers
with hatchets, chisels, and hammers, and threw down the
column on which I used to live. When I returned the next
day, I found all destroyed ; 1 wept bitterly ; but I did not
wish to re-establish what was destroyed, for fear of being ac-
cused of going against the orders of the bishops ; and from
that time I have remained here, and contented myself with
living with my brothers.' "'

1 Greg, of Tours, vol. i., p. 440 — 444.

290 HISTORY OF

All is equally remarkable in this account, bolh the oner
getic devotion and the inward enthusiasm of the hermit, and
the good sense, perhaps with a touch of jealousy, of the
bishops ', we meet in it at once the influence of the east, and
the peculiar character of the west. And as the bishop of
Treves repressed the insanity of the stylites, so Saint Au-
gustin assailed hypocrisy wandering under the monkish
cloak.

" The subtle enemy of mankind," says he, " has every-
where dispersed hypocrites under the features of monks ; they
overrun the provinces, where no one has sent them, wander-
ing in every direction, not establishing themselves, staying
nowhere. Some go about selling relics of martyrs ; that is to
say, if they be relics of martyrs ; others show their robes and
their phylacteries I"1

I might cite many other examples in which this two-fold
fact, the resemblance and the difference of the east and the
west, is likewise marked. Amidst these eccentricities, through
these alternations of folly and wisdom, the progress of the mo-
nastic institution continued ; the number of monks went on
increasing ; they wandered or became fixed, they excited the
nation by their preachings, or edified it by the spectacle of
their life. From day to day they received greater admira-
tion and respect ; the idea became established that this was
the perfection of Christian conduct. They were proposed as
models for the clergy ; already some of them had been or-
dained, in order to make them priests or even bishops ; and
yet they were still laity, preserving a great degree of liberty,
contracting no kind of religious engagement, always distinct
from the clergy, often even purposely separating from it.

" It is the ancient advice of the fathers," says Cassien,
" advice which endures, that a monk, at any cost, must fly
bishops and women, for neither women nor bishops allow a
monk who has once become familiar with them, to rest in
peace in his cell, nor to fix his eyes on pure and celestial doc-
trine, contemplating holy things."2

So much liberty and power, so strong an influence over the
people and such an absence of general forms, of regular or-
ganization, could not fail to give rise to great disorder. The

1 Saint Augustin, de Opera Monac, c. 28.
• Cassien, de Instit. ccenob., xi. 17-,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 29J

necessity of putting an end to it, of assembling these missiona.
ries, these solitaries, these recluses, these cenobites, who
every day became more numerous, and were neither of the
Deople nor the clergy, under a common government, under
one discipline, was strongly felt.

Towards the end of the fifth century, in 480, there was born
in Italy, at Nursia, in the duchy of Spoleto, of a wealthy and
considerable family, the man destined to resolve this problem,
to give to the monks of the west the general rule for which
they waited ; I speak of Saint Benedict. At the age of twelve
years he was sent to Rome to prosecute his studies. This
was the time of the fall of the Empire, and the great troubles
of Italy ; the Heruli and the Ostrogoths disputed for its pos-
session ; Theodoric drove out Odoacer ; Rome was incessantly
taken, re-taken, threatened. In 494, Benedict, scarcely
twelve years of age, left it with Cyrilla, his nurse ; and a
short time afterwards, we find him a hermit in the depths of
a cavern, at Subiaco, in the Campagna di Roma.

As to why this child retired there, how he lived, nothing is
known ; for his legend, our only account, places at every step
a moral wonder, or a miracle, properly so called. However
this may have been, at the end of a certain period, the life of
Benedict, his youth and his austerities, attracted the shepherds
of the neighborhood ; he preached to them ; and the power
of his word and the authority of his example, the always
numerous concourse of auditors, soon rendered him celebrated.
In 510, the neighboring monks of Vicovaro wished to
have him for their chief; he at first refused, telling the
monks that their conduct was disorderly, that they abandoned
themselves in their house to all kinds of excesses, that they
should undertake reformation and submit themselves to a very
severe rule. They persisted, and Benedict became abbot of
Vicovaro.

He, in effect, undertook with invincible energy the refor-
mation which he had spoken of ; as he had foreseen, the monks
were soon tired of a reformer. The struggle between them
and him became so violent thai they attempted to poison him
in the chalice. He perceived it by a miracle, says the legend ;
quitted the monastery, and retook to his hermit life at
Subiaco.

His renown spread far ; not only the shepherds, but laymen
of every condition, and wandering monks, assembled to live
near him. Equitius and Tertullus, noble Romans, sent thei*

292 histor/ of

sons, Maurus and Placidus to him ; Maurus at the age of
twelve, Placidus quite an infant. He founded monasteries
around his cavern. In 520, it appears that he had founded
twelve, each composed of twelve monks, in which he began to
try the ideas and institutions by which, in his opinion, the
monastic life should be regulated.,

,But the same spirit of insubordination and jealousy which
had driven him from the monastery of Vicovaro was soon
manifested in those which he had himself just founded. A
monk named Florentius raised up enemies against him, laid
snares for him. Benedict was irritated, and a second time
renounced the struggle, and, taking some of his disciples,
among others, Maurus and Placidus, he retired, in 528, to
the frontiers of the Abruzzi and the Terra di Lavoro, near
Cassino.

He there found what the hermit Wulfilaiich, whose history I
have just mentioned, found near Treves, paganism still in ex-
istence, and the temple and statue of Apollo standing on
Mount Cassino, a hill which overlooks the town. Benedict
overthrew the temple and the statue, extirpated paganism,,
collected numerous disciples, and founded a new monastery.

It was here, where he remained and ruled to the end of his
life, that he entirely applied himself to, and published, his
Rules of Monastic Life. It soon became, as every one knows,
the general, and almost only law of the monks of the west.
It was by this rule of Saint Benedict that the western monas-
tical institution was reformed, and received its definitive form.
Let us stop here, then, ana examine with some care this small
code of a society which has played so important a part in the
history of Europe.

The author commences by explaining the state of the
western monks at this epoch ; that is to say, at the beginning
of the sixth century :

" It is well known," says he, " that there are four kinds
of monks ; firstly, the cenobites, those who live in a monas-
tery, under a ruler or abbot. The second kind is that of the
anchorites, that is to say, hermits ; those who, not from the
fervor of a novice, but by long proof of the monastic life
have already learned, to the great profit of many people, to
combat against the devil, and who, well prepared, go out
aione from the army of their brothers to engage in a single

combat The third kind of monks is that of the

tardbaites, who, not being tried by any rule, nor by any

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 293

..essons of experience, as gold is tried in the furnace, and
similar rather to the soft nature of lead, by their works keep
fealty to the age, and lie to God by their tonsure. We meet
these to the number of two, three, or more, without pastor, not
caring about the sheep of the Lord,* but merely their own
particular flock ; their law is their desire ; what they think
or prefer, that they call holy ; what does not please them they
Bay is not permitted. The fourth kind is that of the monks
who are called gyrovagi, who, during their whole life, inhabit
various cells for three or four days, in various provinces,
always wandering — never settled, obeying the bent of their
luxuries and the debaucheries of gormandizing, and in every
respect worse than the saraba'ites. It is much better to hold
our peace than to speak of their miserable way of life : pass-
ing them in silence, let us, with God's aid, regulate the strong
association of the cenobites."

The facts thus established, the rule of Saint Benedict is
divided into seventy-three chapters, namely :

Nine chapters concerning the moral and general duties of
the brothers ;

Thirteen concerning religious duties and offices ;

Twenty-nine concerning discipline, faults, penalties, &c. ;

Ten concerning the internal government and administra-
tion;

Twelve concerning various subjects, as guests, brothers
travelling, &c. ;

That is, — 1. nine chapters on the moral code; 2. thirteen
on the religious ; 3. twenty-nine of the penal code or disci-
pline ; 4. ten of the political code ; 5. twelve upon various
subjects.

Let us take each of these small codes, and see what prin-
ciples dominate in them, what was the meaning and compass
of the reformation which their author brought about.

1. With regard to the moral and general duties of monks,
the .points upon which the whole rule of Saint Benedict rests
are, self-denial, obedience, and labor. Some of the monks of
the west had often endeavored to introduce labor into their
life ; but the attempt had never become general, was never
followed up. This was the great revolution which Saint
Benedict made in the monastic institution ; he especially in-
troduced manual and agricultural labor into it. The Bene-
dictine monks were the agriculturists of Europe ; thej
cleared it on a large scale, associating agriculture with

294 HISTORY OF

preaching. A colony, a swarm of monks, not very nume.
rous at first, transported themselves into uncultivated places,
or almost so, often into the midst of a still pagan population,
into Germany, for example, or Brittany ; and there, at once
missionaries and laborers, they accomplished their two-fold
task, often attended with as much danger as fatigue. This is
how Saint Benedict regulated the employment of the day in
his monasteries ; you will see that labor there occupied a
great place :

' Laziness is the enemy of the soul, and consequently the
brothers should, at certain times, occupy themselves in manual
labor ; at others, in holy reading. We think that this should
be thus regulated. From Easter to the month of October,
after the first prime, they should work, nearly to the fourth
hour, at whatever may be necessary : from the fourth hour,
nearly to the sixth, they shall apply themselves to reading.
After the sixth hour, on leaving the table, they shall repose
quietly in their beds : or if any one wishes to read, let him
read, but in such a manner as not to disturb others : and let
nones be said at the middle of the eighth hour. Let them
work till vespers at whatever there may be to do ; and if the
poverty of the place, necessity, or the harvest keep them con-
stantly employed, let them not mind that, for they are truly
monks if they live by manual labor, as our brothers the
apostles did ; but let everything be done with moderation, for
Lie sake of the weak.

"From the month of October, until the beginning of Lent,
^i, them be occupied in reading until the second hour ; at
Jie second let them sing tierce, and until nones let all work
at what is enjoined them ; at the first stroke of nones let
them quit work, and be ready the moment the second stroke
shall sound. After repast, let them read or recite the
psalms.

" During Lent, let them read from the morning until the
third hour, and let them then work as they shall be ordered,
until the tenth hour. During Lent, all shall receive books
from the library, which they shall read one after another all
through. These books shall be given at the commencement
of Lent. Especially let one or two ancients be chosen to go
through the monastery at the hours when the brothers are
occupied in reading, and let them see if they find any negli-
gent brother who abandons himself to repose, or to conversa-
tion, who in no way applies himself to reading, who is not

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 295

only useless to himself, but who distracts the others. If one of
the kind is found, let him be reprimanded once or twice ; if ho
do not amend, let him be subjected to the regulated correction,
in order to intimidate the others. On Sunday let all be occu-
pied in reading, except those who are selected for various
functions. If any one be negligent or lazy, so that he neither
wishes nor is able to meditate or read, let some labor be en-
joined upon him, so that he may not remain doing nothing.
As regards infirm or delicate brothers, let some work or em-
ployment be imposed, so that they may neither be lazy nor

loaded with the severity of the work Their weakness

should be taken into consideration by the abbot.'"'1

Together with labor, Saint Benedict prescribes passive
obedience of the monks to their superiors : a rule less new,
and which prevailed also among the monks of the east, but
which he laid down in a much more express manner, and
more vigorously developing its consequences. It is impossi-
ble, in studying the history of European civilization, not to be
astonished at the part which' is there played by this idea, and
not curiously to seek its origin. Of a surety, Europe re-
ceived it neither from Greece, ancient Rome, the Germans,
nor from Christianity, properly so called. It began to appear
under the Roman empire, and arose out of the worship of the
imperial majesty. But it was in the monastic institution that
it was truly aggrandized and developed ; it is from thence
that it set out to spread itself into modern civilization. That
is the fatal present that the monks made to Europe, and
which so long altered or enervated its virtues. This princi-
ple is incessantly repeated in the rule of St. Benedict. Many
chapters, entitled, De obedientia, de humilitate, fyc, announce
and comment upon it in detail. Here are two which will
show to what a point the rigor of application was pressed.
Chapter sixty-eight, entitled, If a brother is ordered to any-
thing impossible, is thus expressed :

" If by chance anything difficult or impossible be imposed
upon a brother, let him receive with all mildness and obedi-
ence the command which is imposed upon him. If he sees
that the thing entirely surpasses the extent of his power, let
him explain fitly and patiently to his superior the reason of
the impossibility, not inflamed with pride, not resisting, not

Reg. S. Bened., c 48.

296 HISTORY ( F

contradicting. If, after his observation, the prior persists
in his opinion and his command, let the disciple know that
it ought to be so, and, confiding in the aid of God, let him
obey.7'

Chapter sixty-nine is entitled, That in a monastery no one
must defend another, and goes on to say : —

" It is necessary to be very careful that, upon no pretext,
a monk dare in the monastery defend another, or, so to speak,
protect him, even when he shall be related by the ties of
blood ; let this in no manner be dared by the monks, be-
cause it might lead to grave and scandalous occurrences.
If any one transgress in this, let him be severely repri-
manded."

Self-denial is the natural consequence of passive obedience.
Whoever is bound to obey absolutely, and on every occasion,
exists not; all personality is torn from him. The rule of
Saint Benedict formally establishes the interdiction of all
property a i well as all personal will.

" It is especially necessary to extirpate from the monastery,
and unto the very root, the vice of any one possessing any-
thing in particular. Let no person dare to give or receive
without the order of the abbot, nor have anything of his own
peculiar property, not a book, nor tablets, nor a pen, nor any.
thing whatsoever ; for it is not permitted them even to have
their body and their will under their own power."1

Can individuality be more completely abolished ?

2. I shall not detain you with the thirteen chapters which
regulate worship and the religious offices ; they do not give
rise to any important observation.

3. Those which treat of discipline and penalties, on the
contrary, require our best attention. It is here that perhaps
the most considerable of the changes brought about by Saint
Benedict into the monastic institution appears, the introduc-
tion of solemn and perpetual vows. Hitherto, although the
entering into the monastery gave reason to presume the in-
tention of rerr jning there, although the monk contracted a
kind of iv ,af obligation which daily tended to take great
fixity, stiii no vow, no formal engagement, was yet pronounced.
It wus Saint Benedict who introduced them, and made them
the basis of the monastic life, of which the primitive charac-

1 Reg. S. Bened., c. 33.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 297

ler thus entirely disappeared. This character was exaltation
and liberty ; perpetual vows, which could not long delay
being placed under the care of the public power, substituted
a law, an institution.

" Let him who is to be received," say3 the rule of Saint
Benedict, " promise in the oratory, before God and his Saints,
the perpetuity of his stay, the reformation of his manners and
obedience. Let a deed be made of this promise, in the name
of the saints whose relics are deposited there, and in presence
of the abbot. Let him write this deed with his own hand,
or, if he cannot write, let another, at his request, write it for
him, and let the novice put a cross to it, and with his own
hand deposit the deed upon the altar."1

The word novice reveals another innovation to us ; a novi-
ciate was, in fact," the natural consequence of the perpetuity
of vows, and Saint Benedict, who, to an exalted imagination
and an ardent character, joined much good sense, and practical
sagacity, failed not to prescribe it. Its duration was more
than a year. They read by degrees the whole rule to the
novice, saying to him : " Here is the law under which you
wish to strive ; if you can observe it, enter ; if you cannot,
go freely." Upon the whole, the conditions and forms of
trial are evidently conceived in a spirit of sincerity, and with
the intention of being well assured that the will of the can-
didate was real and strong.

4. As regards the political code, the government itself of
the monasteries, the rule of Saint Benedict offers a singular
mixture of despotism and liberty. Passive obedience, as you
have just seen, fe its fundamental principle ; at the same time
the government is elective ; the abbot is always chosen by
the brothers. When once this choice is made, they lose all
liberty, they fall under the absolute dominion of their su-
perior, but of the superior whom they have elected, and of
no other.

Moreover, in imposing obedience on the monks, the rule
orders that the abbot consult them. Chapter III., entitled
Tliat the advice of the brothers must be taken, expressly says:

" Whenever anything of importance is to take place in the
monastery, let the abbot convoke the whole congregation,
•nd say what the question is, and after having heard the

• Reg. S. Bened., c. 5S

298 HISTORY OF

advice of the brothers, he shall think of it apart, and shall do
as appears to him most suitable. We say call all the brothers
to the council, because God often reveals by the youngest
what is most valuable. Let the brothers give their advice
in all submission, and let them not venture to defend it ob-
stinately ; let the affair depend upon the will of the abbot,
and let all obey what he thinks beneficial. But as it is suit-
able that the disciple should obey the master, so it is desira-
ble that the latter should regulate all things with prudence
and justice. Let the rule be followed in everything, and let
no one dare to break it.

" If trifling things are to be done in the interior of the
monastery, let them take the advice of the ancients alone."

Thus in this singular government, election, deliberation,
and absolute power were coexistent.

5. The chapters which treat of various subjects have
nothing remarkable, except a character of good sense and
mildness, which is also seen in many other parts of the rule,
and with which it is impossible not to be struck. The moral
thought and general discipline of it are severe ; but, in the
details of life, it is humane and moderate ; more humane,
more moderate than the Roman law, than the barbaric laws,
than the general manners of the times. I do not doubt but
that the brothers, confined within a monastery, were governed
by an authority upon the whole more reasonable, and in a
manner less severe, than they would have been in civil
society.

Saint Benedict was so impressed with the necessity for a
mild and moderate rule, that the preface which he has annexed
to it finishes with these words :

" We wish thus to institute a school for the service of the
Lord, and we hope we have not put into this institution any-
thing harsh or painful ; but if, after the council of equity,
anything for the correction of vice, or maintenance of charity,
is found in it which is rather toe harsh, do not, alarmed at
that, flee the path of salvation ; at its commencement it is
always narrow ; but by the progress of a regular life, and
faith, the heart dilates, and runs with an ineffable sweetness
into the way of God's commandments."

It was in 528 that Saint Benedict gave forth his rule : in
543, the time of his death, it had already spread into all parts
©f Europe. Saint Placidus carried it into Sicily, others into
Spain. Saint Maurus, the cherished disciple of Saint Bene-

CIVILIZATION IK FRANCE. 299

diet, introduced it into France. At the request of Innocent,
bishop of Mans, he set out from Mount Cassino at the end of
the year 542, while Saint Benedict still lived. When he
arrived at Orleans, in 543, Saint Benedict no longer lived,
but the institution did not the less pursue its course. The
first monastery founded by Saint Maur was that of Glanfeuil,
in Anjou, or Saint Maur-sur-Loire. At the end of the sixth
century, the greater part of the French monasteries had
adopted the same rule ; it had become the general system of
the monastic order, so that towards the end of the eighth
century, Charlemagne caused it to be asked in the various
parts of his empire, if there existed any other kind of monks
than those of the order of Saint Benedict ?

We have as yet not studied more than half, so to speak, of
the revolutions of the monastic institutions at this epoch, their
internal revolutions, the changes in the regime and legislation
of monasteries, their relations on the one hand with the state,
on the other with the clergy, their situation in civil society,
and in ecclesiastical society. This will form the subject of
our next lecture.

300 HISTORY OF

FIFTEENTH LECTURE.

The relations of the monks with the clergy, from the fourth to the
eighth century — Their primitive independence — Causes of its de-
cline— 1. In proportion as the number and the power of the monks
were augmented, the bishops extended their jurisdiction over them
— Canons of the councils — 2. The monks demand and obtain privi-
leges— 3. They aspire to enter into the clergy — Differences and con
tests among the monks themselves upon this subject — The bishops-
at first repulse their pretensions — They give way to them — In en-
tering into the clergy the monks lose their independence — Tyranny
of the bishops over the monasteries — Resistance of the ' monks-
Charters granted by the bishops to some monasteries — The monk;
have recourse to the * protection of the kings, to that of the popes-
Character and lini'" ^ of the intervention — Similarity between the
struggle of the m' uasteries against the bishops and that of the com-
mons against the feudal lords.

We have studied the internal system of monasteries from
the fourth to the eighth century ; at present let us occupy our-
selves with their external condition in the church in general,
with their relations with the clergy.

As people have been deceived as to the internal state and
system of monasteries, by forgetting the primitive character
of monks, who were at first laymen and not ecclesiastics, so
have they been greatly deceived concerning their situation in
the church, by forgetting their equally primitive character,
which was liberty, independence. <

The foundation of a great number of monasteries belonged
to an epoch, when the monks were already, and for a long
time had been, incorporated with the clergy ; many were
founded by a patron, lay or ecclesiastical, sometimes a bishop,
sometimes a king, or a great nobleman ; and we see them,
from their very origin, subject to an authority to which they
owed their existence.

It is supposed that it had always been thus, that all the mo-
nasteries had been the creation of some will foreign and supe-
rior to that of the congregation itself, and which, more or less,
had retained its influence. This is entirely to overlook the
Drimitive situation of these establishments, and the true mode
of their formation.

The first monasteries were not founded by any one, — they

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 301

founded themselves. They were not, as at a later period,
(he pious work of some rich and powerful man who was de-
sirous of building an edifice, joining a church to it, endowing
it, and calling other men to it, in order that they might there
lead a religious life. The monastical associations formed
themselves spontaneously, among equals, by the impulsive
movement of soul, and without any other aim than that of
satisfying it. The monks preceded the monastery, its edifices,
its church, its endowment ; they united, each of his own will,
and on his own account, without depending upon any one be-
yond, as free as they were disinterested.

In meeting, they naturally found themselves, in all that re-
lated to manners, to doctrines, to religious practices, placed
under the inspection of the bishops. The secular clergy ex-
isted before the monasteries ; it was organized ; it had rights,
a recognized authority ; the monks were subject to it, like
other Christians. The moral and religious life of the faithful
was the object of episcopal inspection and censure ; that of
the monks was in the same case : the bishop was not invested
with any jurisdiction with regard to them, with any particu-
lar authority ; they were in the general condition of the
laity — living, however, in great independence, electing their
superiors, administering the property which they possessed
in common, without any obligation to any one, without any
burden upon any one, governing themselves, in a word, as
they chose.

Their independence, and the analogy between their situa-
tion and the rest of the laity was such, that they had no par-
ticular church, for instance, no church attached to their
monastery, no priest who celebrated Divine service for them
especially ; they went to the church of the neighboring city
or parish, like all the faithful, united to the mass of the popu-
lation.

This was the primitive state of the monasteries, the start-
ing point of their relations with the clergy. They did not
long remain there : many causes soon concurred to change
their independence, and unite them more intimately with the
ecclesiastical corporation. Let us attempt to recognize them,
and to mark the various degrees of their transition.

The number and power of the monks continually increased.
When I say power, I speak of their influence, their moral
action on the public : for power, properly so called, legal,
constituted power, the monks were entirely without : but their

LIBRARY

STAT* TFft€!'EITS C*t' EGE

SA TA 1 ARB* RA Pine aui.

302 HISTORY OF

influence was daily more visible and more strong. For this
reason alone, they attracted a more assiduous and attentive
inspection on the part of the bishops, The clergy very quick-
ly understood that it had in them, either formidable rivals, 01
useful instruments. They applied themselves, therefore, at
an early period, to confine them, and to make use of them
The ecclesiastical history of the fifth century attests tbe
continual efforts of the bishops to extend and to confirm their
jurisdiction over the monks. The general inspection which
they had a right to exercise over all the faithful, furnisht d
them with a thousand occasions and means. The very liber-
ty enjoyed by the monks lent them aid, for it gave rise to many
disorders ; and the episcopal authority was, of all others, most
naturally called upon to interfere for their repression. It in-
terposed, therefore, and the acts of the councils of the fifth
century abound in canons, whose only object is to confirm and
establish the jurisdiction of the bishops over monasteries.
The most fundamental is a canon of the oecumenical council
held at Chalcedonia, in 451, and which enacts :

" Those who have sincerely and really embraced the soli-
tary life shall be suitably honored ; but as some, under the
appearance and name of monks, disturb civil and ecclesiasti-
cal affairs, overrunning towns, and attempting even to insti-
tute monasteries for themselves, it has pleased us to order that
no one build or found a monastery without the consent of the
bishop.

" Monks, in every city or district, shall be subject to the
bishop, remain tranquil, only apply themselves to fastings and
prayer, and remain in ths place where they have renounced
the world. Let them not meddle with ecclesiastical and civil
affairs, and interfere in nothing out of doors, and not quit
their monasteries, unless, for some necessary work, it be so
ordered by the bishop of the city."1

This text proves that, hitherto, the greater part of the mo-
nasteries were freely founded by the monks themselves ; but
this fact was already considered as an abuse, and the authori-
ty of the bishop was formally required. Its necessity, in
fact, became a law, and we read in the canons of the council
of Agde, held in 506 :

" We forbid that new monasteries be founded without the
consent of the bishop."2

In 511, the council of Orleans orders :

1 Council of Chalcedonia, in 451, c. 4. a Ib.,c. 58

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 303

" Let the abbots, according to the humility which is suita-
ble to the religious life, be subject to the power of the bishops ;
and if they do anything against the rule, let them be repri-
manded by the bishops ; and being convoked, they shall meet
once a year in the place chosen by the bishop."1

Here the bishop goes further, he makes himself the ruling
minister even in the interior of monasteries ; it was not from
him that they held it ; he was not the monastical legislative
power ; but he took the right of surveying the execution of
the law there.

The same council adds : " Let no monk, abandoning,
through ambition or vanity, the congregation of the monas-
tery, dare to construct a separate cell without the permission
of the bishop, or the consent of the abbot."8

New progress of the episcopal authority : hermits, ancho-
rites, recluses, attracted more admiration and popular favor
than the cenobites; the most zealous monks were always
disposed to quit the interior, of the monasteries in order to
give themselves up to these proud austerities. For some
time no authority interfered to prevent it, not even that of
the abbot ; you now see the repressive power sanctioned, not
only that of the abbot, but of the bishop ; he, too, charged
both with keeping the monks within the interior of the house,
and with repressing the external effects of exaltation.

In 352, a new council of Orleans decrees :

" Let abbots who slight the orders of the bishops, not be
admitted, unless they humbly retract this rebellion."3

And a year afterwards :

" Let the monastery and the discipline of monks be under
ihe authority of the bishop of the district in which they are
situated.

" Let it not be permitted to abbots to go far from their mo-
nastery without the permission of the bishop. If they do so,
let them be regularly corrected hy their bishop, according to
the ancient canons.

" Let the bishops take under their caie nunneries established
in their city ; and let them not allow any abbess to do aught
against the rule of her monastery."4

When all these rules were proclaimed, although they did

1 Coun. of Chalcedonia, in 451, c. 19. * Coun. of Orleans, c. 93.
* lb., c. 22. * lb., in 551, c. 1, 2, 3, S

304 HISTORY OF

not contain anything very precise, although, as you see, th«
jurisdiction of the bishops was not exaotly determined, still
it was established ; it interfered in the principal points of tha
existence of the monks, in the foundation of monasteries, in
the observation of their discipline, in the duties of the abbots ;
and, recognized in principle, although often repulsed in fact,
it strengthened itself by exercise.

The monks themselves concurred to its progression. When
they had acquired more importance, they claimed a separate
existence. They complained of being assimilated with the
simple laity, and confounded with the mass of the faithful ;
they desired to be established as a distinct corporation, a pc ri-
tive institution. Independence and influence were not suffi-
cient for them — privilege was necessary. Now, from whom
could they obtain it, except from the clergy ? The authority
of the bishops could alone constitute them separate from the
religious society in general, and privilege them in its bosom.
They demanded these privileges, and obtained them, but by
paying for them. There was one, for instance, very simple,
that of not going to the church of the parish, of constructing
one in the interior of the monastery, and there celebrating
divine service. They granted it to them without difficulty ;
but it was necessary that priests should do duty in these
churches ; now the monks were not priests, and had not the
right of doing duty. They gave them priests, and the exter-
nal clergy from that time had a place in the interior of mo-
nasteries ; men were there sent from it as delegates, inspect-
ors. By this fact alone, the independence of the monks
already endured a serious blow : they saw, and attempted to
remedy, the evil ; they demanded that instead of priests sent
from without, the bishop should ordain some monks priests.
The clergy consented to it, and under the name of hiero.
monachi, the monasteries had priests chosen from out of their
own body. They were rather less strangers than those who
came from without, but still they belonged to the secular
clergy, took its spirit, associate J themselves with its interests,
separated themselves more or less from their brothers ; and
by this simple distinction, established between the simple
monks and the priests, between those who were present at
the service, and those who performed it, the monastic insti-
iuiion already lost part of its independence and of its homo-
geneity.

The loss was so real that more than one superior of a mo-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 305

nastery, more than one abbot perceived it, and attempted to
repair it, at least to limit it. The rules of many monastic
orders speak of priests established in the monastery with dis
trust, and apply themselves sometimes to restrain their num-
ber, sometimes the influence of them.

Saint Benedict, in his, formally inserted two chapters on this-
subject :

" If an abbot," says he, " wishes to have a priest or a dea-
con ordained for him, let him select from among his people
one who is worthy to perform the sacerdotal functions. But
let him who is ordained guard against all pride, and let him
not contend against anything which shall be enjoined him by
the abbot ; let him know that he is even more subject to the
regular discipline than any other ; that the priesthood is not a
reason for him to forget obedience and rule ; but let him more
and more advance in God, and always keep to the i'unctions
by which he entered into the monastery, except the duties of
the altar, when even, by choice of the congregation, and the
will of the abbot, he shall be, by reason of the merits of his
life, raised to a more elevated rank. Let him know that he
must observe the rule established by the deans and priors ;
that if he dare to act otherwise, he shall not be judged as a
priest but as a rebel. And if, after having been frequently
warned, he does not correct himself, Jet the bishop himself be
called as witness. If he do not amend, and his faults be
glaring, let him be driven from the monastery, in case he
will not still submit, nor obey the rule."1

" If any one of the order of priests ask to be received into
the monastery, let it not be. immediately consented to ; if he
persist in his request, let him know that he shall submit to
the whole discipline and rule, and that nothing shall be abated
him."1

This rather jealous fear, this vigilance to repress the arro-
gance of priests, to subject them to the life of monks, was
also manifested elsewhere, and by other symptoms ; they only
the better prove the progress of the external clergy in the
interior of monasteries, and the danger in which it placed
their ancient independence.

It had to submit to an entirely different check. Not con-
tent with being separated from the lay society, and being

1 Reg. S. Bencd., c. 62. * lb., c. 80.

306 HISTORY OF

raised above it by their privileges, the monks conceived the
ambition of entering fully into the ecclesiastical society, of
participating in the privileges and power of the clergy. Thk
ambition was shown in the monastical institution at a very
early period. It was not approved of by all. The exalted
and austere monks, those whose imagination was strongly
filled with the holiness of the monastic life, and aspired to all
its glories, were averse to receiving the sacred orders. Some
regarded the clerical as a worldly life, which deterred th*^m
from the contemplation of divine things ; the others thougnt
themselves unworthy of the priesthood, and did not find them-
selves in a sufficiently perfect state to celebrate divine ser-
vice. Hence arose some singular incidents in the relations
between the monks and the clergy. In the fourth century,
while Saint Epiphanus was bishop in the island of Cyprus,
there was a monk in the island named Paulinianus, celebrated
for his virtues, and in great reputation for sanctity. They
frequently proposed making him a priest ; he always de-
clined, saying that he was not worthy of it ; but Saint Epi
phanus positively insisted upon consecrating him. He pro-
ceeded in the following manner: it is himself who gives the
account :

" When they celebrated mass in the church of a village near
our monastery, without his being aware of it, or in the least
expecting it, we had him seized by a number of deacons, and
had his mouth held, for fear that, wishing to escape, he should
adjure us in the name of Christ. We at first ordained him
deacon, and summoned him, by the fear he had for God, to
fulfil the office. He strongly resisted, maintaining that he
was unworthy. It was almost necessary to force him, for we
had great difficulty in persuading him by testimonies of the
Writings, and in citing the commands of God. And when he
had performed the duties of deacon in the holy sacrifice, we
again had his mouth held, with great difficulty ; we ordained
him priest, and for the same reasons which we had already
impressed upon him, we decided him to take a place among
the priests."1

They rarely came to such violent extremities ; but I might
cite many other examples of monks who were sincerely re-
ougnant to becoming priests, and obstinately refused.

Sunt Epiphanus, lett. to John, bishop of Jerusalem, vol. ii , p. 319.

CIVILIZATION IN FKANC.E. 307

Such, however, was far from being their general character.
The greater part were very anxious to enter into orders, for
the clergy was the superior body : to be received into its bo-
som was to be raised. " If the desire to become a priest ex-
cite you," says Saint Jerome to a monk, " learn, that you may
be able to teach ; pretend not to be a soldier without having
been a militiaman, and a master before having been a disci-
ple."1 In fact, the desire to become priests so keenly excited
the monks, that Cassienus ranks it among the temptations with
which the demon pursued them, and especially among those
which he attributes to the demon of vain-glory.

" Sometimes," says he, "the demon of vain-glory inspires
a monk with a desire for the degrees of the clergy, the priest-
hood, or the deaconship. According to him, if he be invested
with it, despite himself, he will fill the duties with so much
rigor, that he might offer examples of holiness even to other
priests, and might gain many people over to the church, not
only by his admirable way of living, but by his doctrine and
discourses."2 And he relates the following anecdote upon this
subject — a singular proof, truly, of the passion with which
certain monks aspired to become priests, and of the empire
which this desire possessed over their imagination : —

" I remember," says he, " that during my stay in the soli-
tude of Scythia, an old man told me, that going one day to the
cell of a certain brother, to visit him, as he approached the
door, he heard him within pronouncing certain words; he
stopped a little, wishing to know what he read of the Scrip-
ture, or else what he repeated from memory, according to
usage. And as this pious spy curiously, listened, with his ear
at the door, he perceived that the spirit of vain-glory tempted
the brother, for he spoke as if he addressed a sermon to the
people in the church. The old man still stopped, and he
heard that the brother, after having finished his sermon,
changed his office, and did the duties of deacon at the mass
of the catechumens. He at last knocked at the door, and the
brother came to meet him with his accustomed veneration,
and introduced him into his cell. Then, rather troubled in his
conscience at the thoughts which had occupied him, he asked
him how long he had been there, fearing, without doubt, tha>

1 Saint Jerome, lett. 4, ad Rusticum.
» Cassienus, de Ccenob. inst., xi., 14.

308 HISTORY OF

he had insulted him by keeping him waiting at the door ; and
the old man answered, smiling : < I arrived just as you cele-
brated the mass of the catechumens.' "l

Of a surety men preoccupied to such a degree by such a
desire, would unhesitatingly have sacrificed their independ-
ence to it. Let us see how they attained their end, and what
result this success had for them.

The clergy at first looked upon the ambition of the monks
with a good deal of jeaknuy and distrust. At the fourth cen-
tury, some bishops, more vigorous and discerning than others,
or with some particular end in view, received them favorably.
Saint Athanasius, for example, bishop of Alexandria, engaged
in his great contest against the Arians, visited the monasteries
of Egypt, loaded the monks with distinction, and selected
many to ordain as priests, and even to make bishops of. The
monks were orthodox, eager, popular. Athanasius saw that
in them he should have powerful and devoted allies. His
example was followed by some bishops in the west, especially
by Saint Ambrose at Milan, and by Eusebius, bishop of Ver-
ceil. But the episcopacy in general behaved differently : it
continued to treat the pretensions of the monks coldly, scorn-
fully, and to combat them underhand. Proofs of it are in
writing down to the seventh century. At the end of the
fourth, for example, the bishop of Rome, Saint Siricius (384
— 398), allowed holy orders to be conferred upon them, but
with many stipulations, lest too large a number of monks
should penetrate into the clergy. In the middle of the follow-
ing century, Saint Leo (440 — 460) engaged Maximus, patri-
arch of Antioch, not too easily to allow permission to preach
to the monks of his diocese, even to the most holy, because
their preaching might have serious consequences for the influ-
ence of the clergy. At the end of the sixth century, Saint
Gregory the Great recommended the bishops to ordain monks
as parish-priests but rarely, and to employ them with reserve.
Upon the whole, amidst even the favors which it exhibits to-
wards them, the episcopacy always shows itself jealous of the
monks, and inclined to separate them from the clergy.

But the progress of their popularity surmounted this secret
resistac.ee. It was soon acknowledged that theirs, of all
lives, was the Christian life ; that it surpassed in merit that

1 Cassienus, de Ccenob. inst., xi., 15.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 309

of the external clergy, who could not do better than imitate
them ; and that a priest, or even a bishop, in becoming a
monk, advanced in the paths of holiness and salvation. The
councils themselves, composed of bishops, proclaimed these
maxims : —

" If priests," says a council of Toledo, " desiring to follow
a better life, wish to embrace the rule of the monks, let the
bishop give them free access into the monasteries, and in no
way obstruct the design of those who wish to give themselves
up to contemplation."1

When they were generally recognized, there was no longer
any means of resisting the invasion of the monks, nor of paT.
simoniously granting them the priesthood and episcopacy. At
the commencement of the seventh century, Boniface IV. pro-
claims that they are plus quam idonei, more than fitted for all
the functions of the clergy ; and gradually events and minds
progressed in this direction ; the monks found themselves in-
corporated in the clergy ; and, while preserving a distinct
existence, associated on every occasion with its privileges and
power. It is impossible to determine exactly the date of this
admission ; it was progressive and, for a long time, incomplete ;
even in the eighth century, the monks were at times still
called laymen, and considered as such. Still it may be said
that, about the end of the sixth and at the beginning of the
seventh century, the revolution for which they had labored
from the end of the fourth century was consummated. Let
us see what were the results of it, as regards their external
condition — what was the condition of the monks in the clergy
when they decidedly formed a part of it.

It is evident that they must have lost there a great deal of
independence, and that the authority of the bishops over
monasteries was necessarily extended and confirmed. You
know what the power of the episcopacy was over parish priests
from the seventh to the eighth century. The fortune of monks
was no better. Those little associations which we have jusi
seen so independent, over which the bishops had scarcely a
moral jurisdiction, which they labored with so much care to
draw beneath their empire, see how they were treated at the
■eyenth century. I shall leave the councils to speak for
themselves : —

Council of Toledo, in 633, c. 60.
28

310 HISTORY OF

" It has been given out at the present council that monka^
by order of the bishops, are subject to servile labors, and that,
against the canonical orders, the rights of monasteries are
usurped with an illegitimate audacity ; so that a monastery
becomes almost a domain, and that illustrious part of the
body of Christ is almost reduced to ignominy and servitude.
We therefore warn the chiefs of the churches that they no
longer commit anything of the kind ; and that the bishops do
nothing in monasteries except what the canons direct them ;
that is, exhort the monks to a holy life, appoint the abbots
and other officers, and reform such things as shall be against
rule."1

" As regards presents that are made to a monastery, let not
the bishops touch them."2

" A most deplorable thing there is, which we are forced to
extirpate by a severe censure. We have learnt that certain
bishops unjustly establish as prelates in certain monasteries
some of their relations or favorites, and procure them iniqui-
tous advantages, to the end that they may receive, through
them, both what is in fact regularly due to the bishop of the
diocese, and all that the violence of the exactor .whom they
have sent can seize from the monasteries."8

I might greatly multiply these quotations : all would equally
attest that, at this epoch, the monasteries were subjected to an
odious tyranny on the part of the bishops.

They, however, had means of resistance, and they made use
of them. In order to explain the nature of these means satis-
factorily, allow me to leave the monks for a moment, and call
your attention to an analogous fact, and one much better
known.

Every one is aware that, from the eighth to the tenth cen-
tury, the cities, large or small, which still existed in Gaul,
were induced to enter into the feudal society, to assume the
characteristics of the new system, to take a place in its hier-
archy, to contract its obligations in order to possess its rights,
to live under the patronage of a lord. This patronage was
harsh, oppressive, and the cities impatiently supported ita
weight. At a very early period, when they first engaged in

1 Council of Toledo, in 633, c. 51

2 Coun. of Lerida, in 524, c. 3.
8 Coun: of Toledo, in 655, c 3.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 311

feudalism, they attempted to shake it off, to regain some inde-
pendence. What were their means ? In the boroughs there
was the wreck of the ancient municipal system : in theii
miserable condition, they still selected some obscure magis-
trates : some property remained to them ; they administered
this property themselves : in a word, they preserved, in some
respects, an existence distinct from that which they had as-
sumed in entering the feudal society, an existence which was
connected with institutions, with principles, and with a social
state, all of them entirely different. These remains of their
ancient existence, these wrecks of the municipal system, be-
came the fulcrum by the aid of which the boroughs struggled
against the feudal master who had invaded them, and pro-
gressively regained some degree of liberty.

An analogous fact was brought about in the history of mo-
nasteries, and of their relations with the clergy. You have
just seen the monks entering into the ecclesiastical society,
and falling under the authority of the bishops, as the commons
entered at a later period into the feudal society, and fell under
the authority of the lords. But the monks also retained some
of their primitive existence, of their original independence ;
for example, they had had domains given them : these do-
mains were not confounded with those of the bishop in whose
diocese the monastery was situated ; they were not lost in the
mass of church property of which the bishop had the sole ad-
ministration ; they remained the distinct and personal proper-
ty of each establishment. The monks accordingly continued
to exercise some of their rights ; the election of their abbot
and other monastic affairs, the interior administration of the
monastery, &c. In the same way, therefore, as the boroughs
retain some wreck of the municipal system, and of their pro-
perty, and made use of them in order to struggle against feu-
dal tyranny, so did the monks preserve some remnants of their
internal constitution and of their property, and made use of
them in struggling against episcopal tyranny. So that the
boroughs followed the route and in the steps of the monasteries ;
not that they imitated them, but because the same situation led
to the same results.

Let us follow in its vicissitudes the resistance of the monks
against the bishops ; we shall see this analogy developed more
and more.

The contest was at first limited to complaints, to protesta-
tions, carried either before the bishop himself, or before the

9
312 HISTORY OF

councils. Sometimes the councils received them, and issued
canons to put a stop to the evil : I have just read to you texts
which prove it. But a written remedy is of little efficacy.
The monks felt the necessity of recurring to some other means.
They openly resisted their bishop ; they refused to obey his in-
junctions, to receive him in the monastery j more than once
they repulsed his envoys by force of arms. Still their resist-
ance Aveighed heavily upon them ; the bishop excommuni-
cated them, interdicted their priests : the struggle was griev-
ous for all. They treated. The monks promised to resumo
order, to make presents to the bishop, to cede to. him some
part of the domain, if he was willing to promise to respect
the monastery thenceforward, not to pillage tneir property, to
leave them in peaceful enjoyment of their rights. The bishop
consented, and gave a charter to the monastery. They are
regular charters, these immunities, these privileges conferred
upon monasteries by their bishop, the use of which became
so frequent that we find an official compilation of them in the
Formula of Marculf. I will read it : you will be struck with
the character of these acts :

" To the holy lord and brother in Christ, the abbot of

or to the whole congregation of monastery, built at

by , in honor of Saint , bishop, . The

love which we bear you has impelled us, by Divine inspiration,
to regulate for your repose things which assure us eternal re-
compense, and, without turning us from the right road, or
overstepping any limit, to establish rules which may obtain
by the aid of the Lord an eternal duration, for we do not
insure the least recompense from God in applying ourselves
to what must come to pass in future times, without giving
succor to the poor in the present time. . . . We think it our
duty to insert in this sheet what you and your successors
should do with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, or rather
that to which the bishop of the holy church himself is bound :
namely, that those of your congregation who are to exercise
the holy services in your monastery, when they shall be pre-
sented by the abbot and all the congregation, receive from us
or our successors the sacred orders, without making any gift
for this honor ; that the said bishop, out of respect for the
place, and without receiving any recompense, consecrate the
altar of the monastery, and grant, if it be demanded of him,
the holy oil each year ; and when, by Divine will, one abbot
shall pass from the monastery to God, let the bishop of the

CIVILIZATION #N FRANCE. 313

place, without expecting recompense, elevate to the rank of
abbot, the monk most remarkable for the merits of his life,
whom he shall find selected by I he brethren. And let them
take nothing which has been offered by God-fearing men tc
the abbey. And unless requested by the congregation or the
abbot, to go there for the sake of prayer, let none of us enter
into the interior of a monastery, nor overstep its enclosure.
And if, after having been begged so to do by the monks, the
bishop come for the purposes of prayer, or to be useful to
them in anything, after the celebration of the holy mysteries,
and after having received simple and brief thanks, let him
set about regaining his dwelling without being required so to
do by any one, so that the monks who are accounted solita-
ries may, with the help of God, pass the time in perfect tran-
quillity, and that, living under a holy rule, and imitating the
holy fathers, they may the more perfectly implore God for
the good of the church, and the salvation of the country.
And if any monks of this order conduct themselves with indif-
ference, and not as they should, if it is necessary let them be
corrected according to rule by their abbot ; if not, the bishop
of the town must restrain them, in order that the canonical
authority be deprived of nothing which tends to , the repose
of the servants of the faith. If any of our successors (which
God forbid), full of perfidy, and impelled by cupidity, desire,
in a spirit of audacity, to violate the things herein contained,
overwhelmed by the blow of divine vengeance, let him be
anathematized and excluded from the communion of the bro-
therhood for three years, and let this privilege be not the less
eternally immovable for nis conduct. In order that this con-
stitution may remain always in vigor, we and our brothers,
the lords bishops, have confirmed it with our signatures.

" Done, this day of the year of our Lord ."l

When we come to the history of the commons, you will see
that many of the charters which they wrested from their
lords, seem to have been framed upon this model.

It happened to the monasteries as it was afterwards to hap-
pen to the commons : their privileges were constantly violated
or altogether abolished. They were obliged to have recourse
to a higher guarantee, and they invoked that of the king : a
natural pretext presented itself; the kings themselves founded

1 Marculf, b. i. f. 1.

314 hist^y of

monasteries, and in founding them took some precautions fo;
shielding them from the tyranny of the bishops ; they re.
tained them under their especial protection, and prohibited any
usurpation of the property or rights of the monks on the part
of the bishops. Thus originated the intervention of royalty
between the monasteries and the clergy. By and bye, monas-
teries which had not been founded by kings had recourse to
their protection, and attained it for money or some other con-
sideration. The kings in no way interfered with the juris-
diction of the bishops, they disputed none of their religious
rights ; the protection accorded by them had exclusive refer-
ence to monastic property ; as this protection was more or less
efficacious, the bishops used every effort to elude it ; they
refused to recognize the letters of protection and immunity
granted by the king; sometimes they falsified them by the
assistance of some treacherous brother, or even wholly ab-
stracted them from the archives of the monastery. After a
while, in order more fully to possess themselves of the con-
stantly augmenting wealth of these establishments, they
thought of another plan : they procured their, own nomination
as abbots of the more valuable monasteries : an opening to
this encroachment presented itseif ; many monks had become
bishops, and for the most part, bishops of the diocese in which
their own monastery was situated; in this monastery they
had taken care to keep up friends, partizans ; and the post of
abbot becoming vacant, frequently found no difficulty in
securing it for themselves. Thus, at once bishops and abbots,
they gave themselves up without restraint to the most mon-
strous abuses. The monasteries in every direction were
sorely oppressed, were recklessly despoiled by their heads ;
the monks looked around for a new protector, they addressed
themselves to the pope. The papal power had keen long
strengthening and extending itself, and it eagerly availed
itself of every opportunity of still further extending itself; il
interposed as royalty had interposed, keeping, at all events
for a long time, within the same limits, making no attempt to
narrow the spiritual jurisdiction of the bishops, and abridging
them of no spiritual right ; applying itself only to repress
their aggressions upon property and persons, and to maintain
inviolate the established monastic rule. The privileges
granted by the popes to certain monasteries of Frankish-Gaul
previously to the commencement of the eighth century kept
strictly within its limits, in no case removing them from the

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 315

episcopal to the papal jurisdiction. The monastery of Fulda
presents us with the first instance of such a transfer, and this
took place by the consent of the bishop of the diocese, Saint
Boniface, who himself placed the monastery under the direct
authority of the holy see. This is the first instance of such
a proceeding that we meet with ; neither popes nor kings had
ever before interfered, except for the purpose of keeping
the bishops within the just limits of their authority.

Such were the changes through which, in the interval I
have described, the monastic associations passed, in their re-
lations with the clergy. Their original condition was that of
independence ; this independence was lessened the moment
that they obtained from the clergy some of the privileges
which they had solicited from that body. The privileges so
obtained, only served to augment their ambition : they became
bent upon entering the ecclesiastical corporation : they did
enter it, after a while, and found themselves thenceforward
subject, like the priests, to , the ill-defined, the unlimited
anthority of the bishops. The bishops abused their authority,
the monasteries resisted, and in virtue of what still remained
to them of their original independence, procured guarantees,
charters. The charters being slighted, the monks had recourse
to the civil authority, to royalty, and royalty confirmed the
charters, and took the monks under its protection. This
protection proving inadequate, the monks next addressed
themselves to the pope, who interposed by another title, but
without any more decisive success. It is in this struggle of
royal and papal protection against episcopal tyranny, that we
lea.e the monasteries in the middle of the eighth century.
Under the Carlovingian race, they had to experience still
more terrible shocks, assaults which it required their utmost
efforts to overcome. We will speak of these at the propei
time ; at present, the analogy between the history of the
monasteries and that of the commons, which manifested itself
two centuries later, is the fact which most peculiarly calls foi
an observation.

We have now completed the history of social civilization,
from the sixth to the middle of the eighth century. We have
gone through the revolutions of civil and of religious society, —
viewed each of them in their various elements. We have
still to study the history, during the same period, of purely
intellectual and moral civilization ; of the ideas which then

816 HISTORY OF

occupied men's minds, the works which these ideas gave hirth
to— in a word, the philosophical and literary history of France
at this epoch. We will enter upon this study in our next
lecture.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE 317

SIXTEENTH LECTURE.

From the sixl.h to the eighth century all profane literature disappeared ;
sacred literature alone remained — This is evident in the schools and
writings of this epoch — 1. Of the schools in Gaul from the sixth to
the eighth century — Cathedral schools — Rural schools — Monastic
schools — What they taught there — 2. Of the writings of the day —
General character of literature — It ceased to be speculative, and to
seek more especially science and intellectual enjoyments ; it be-
came practical ; knowledge, eloquence, writings, were made means
of action — Influence of this characteristic upon the idea formed of
the intellectual state at this epoch — It produced scarcely any works,
it has no literature properly so called ; still minds were active — Its
literature consists in sermons and legends — Bishops and missionaries
— 1st. Of Saint Cesaire, bishop of Aries — Of his sermons — 2d. Of
Saint Columban, missionary, and abbot of Luxeuil — Character of
sacred eloquence at this epoch.

In studying the state of Gaul at the fourth and fifth cen-
turies,1 we found two literatures, the one sacred, the other
profane. The distinction was marked in persons and in
things ; the laity and the ecclesiastics studied, meditated,
wrote ; and they studied, they wrote, they meditated, upon
lay subjects, and upon religious subjects. Sacred literature
dominated more and more, but it was not alone, profane
literature still existed.

From the fourth to the eighth century, there is no longer
any profane literature ; sacred literature stands alone ; priests
only study or write ; and they only study, they only write,
save some rare exceptions, upon religious subjects. The
general character of the epoch is the concentration of intel-
lectual development in the religious sphere. The fact is
evident, whether we regard the state of the schools which still
existed, or the works which have come down to us.

The fourth and fifth centuries, you will remember, were in
no want of civil schools, of civil professors, instituted by the
temporal power, and teaching the profane sciences. All
those great schools of Gaul, the organization and names of

1 Lecture 4th, pp. 84—103.

318 HISTORY OF

which I have mentioned to you, were of this description. I
have even pointed out to you, that as yet there were nc
ecclesiastical schools, and that religious doctrines, which
daily became more powerful over minds, were not regularly
taught, had no legal and official organ. Towards the end
of the sixth century, everything is changed : there are no
longer civil schools ; ecclesiastical schools alone subsist. Those
great municipal schools of Treves, of Poictiers, of Vienne, of
Bordeaux, &c, have disappeared ; in their place have arisen
schools called cathedral or episcopal schools, because each
episcopal see had its own. The cathedral school was not
always alone ; we find in certain dioceses other schools, of an
uncertain nature and origin, wrecks, perhaps, of some ancient
civil school, which, in becoming metamorphosed, had perpetu-
ated itself. In the diocese of Reims, for example, there ex-
isted the school of Mouzon, some distance from the chief
place of the diocese, and in high credit, although Reims had
a cathedral school. The clergy began also, about the same
epoch, to create other schools in the country, also ecclesi-
astical, destined to form young readers who should one day
become priests. In 529, the council of Vaison strongly re-
commended the propagation of country schools ; they were,
indeed, multiplied very irregularly, numerous in some dioceses,
scarcely any in others. Finally, there were schools in the
great monasteries : the intellectual exercises were of two kinds;
some of the most distinguished monks gave direct instruc-
tion to the members of the congregation, and to the young
people who were being brought up at the monastery ; it was,
moreover, the custom, in a large number of monasteries, that
after the lectures at which the monks were bound to attend,
they should have conferences among themselves upon what-
ever had been made the subject of the lecture ; and these con-
ferences became a powerful means of intellectual development
and instruction.

The most flourishing of the episcopal schools from the
sixth to the middle of the eighth century were those of:

1 . Poictiers. There were many schools in the monasteries
of the diocese, at Poictiers itself, at Liguge, at Ansion, &c.

2. Paris.

3. Le Mans.

4. Bourges.

5. Clermont. There was another school in the town where

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 319

they taught the Theodosian code ; a remarkable circumstance,
which I do not find elsewhere.

6. Vienne.

7. Chdlons-sur-Saone.

8. Aries.

9. Gap.

The most flourishing of the monastic schools of the same
epoch were those of:

1. Luxeuil, in Franche-Comte.

2. Fontenelle, or Saint Vandrille, in Normandy ; in which
were about 300 students.

3. Silhiu, in Normandy.

4. Saint Medard, at Soissons.

5. her ens.

It were easy to extend this list ; but the prosperity of mo-
nastic schools was subject to great vicissitudes ; they flourished
under a distinguished abbot, and declined under his suc-
cessor.

Even in nunneries, study was not neglected ; that, which
Saint Cesaire founded at Aries contained, at the commence-
ment of the sixth century, two hundred nuns, for the most
part occupied in copying books, sometimes religious books,
sometimes, probably, even the works of the ancients.

The metamorphosis of civil schools into ecclesiastical
schools was complete. Let us see what was taught in them.
We shall often find in them the names of sciences formerly
professed in the civil schools, rhetoric, logic, grammar, geo-
metry, astrology, &c. ; but these were evidently no longer
taught except in their relations to theology. This is the foun-
dation of the instruction : all was turned into commentary
of the Scriptures, historical, philosophical, allegorical, moral,
commentary. They desired only to form priests ; all studies,
whatsoever* their nature, were directed towards this result.

" Sometimes they went even further : they rejected the
profane sciences themselves, whatever might be the use made
of them. At the end of the sixth century, Saint Dizier,
bishop of Vienne, taught grammar in his cathedral school.
Saint Gregory the Great sharply blamed him for it. " It is
not fit," he writes to him, " that a mouth sacred to the praises
of God, should be opened for those of Jupiter." I do not
know exactly what the praises of God or of Jupiter had to do
with grammar ; but what is evident, is the crying down oX
1he profane studies, although cultivated by the priests.

320 HISTORY OF

The same fact is visible, and far more plainly, in the writ,
ten literature. No more philosophical meditations, no more
learned jurisprudence, no more literary criticism ; save some
chronicles, some occasional poems, of which I shall speak at
a later period, we have nothing belonging to this time except
religious works. Intellectual activity appears only under this
form, displays itself only in this direction.

A still more important revolution, and less perceived, is
manifested : not only did literature become entirely religious,
but, religious, it ceased to be literary ; there was no longe-
any literature, properly so called. In the finest times of
Greece and Rome, and in Gaul, up to the fall of the Roman
empire, people studied, they wrote, for the mere pleasure of
studying, of knowing, in order to procure for themselves and
for others intellectual enjoyment. The influence of letters
over society, over real life, was only indirect ; it was not the
immediate end of the writers ; in a word, science and litera-
ture were essentially disinterested, devoted to the research
for the true and the beautiful, satisfied with finding them, with
enjoying them, and pretending to nothing more.

At the epoch which now occupies us it was otherwise ;
people no longer studied in order to know ; they no longer
wrote for the sake of writing. Writings and studies took a
practical character and aim. Whoever abandoned himself
thereto, aspired to immediate action upon men, to regulate
their actions, to govern their life, to convert those who did not
believe, to reform those who believed and did not practise.
Science and eloquence were means of action, of government.
There is no longer a disinterested literature, no longer any
true literature. The purely speculative character of philo-
sophy, of poetry, of letters, of the arts, has vanished ; it is nc
longer the beautiful that men seek ; when they meet with it,
it no longer serves merely for enjoyment ; positive application,
influence over men, authority is now the end, the triumph of
all works of mind, of all intellectual development.

It is from not having taken proper heed to this character-
istic of the epoch upon which we are occupied, that, in my
opinion, a false idea has been formed of it. We find there
scarcely any works, no literature, properly so called, no dis-
interested intellectual activity distinct from positive life. It
has been thence concluded, and you have surely heard it said,
you may everywhere read, that this was a time of apathy and
moral sterility, a time abandoned to the disorderly strugg e of

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 32J

material forces, in which intellect was without development
and without power.

It was not so. Doubtless nothing remains belonging to this
age, either of philosophy, poetry, or literature, properly speak-
ing ; but it does not follow that there was no intellectual ac-
tivity. It was in an eminent degree otherwise ; only it was
not produced under the same forms as at other epochs ; it did
not lead to the same results. It was an activity entirely of
application, of circumstance, which did not address itself to
the future, which had no design to bequeath literary monu-
ments to it, calculated to charm or to instruct ; the present,
its wants, its destinies, contemporaneous interests and life,
that was the circle to which it confined itself, wherein the
literature of this epoch spent itself. It produced few books,
and yet it was fertile and powerful over minds.

One is therefore highly astonished when, after having heard
it said, and having oneself thought that this time was sterile
and without intellectual activity, we find in it, upon looking
nearer, a world, as it were, of writings, not very considerable,
it is true, and often little remarkable, but which, from their
number and the ardor which reigns in them, attest a rare
movement of mind and fertility. They are sermons, instruc-
tions, exhortations, homilies, and conferences upon religious
matters. Never has any political revolution, never has the
liberty of the press, produced more pamphlets. Three-
fourths, nay, perhaps ninety-nine in a hundred, of these little
works have been lost : destined to act at the very moment,
almost all improvised, rarely collected by their authors or by
others, tney have not come down to us ; and yet an immense
number remains to us ; they form a true and rich literature.

The sermons, homilies, instructions, &c, of this epoch, may
be ranged under four classes. The one class consists of ex-
planations, of commentaries upon the Scriptures. A passionate
interest was attached to these monuments of the common faith;
men saw everywhere among them purposes, allusions, lessons,
examples ; they sought in them hidden meanings, moral
meanings, will or allegory. The most elevated, the most
subtle mind incessantly found there something to exercise
itself upon ; and the people received with avidity these ap
plications of books, which had all their respect, the actual
interests of their conduct and life.

The sermons of the second class relate to the primitive his-
tory of Christianity, to the festivals and solemnities which

323 HISTORY OF

celebrate its great events, such as the birth of Jesus Christ,
his passion, his resurrection, &c.

The third class comprehends sermons for the festivals of the
saints and martyrs ; a kind of religious panegyrics, sometimes
purely historical, sometimes turned into moral exhortations.

Finally, the fourth class is that of the sermons destined to
apply religious doctrines to the practice of life ; that is to say,
sermons upon religious morality.

I have no intention to detain you long upon this literature.
To really understand it, to estimate the degree of develop-
ment taken by the human mind, and to appreciate the influ-
ence which it has exercised over mankind, a lengthened
study is necessary, often tedious, although full of results.
The number of these compositions passes all conception : of
Saint Augustin alone there remain three hundred and ninety-
four sermons ; and he preached many others, of which we
only have fragments, and again many others which are en-
tirely lost. I shall confine myself to the selecting two of the
men who may be considered as the most faithful representa-
tives of this epoch, and to the placing before you some frag-
ments of their eloquence.

There were two classes of preachers — the bishops and the
missionaries. The bishops in their cathedral town, where
they almost constantly resided, preached several times a week,
some even every day. The missionaries, who were chiefly
monks, perambulating the country, preaching both in churches
and in public places, in the midst of the assembled people.

The most illustrious of the bishops of the epoch which
occupies us was Saint Cesaire, bishop of Aries ; the most illus-
trious of the missionaries was Saint Colomban, abbot of
Luxeuil. I will endeavor to give you an idea of their life
and preaching.

Saint Cesaire was born at the end of the fifth century, in
470, at Chalons-sur-Sa6ne, of a considerable family, and al-
ready celebrated for its piety. In his infancy, his tenden-
cies, both intellectual and religious, attracted the attention
of the bishop of Chalons, Saint Silvestre, who tonsured him in
488, and devoted him to an ecclesiastical life. He made his
first appearance in the abbey of Lerens, where he passed
many years, abandoning himself to great austerities, and often
charged with preaching and teaching in the interior of the
monastery. His health suffered from it ; the abbot of Lerens
sent him to Aries to get re-established, and in 501, amid tho

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 323

unanimous acclamations of the people, he became bishop of
that place.

He occupied the see of Aries for forty-one years, from 501
to 542, during the whole of which period he was one of the
most illustrious and influential of the bishops of southern Gaul.
He presided at, and directed the principal councils of this
epoch, the councils of Agde in 506, of Aries in 524, of Car-
pentras in 527, of Orange in 529, all the councils in which
the great questions concerning the doctrine and discipline
of the time were treated of, among others, that of semi-Pela-
gianism. It appears even that his activity was no stranger
to politics. He was twice exiled from his diocese ; in 505,
by Alaric, king of the Visigoths, and in 513, by Theodoric,
king of the Ostrogoths, because, they said, he wished to
abandon Provence, and especially the city of Aries, to the
king of the Burgundians, under whose empire he was born.
Whether the accusation was or was not well founded, Saint
Cesaire was quickly restored to his diocese, which passionately
recalled him.

His preaching there was powerful, and one of the principal
sources of his celebrity. About a hundred and thirty of his
sermons have reached us, a number far inferior to that which
he preached. They may be distributed into the four classes
which I have just pointed out ; and, by a circumstance which
reflects honor on Saint Cesaire, the sermons on doctrine or
religious morality are more numerous than mystical allegories,
or panegyrics of the saints. It is from among the former that
I shall take some passages calculated to make you acquainted
with this kind of literature and eloquence.1

In a sermon, entitled Advice to the faithful that they read
the divine writings Saint Cesaire urges them not to devote
themselves exclusively to their temporal affairs, to watch their
souls, to be occupied solicitously with them.

" The care of our soul, my dear brothers," says he, "strongly
resembles the cultivation of the earth : as in the earth, we pluck
up some things in order to sow others which shall be good, so
should it be for our soul ; what is evil should be rooted up,
what is good shouil be planted ; let pride be plucked away,

1 The greater part of the sermons of Saint Cesaire were inserted in
the appendix to the sermons of Saint Augustin, at the end of vol. v of
his works, fol. 1683.

324 HISTORY OF

and humility take its place j let avarice be rejected, and
mercy cultivated. ... No one can plant good things in his
ground, until he has cleared it of evil things ; accordingly
thou canst not plant the holy germs of virtue in thy soul, un-
less thou first pluck out the thorns and thistles of vice. Tell
me, I pray thee, thou who saidst even now that thou coulds*
not accomplish the commandments of God because thou canst
not read, tell me, who has taught thee to dress thy vine, at
what time to plant a new one ? who has taught it thee ?
Hast thou read it, or hast thou heard speak of it, or hast thou
asked it of able cultivators ? Since thou art so occupied w.;th
thy vine, why art thou not so with thy soul ? Give heed, my
brother, I pray you, there are too kinds of fields, one of God,
the other of man ; the domain of God is thy soul ; is it, then,
just to cultivate thy domain, and to neglect that of God ?
When thou seest the earth in a good state thou rejoicest ;
wherefore, then, dost thou not weep at seeing thy soul lie fal-
low ? We have but few days to live in this world upon the
fruits of our earth ; let us turn, therefore, our greatest atten-
tion towards our souls. ... let us labor with all our power,
with the aid of God, to the end that when he shall come to his
field, which is our soul, he may find it cultivated, arranged in
good order ; let him find crops, not thorns j wine, not vinegar,
and more wheat than tares."1

Comparisons borrowed from common life, familiar anti-
theses, singularly strike the imagination of the people ; and
Saint Cesaire makes great use of them. He recommends the
faithful to conduct themselves properly at church, to avoid all
distraction, to pray with attention : —

" Although in many respects, my dear brothers," says he,
" we have often to rejoice at your progress in the way of sal-
vation, still there are some things of which we must caution
you, and I pray you to receive our observations willingly,
according to your custom. I rejoice, and I return thanks to
God ; for that I see you flock faithfully to the church to hear
the divine lectures ; but if you wish to complete your success
and our joy, come here earlier : you see tailors, goldsmiths,
blacksmiths, rise early in order to provide for the wants of the
body ; and we, we cannot go before day to church to solicit
pardon for our sins. . . . Come then, at an early hour, I pray

1 S. Aug. Op , vol. v., col. 509, 510.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 325

you ; and once arrived, try, with the aid of God, to preven'
any foreign thought from gliding amidst our prayers, for fear
of our having one thing upon our lips, and another in our
hearts, and that while our language is addressed to God, our
minds go astray upon all sorts of subjects. ... If thou wished
to urge any affair important to thyself with some powerful
man, and suddenly turning thyself from him, and interrupt,
ing the conversation, thou wert to occupy thyself with all
sorts of trifles, what an insult wouldst thou not be guilty of
towards him ? what would his anger not be towards thee ? If,
then, when we are occupied with a man, we employ all our
care not to think of anything else for fear of offending him,
ought we not to be ashamed, when we are occupied with God
in prayer, when we have to defend ourselves to his Holy
Majesty for miserable sins, should we not be ashamed to allow
our mind to wander here and there, and to turn from his
divine countenance ? Every man, my brothers, takes for his
God that which absorbs his thought at the moment of prayer,
and seems to adore it as his Lord. . . . This one, while pray-
ing, thinks of the public place — it is the public place that he
adores ; another has before his eyes the house which he is
constructing or repairing ; he adores what he has before his
eyes; another thinks of his vine, another of his garden. . . .
What will it be if the thought which occupies be an ill
thought, an illegitimate thought ? if, in the midst of our
prayers, we allow our mind to run upon cupidity, rage, hate,
luxury, adultery ? . . . I implore you, therefore, my cherished
brothers, if you wish entirely to avoid these distractions of
the soul, let us endeavor, with the aid of God, not to yield to
them."1

Even in treating of the most elevated subjects, in addressing
the gravest counsel to his people, the tone of St. Cesaire's
preaching is always simple, practical, foreign to all literary
pretension, only destined to act upon the soul of his auditors.
He wishes to Axcite in them that ardor for good works, thai
active zeal, which incessantly pursues good.

" Many people, my dear brothers," says he, " think thai
it is sufficient for eternal life, if they have done no evil ; if,
perchance, any one has deceived himself by this false tran.
quillity, let him know, positively, that it is not sufficient for a

1 S. Aug. Op., vol. v., col. 471—473.
8

326 HISTORY OP

Christian merely to have avoided evil, if he has not accom.
plished, as far as in him lies, things which are good ; for He
who said, Depart from evil, — also said to us, Do good.

" He who thinks that it is sufficient not to have done evil,
although he has done no good, let him tell me if he would
desire from his servant what he does to his Lord. Is there
any one who would wish that his servant should do neither
good nor evil ? We all require that our servants should not
only not do the evil which we interdict them, but that they
should acquit themselves of the labors that we impose upon
them. Thy servant would be more seriously guilty if he
should rob thee of thy cattle, but he would not be exempt from
fault if he neglected to guard it. It is not just that we should
be towards God as we would not wish our servants to be to-
wards us. . . .

" Those who think that it is sufficient that they do no evil,
are accustomed to say : ' May it please God that I should
merit being found, at the hour of death, the same as when I
left the sacrament of baptism.' Doubtless, it is good for
each to be found free from faults at the day of judgment, but
it is a grave one not to have progressed in good. To him
alone who left the world as soon as he received baptism, may
it suffice to be the same as when leaving baptism ; he had not
time to exercise good works ; but he who has had time to live,
and is arrived at the age to do good, it will not suffice him to
be exempt from faults, if he wishes also to be exempt from
good works. I wish that he who desires to be found the same
at death as he was when he received the sacrament of bap-
tism would tell me, if, when he plants a new vine, he wishes
that at the end of ten years it should be the same as the day
when he planted it. If he grafts an olive plant, would it suit
him that it should be the same after many years as on the day
when he grafted it ? If a son be born to him, let him consi-
der whether he would wish, that after five years he should be
of the same age and the same size as at the day of his birth.
Since, then, there is no one to whom this would-be agreeable
for the things which belong to him, in the same way that he
would be sorrowful if his vine, his olive plant, or his son,
should make no progress, so let him sorrow if he find that he
himself has made no progress from the moment he was born
m Christ."1

1 S. Aug. Op., vol. v., col. 431, 432.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 327

And elsewhere in a sermon upon charity : —

" It is not without reason, you must suppose, that I so often
discourse with you upon truth and perfect charity. I do it
because I know no remedy so wholesome, or so efficacious for
the wounds of sin. Let us add that, however powerful may
be this remedy, there is no one who may not procure it, with
the aid of God. For other good works omitted, one may find
some excuse ; there is none for omitting the duty of charity.
One may say to me, • 1 cannot fast ;' ' I cannot love.' They
may say, ' From the weakness of my body, I cannot abstain
from meat and wine ;' but who can say to me, ' I cannot love
my enemies, nor pardon those who have offended me V Let
no one deceive himself, for no one can deceive God. . . .
There are many things which we cannot draw from our gra-
nary or our cellar, but it would be disgraceful to say that there
is something which we cannot draw from the treasure of our
heart ; for here our feet have not to run, our eyes to look, our
ears to listen, nor our hands to work. We can allege no fa-
tigue as an excuse j men do not say to us : ' Go to the east to
seek charity ; sail to the east, and thence bring back affection.'
It is into ourselves and into our hearts that they order us to
enter ; it is there that we shall find everything. . .

" But, says some one, I cannot, in any way, love my ene-
mies. God tells thee in the scriptures that thou canst ; and
thou answerest that thou canst not. Now, look ; should we
believe God or thee ? . . How then ? So many men, so many
women, so many children, so many delicate young girls
have supported with a firm heart, for the love of Christ, the
flames, the sword, wild beasts ; and we cannot support the
insults of some foolish persons ! and for some petty ills which
the wickedness of men has done us, we pursue against then?
to their death the vengeance of our injuries. Truly, I know
not with what face and with what conscience we dare ask tc
share eternal beatitude with the saints, we who cannot follow
their example even in the slightest things."1

This is not devoid of energy ; the feeling of it is lively, the
mrns picturesque ; it almost amounts to eloquence.

Here is a passage which is even more touching. It is
doubtful whether the sermon from which I borrow it is by
5aint Cesaire. It contains some almost verbal imitations from

1 S. Aug. Op., vol. v., col. 451, 452.

328 HISTORY OF

the eastern fathers, especially Eusebius and Saint Gregory .
but this matters little ; it is certainly by some preacher of tha
time, and characterizes it as well as that which I have just
cited. It was preached on Easter-day ; it celebrates Christ's
descent into hell, and his resurrection :

" Behold," says the preacher, " you have heard what was
done of his own free will by our Saviour, the Lord of Ven-
geance. When, like a conqueror, burning and terrible, he
reached the countries of the kingdom of darkness, at the sight
of him the impious legions of hell, affrighted and trembling,
began to ask each other, saying: — " What is this terrible figure
resplendent with the whiteness of snow ? Never has our
Tartarus received his like ; never has the world cast into our
caverns any one resembling him ; this is an invader, not a
debtor ; he exacts, he does not ask ; we see a judge, not a sup-
pliant ; he comes to command, not to succumb ; to take away,
not to remain. Did our porters sleep when this triumpher at-
tacked our gates ? If he was a sinner, he would not be so
powerful ; if any fault sullied him, he would not illuminate
our Tartarus with such brilliancy. If he is God, wherefore
has he come ? if he is man, how has he dared ? If he is
God, what does he in the sepulchre ? if he is man, why does
he deliver sinners ? whence comes he, so dazzling, so power-
ful, so radiant, so terrible ? . . . Who is he, that with so much
intrepidity he oversteps our frontiers, and that not only he
does not bear our punishments, but that he delivers others
from our chains ? Should not this be he by whose death our
prince lately said we should gain the empire over the whole
universe ? But if this be he, the hope of our prince has de-
ceived him ; where he thought to conquer, he has been con-
quered and thrown down. O, our prince, what hast thou
done, what hast thou wished to do ? Behold him who, by his
splendor, has dissipated thy darkness; he has overthrown
thy dungeons, broken thy chains, delivered thy captives, and
changed their sorrow into joy. Behold those who were ac.
customed to groan under our torments insult us because of
the salvation which they have received; and not only do
they not fear us, but they even menace us. Have any seen
hitherto the dead become proud, the captives rejoice ? Why
hast thou desired to lead hither him whose coming has called
back joy to those who late were in despair ? We no longer
hear their accustomed cries, none of their groans resound.' "

1 S. Aug. Op., vol. v., col. 283, 284.

CIVILIZATION II RANCE. 320

Surely, even were you to find such a passage in Paradise
Lost, you would not be astonished, for this discourse is not un-
worthy of the hell of Milton.

It is not, however (and this is a good reason for not attribut-
ing it to him), in the general tone of the preaching of Saint
Cesaire. This is in general more simple, less ardent ; it ad-
dresses itself to the common incidents of life, to the natural
feelings of the soul. There reigns in it a mild kindness to-
wards a genuine intimacy with the population to whom the
preacher addresses himself; he not only speaks a language
suited to his auditors, the language which he believes best
calculated to act upon them ; but he pays attention to the ef-
fect of his words ; he wishes to take from them anything
which they may possess likely to wound, — all bitterness ; he
in a manner claims indulgence for his severity.

" When I make those reflections, I fear that some will rather
be irritated against us than against themselves ; our discourse
is offered to your charity as a mirror ; and as a matron, when
she regards herself in her mirror, corrects what she sees de-
fective in her person, and does not break the mirror ; so,
when any one shall recognize his deformity in a discourse, it
is just that he should rather correct himself than be irritated
against the preacher as against a mirror. Those who receive
a wound are more disposed to nurse it than to irritate them-
selves against the remedies ; let no persons irritate them-
selves against spiritual remedies ; let each receive, not only pa-
tiently, but with a good heart, what is said to him with a good
heart. It is well known that he who receives in a good spirit
a salutary correction, already avoids evil ; he who is dis-
pleased with his faults, begins to have an inclination for what
is good, and in proportion as he departs from vice, he approach-
es virtue."1

He pushes his solicitude so far as to desire that his audi-
tors should interrogate him, and enter into conversation with
him.

" It was a cause of great joy to him," say his biographers,
" when men induced him to explain any obscure point ; and
he himself frequently excited us to it, by saying to us — * I
know that you do not understand all that we say ; why do
you not interrogate us, to the end that you may be able tc
comprehend ? The cows do not always run to the calves—

1 S. Aug. Op., vol. v., col. 480.

330 HISTORY OF

often, even the calves run to the cows, that they may appease
their hunger at the dugs of their mother. You should act in
precisely the same manner, so that by interrogating us, you
may seek the means of extracting the spiritual honey for
yourselves.' "l

One can scarcely suppose but that such language would
exercise great influence over the mass of the people ; that of
Saint Cesaire was great indeed, and everything attests that
few bishops possessed the soul of their auditors as he did.

I pass to a preaching of another kind, less regular, less
wise, but not less powerful — to that of the missionaries. I
have named Saint Colomban as the type of this class of men.
He was born in 540, not in Gaul, but in Ireland, in the pro-
vince of Leinster ; he prosecuted his ecclesiastical studies,
and became a monk in the monastery of Benchor, situated in
the North of Ireland, in Ulster. What he had to do as a
common monk, and in Ireland, did not satisfy his activity ;
and in 585, already forty-five years of age, he passed into
France with twelve monks of his monastery, with the sole
aim of visiting it and preaching there. He preached, indeed,
while travelling from west to east, with enormous success,
attracting everywhere the concourse of the people, and the
attention of the great. A short t-ime after his arrival in Bur-
gundy, the king, Gontran, implored him to remain there. He
established himself amidst the mountains of Vosges, and there
founded a monastery. At the end of a very short period, in
590, the increasing number of his disciples, and the affluence
of people, obliged him to seek a more extensive and more ac-
cessible place ; he descended to the foot of the mountains,
and there founded the monastery of Luxeuil, which soon be-
came very considerable. The successes of Saint Colomban
were less peaceable than that of Saint Cesaire — they were
accompanied by resistance and trouble ; he preached the
reformation of manners, the zeal of faith, without caring for
any consideration or circumstance, falling out with princes,
with bishops, casting the divine fire on all sides, without
troubling himself about the conflagration. Accordingly, his
influence, which he exercised with a good intention, was un-
certain, unequal, and incessantly disturbed. In 602, he got

» Vita S Ccesarii, c 30 ; dans les Acta sanct. ord. S. Bened., vol
L» p. 667.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 83.

into a quarrel with the neighboring bishops, about the day of
the celebration of Easter, and not choosing to yield anything
o the local customs, he made enemies of them. About 609,
a violent storm was raised against him at the court of the
King of Burgundy, Theodoric II., and, with his accustomed
energy, he preferred to abandon his monastery rather than
yield for an instant. Fredegaire has accurately preserved
the account of this contest ; I will read it entire : the cha-
racter and the situation of the missionary are strongly shown
in it: —

" The fourth year of the reign of Theodoric, the reputa-
tion of Saint Colomban increased in the cities and in all the
provinces of Gaul and Germany. He was so much celebrated
and venerated by all, that king Theodoric often visited him
at Luxeuil, to ask with humility the favor of his prayers. As
he went there very often, the man of God began to rebuke
him, asking him why he gave himself up to adultery with
concubines, rather than enjoying the sweetness of a legiti-
mate marriage, so that the royal race might proceed from an
honorable queen, and not from an evil place. As already the
king obeyed the word of the man of God, and promised to
abstain from all illicit things, the old serpent glided into the
soul of his grandmother Brunehault, who was a second Jeze-
bel, and excited her against the saint of God with the sting
of pride. Seeing Theodoric obey the man of God, she feared
that if her son, slighting the concubines, put a queen at the
head of the court, she would see herself, by this event, re-
trenched of a part of her dignity and honors. It happened
one day that Colomban visited the court of Brunehault, which
was then in the domain of Bourcheresse.1 The queen hav-
ing seen him enter the court, led to him the sons that Theo-
doric had had by his adulteries. Having looked at them, the
saint asked what they wanted with him. Brunehault said to
him — • These are the sons of the king — give them the favor
of thy benediction.' Colomban said to her — ' Know that
they will never bear the royal sceptre, for they have come
from an ill place.' She, in a fury, ordered the children to
retire. The man of God having left the court of the queen,
at the moment that he passed the threshold a terrible noise
from above was heard, but did not repress the fury of this

1 Between Ch&lons and Autun.

332 HISTORY OF

miserable woman, who prepared to set snares for him. . . ,
Colomban, seeing the royal anger raised against him, promptly
repaired to the court, to repress by his admonitions this un-
worthy rancor. The king was then at Epoisse, his country
house. Colomban arrived as the sun went down ; they an-
nounced to the king that the man of God was there, and that
he was not willing to enter into the house of the king. Then
Theodoric said, that he had rather properly honor the man of
God than provoke the anger of the Lord by offending one cf
his servants; he therefore ordered his people to prepare
everything with royal pomp, and to go to the servant of God.
They ran, therefore, and according to the order of the king
offered their presents. Colomban, seeing that they presented
him dishes and cups with royal splendor, asked what they
wanted. They said to him — • This is what the king sends
thee.' But, driving them back with malediction, he answered
—'It is written, the Most High rejecteth the gifts of the
wicked ; it is not fit that the lips of the servants of God
should be soiled with his meat — of his who interdicts their
entry, not only into his dwelling, but that of others.' At
these words, the vases fell to pieces, the wine and the beer
ran over the ground, and everything was scattered about.
Some servants, terrified, went to tell the king what had hap-
pened. He, seized with fright, repaired at break of day with
his grandmother to the man of God ; they implored him to
pardon them for what they had done, and promised to correct
themselves in future. Colomban was appeased, and returned
to the monastery. But they did not long observe their pro-
mises ; their miserable sins recommenced, and the king gave
himself up to his usual adulteries. At the news of this, Co-
lomban sent him a letter full of reproaches, menacing him
with excommunication if he would not correct himself.
Brunehault, again enraged, excited the mind of the king
against Colomban, and strove to deprive him of all his power ;
she prayed all the lords and great men of the court to animate
the king against the man of God ; she also dared to solicit the
bishops, in order that they might raise suspicions concerning
his religion, and blame the rule which he imposed upon his
monks. The courtiers, obeying the discourse of this misera-
ble queen, excited the mind of the king against the saint of
God, and persuaded him to cause him to come and prove his
religion. The king hurried away, sought the man of God at
Luxeuil, and asked him why he deviated from the customs

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 333

of other bishops, and also wny the interior of the monastery
was not open to all Christians. Colomban, with a haughty
soul and full of courage, answered the king that it was not
customary to open the entrance of the dwelling-place of the
servants of God to secular men and strangers to religion, but
that he had places prepared and destined to receive all guests.
The king said to him — 'If thou desire to acquire the gifts of
our bounty and the help of our protection, thou must allow
every one to enter into all parts of thy monastery.' The
man of God answered — ' If thou wouldst violate what has
hitherto been subject to the rigor of our rules, and if thou art
come here to destroy the retreats of the servants of God, and
overthrow the rules of discipline, know that thy empire shall
crumble to the ground, and that thou shalt perish with all thy
royal race ;' which the event afterwards confirmed. Already,
with a rash step, the king had penetrated into the refectory ;
terrified at these words, he quickly returned. He was then
assailed with the warm reproaches of the man of God, to
whom Theodoric said : ' Thou hopest I shall give thee the
crown of a martyr ; know that I am not sufficiently foolish
to commit so great a crime. Return to a view of things
which will be far more profitable for thee, and let him who
has renounced the manners of secular men resume the path
he has quitted.' The courtiers all cried, with one voice, that
they could not tolerate in that place a man who would not
associate with all. But Colomban said that he would not go
beyond the boundary of the monastery, unless taken away
by force. The king then departed, leaving a certain lord
named Bandulf, who immediately drove the saint of God
from the monaste-*y, and conducted him in exile to the town
of Besancjon, until the king should decide upon the sentence
which it might please him to pass."

The struggle was prolonged for some time ; the missionary
was finally obliged to quit Burgundy. Theodoric had him
conducted to Nantes, where he attempted to embark in order
to return to Ireland ; an unknown circumstance, of which his
biographers have made a miracle, prevented him crossing the
sea ; he resumed the route of the countries of the east, and
established himself in the states of Teodebert, brother of
Theodoric, in Switzerland, on the borders of the lake of Zu-
rich ; then on the lake of Constance, and finally on the lake
of Geneva. New troubles drove him from this abode ; he
passed into Italy, and there founded, in 612, the monastery

29

334 HISTORY OF

of Bobbio, where he died on the 21st of November, 615, an
object of veneration to all the people among whom he had
brought his tempestuous activity.

It is shown in his eloquence : few monuments of it remain
to us j such preaching was far more improvised, far more
fugitive, than that of a bishop. Belonging to Saint Colomban
we have only the rule which he instituted for his monastery,
some letters, some poetical fragments, and sixteen Directions,
which are really sermons, preached either during some
mission, or in the interior of his monastery. The character of
them is entirely different from that of the sermons of Saint
Cesaire ; there is much less mind and reason in them ; a less
fine and varied knowledge of human nature and the different
situations of life, less care taken to model the religious in-
struction upon the wants and capacities of the auditors. But
on the other hand, the flights of imagination, the pious trans-
ports, the rigorous application of principles, the warfare
declared against all vain or hypocritical compromise, give to
the words of the orator that passionate authority which does not
always and surely reform the soul of his auditors, but which
dominates over them, and, for some time at least, sovereignly
disposes of their conduct and their life. I shall cite but one
passage from them, so much the more remarkable, as being
what one would least expect to find there. It was the age
when fasts, mortifications, austerities of all kinds were multi-
plied in the interior of monasteries, and Saint Colomban
recommends them, like others ; but, in the sincerity of his
enthusiasm, he soon perceived that neither sanctity nor faith
existed therein, and he attacked the errors of the monastical
rigors, in the same way that 'he had attacked the baseness of
worldly effeminacy :

" Do not suppose," says he, " that it suffices for us to
fatigue the dust of our body with fasts and vigils, if we do
not also reform our manners. ... To mortify the flesh, if the
soul fructifies not, is to labor incessantly at the earth withoul
making it produce any harvest ; it is to construct a statue of
gold outside, and of mud within. To what purpose were it
to go far abroad to make war, if the interior be left a prey to
ruin ? What would be said of the man who should dig all
round his vineyard and leave it inside full of brambles and
bushes?. ... A religion consisting merely of gestures and move-
ments of the body is vain ; the suffering of the body alone is
vain ; the care which a man takes of his exterior is vain, if

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 335

he does not also watch and take care of his soul. True
piety resides in the humility, not of the body, but of the
heart. To what purpose are those combats, which are fought
with the passions by the servant, when these live in peace
with the master ?.,... It does not suffice any more to hear

speak of the virtues, or to read of them Is it by words

alone that a man cleanses his house of filth ? Is it without
labor and without sweat that a dahy work can be accomplish-
ed ? ... . Therefore strengthen yourself, and cease not to
combat ; no one obtains the crown, unless he has courageous-
ly fought."1

We do not find many passages in the Instructions of Saint
Colomban, so simple as this. The transports of imagination
are there always mixed with subtlety of mind ; still the founda-
tion is often energetic and original.

Compare this sacred eloquence of the sixth century with
the eloquence of the modern, pulpit, even in its finest period ;
at the seventeenth century, for example. I said but now
that from the sixth to the eighth century, the characteristic of
literature was that of ceasing to be literature, that it had
become an action, a power ; that in writing, in speaking, men
only concerned themselves with positive and immediate re-
sults ; that they sought neither science nor intellectual plea-
sures, and that, for this reason, the epoch produced scarcely
anything but sermons, or works analogous to them. This fact,
which is shown in the general literature, is imprinted on the
sermons themselves. Open those of modern times, they have
evidently a character more literary than practical ; the orator
aspires far more to beauty of language, to the intellectual
satisfaction of his auditors, than to influence them to the bot-
tom of their souls, to produce real effects, true reformation,
efficacious conversion. There is nothing of this kind, no-
thing literary, in the sermons which I have just spoken of;
no arlxiety about speaking well, about artistically combining
images, ideas ; the orator goes to the facts ; he desires to act :
he turns and returns in the same circle ; he fears not repeti-
tions, familiarity, or even vulgarity ; he speaks briefly, but he
begins again each morning. It is not sacred eloquence, it is
religious power.

There was at this epoch a literature which has not been

1 S. Colomban. but. 2, Bibl.patr., vol. xii., p. 10.

336 HISTORY OF

remarkable, a veritable literature, essentially disinterested,
which had scarcely any other end in view but that of pro*
curing intellectual, moral pleasure to the public ; I mean the
lives of the saints, the legends. They have not been intro-
duced into the literary history of this epoch : they are, how-
ever, its true, its only literature, for they are the only works
which had the pleasures of the imagination for their object.
4fter the battle of Troy, almost every town in Greece had
poets who collected the traditions and adventures of the he-
roes, and made a diversion of them for the public, a national
diversion. At the epoch which occupies us, the lives of the
saints played the same part for the Christians. There were
men who occupied themselves in collecting them, writing
them, and recounting them for the edification, no doubt, but
more especially for the intellectual pleasure of the Christians.
That is the literature of the time, properly so called. In our
next lecture, I shall lay some of those before you, as well as
some monuments of profane literature, which we likewise
meet there.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 337

SEVENTEENTH LECTURE.

Preface of the Old Mortality of Walter Scott — Robert Patterson —Pre-
face of the Vie de Saint Marcellin, bishop of Embrun, written at
the commencement of the sixth century — Saint Ceran, bishop of
Paris — Eagerness of the Christians of these times to collect the tra-
ditions and monuments of the life of the saints and martyrs — Statis-
tics of this branch of sacred literature — Collection c£ the Bollandists
— Cause of the number and popularity of legends— They almos*
alone satisfy at this epoch — 1. The wants of the moral nature of
man — Examples : Life of Saint Bavon, of Saint Wandregisilus, of
Saint Valery — 2. The wants of physical nature — Examples: Life of
St. Germain of Paris, of Saint Wandregisilus, of Saint Rusticulus, of
Saint Sulpicius of Bourges— 3. The wants of the imagination — Ex-
amples : Life of Saint Seine, of Saint Austregesilus — Literary de-
fects and merits of legends.

Heading the Puritans of Walter Scott is a preface which
the French translators have omitted, I know not why, and
from which I take the following details :

" The tombs of the puritan martyrs, scattered in large
numbers, especially in some counties of Scotland, are still
objects for the respect and devotion of their partisans. It is
sixty years ago that a man living in the county of Dumfries,
named Robert Patterson, a descendant, it was supposed, of
one of the victims of the persecution, quitted his house and
small inheritance, in order to devote himself to the task of
keeping these modest tombs in repair. . . . He contrived to
discover them in the most secret places, in the mountains and
rocks where the insurgent puritans had taken refuge, and
where, often surprised by troops, they perished sword in hand,
or were shot after the combat. He freed the funeral stone
from the moss which covered it, he renewed the half effaced
inscription where the pious friends of the dead had expressed,
in scriptural style, both the celestial joys which awaited him,
and the malediction which should for ever pursue his mur-
derers. Every year he visited all the tombs : no season
stopped him ; he begged not, nor had he any need so to do ;
hospitality was always assured him in the families of the mar-
tyrs or zealots of the sect. For nearly thirty years he conti-
nued this painful oilirrimage ; and it is scarcely more than

338 HISTOKY OF

twenty-five years since he was found exhausted with fatigue
and breathing his last sigh upon the high road, near Lockerby ;
by his side was his old white horse, the companion of his ; a-
bors. In many parts of Scotland, Robert Patterson is still
remembered, and the people, ignorant of his real name,
designated him, from the employment to which he devoted his
life, by that of Old Mortality (man of the dead of olden
times)."

I go back from the eighteenth to the sixth century, and I
read at the head of the Life of Saint Marcellin, bishop of
Embrun, this little prologue :

" By the bounty of Christ, the combats of the illustrious
martyrs, and the praises of the blessed confessors, have filled
the world to such a degree, that almost every town may boast
of having as patrons martyrs born within its bosom. Hence
it happens, that the more they write and propagate the ines-
timable recompense which they received for their virtues, the
more will the gratitude of the faithful increase. According-
ly, I find my pleasure in seeking everywhere the palms of
these glorious champions ; and while travelling with this view,
I arrived at the city of Embrun. There I found that a man,
long since sleeping with the Lord, still performs signal mira-
cles I asked, curiously, what had been the kind of

life of this holy man from his infancy, what was his country,
by what proofs and by what marvels of virtue he had been
raised to the sublime charge of pontiff; and all declared with
one voice what I have here committed to writing. Men even
whose age has been prolonged to a very late period, and some
of whom have attained ninety, and even a hundred years,
have given me unanimous answers concerning the holy pon-
tiff. ... I wish, therefore, to transmit his memory to future
ages, although I feel my weakness succumb under such a
burden."1

Behold the Robert Patterson of the sixth century : this un-
known man performed the same travels, and fulfilled almosl
the same office for the Christian heroes of this epoch, as Old
Mortality did for the martyrs of Scotch puritanism. It was a
taste, a general need of the age, that of seeking all the tradi-
tions, al. the monuments of the martyrs and saints, and trans.

1 Vie de Saint Marcellin, 1 1 the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists,
20th April, vol. ii., p. 751.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 339

mitting them to posterity. Saint Ceraune, or Ceran bishop
of Paris at the beginning of the seventh century, likewise de-
voted his life to this task. He wrote to all the priests whom
he thought learned in the pious traditions of their country,
praying them to collect such for him : we know, among
others, that he addressed himself to a priest of the diocese of
Langres, called Warnacher, and that this latter sent him the
acts of three sainted brothers of one birth, Speusippius, Eleu-
sippius, and Meleusippius, martyrized in that diocese shortly
after the middle of the second century ; and of Saint Didier,
bishop of Langres, who underwent the same fate about one
hundred years later. It would be easy to find many analo-
gous facts in the history of Christianity, from the fourth to the
tenth century.

Thus were amassed the materials of the collection com-
menced in 1643 by Bolland, a Jesuit of Belgium, since con-
tinued by many other scholars, and known under the name
of Eecueil des Bollandistes. All monuments relative to the
life of the saints are there collected and classed by month and
day. The enterprise was interrupted in 1794 by the Belgian
revolution ; so the work is finished only for the first nine
months of the year, and the first fourteen days of the month
of October. The end of October, and the months of Novem-
ber and December j.re wanting ; but the materials for them
were prepared : they have been found, and it is said that no
time will be lost in publishing them.

In its actual state, this collection contains 53 volumes folio,
of which the following is the distribution : —

Vols.

Vols.

January .

. . 2

July 7

February

. . 3

August .... 6

March .

. . 3

September ... 8

April

- . 3

October (up to the

May

. . 8

fourteenth day) . 6

June

. . 7

Would you have an idea of the number of lives of the
saints, long or succinct, contemporaneous or not, which fill
these 53 volumes ? Here is the list, day by day, of those of
the month of April : —

340

HISTORY

OF

Saints.

Saints.

April 1. . .

. 40

April 17. . .

. 42

2. . .

. 41

18. . .

. 46

3. . .

. 26

19. .

. 38

4. . ,

, 26

20. . .

. 57

5. . .

. 20

21. . .

. 24

6. .

. 55

22. . .

. 62

7. .

. 35

23. .

. 42

8. .

. 25

24. . .

. 74

9. .

. 39

25. .

. 30

10. .

. 30

26. .

48

11. .

. 39

27. .

. 56

12. .

. 141

28. .

45

13. .

. 39

29. .

. . 58

14. .

. 46

30. .

. 126

15. .

16. .

. 41

. 81

1472

I have not made the calculation for the fifty-three volumes ;
but according to this amount of one month, and judging by
approximation, they contain more than 25,000 lives of saints.
I must add that many, doubtless, have been lost, and that
many others still remain unpublished in the libraries. This
simple statistic shows you the extent of this literature, and
what prodigious activity of mind it presupposes in the sphere
of which it is the ^object.

Such an activity, such a fertility, surely did not proceed
from the mere fancy of the authors ; there were general and
powerful causes for it. It is customary to see them only in
the religious doctrines of this epoch, in the zeal which they
inspired : assuredly, they conspired thereto ; and nothing of
the kind was done without their influence ; still they did not
do all. In other times, also, these doctrines were diffused,
were energetic without producing the same result. It was
not merely to faith and to religious exaltation ■ it was also,
and perhaps more especially, to the moral state of society and
of man, from the fifth to the tenth century, that the literature
of legends owes its richness and popularity. •

You know the character of the epoch which we have just
studied : it was a time of misery and extreme disorder, one of
those times which weigh, in some measure, in all directions
upon mankind, checking and destroying it. But however
bad the times may be, whatever may be the external circum-

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 341

stances which oppress human nature, there is an energy, an
elasticity in it, which resists their empire ; it has faculties,
wants which make their way through all obstacles ; a thousand
causes may curb them, turn them from their natural direc-
tion, suspend or divert their development for a greater or less
length of time ; nothing can abolish them, reduce them to a
state of complete impotence : they seek and always find some
issue, some satisfaction.

It was the merit of the pious legends to give to some of those
powerful instincts, those invincible wa."ats of the human soul,
that issue, that satisfaction, which all elsewhere refused them.

And first you know to what a deplorable state Frankish-
Gaul had arrived, what depravation or what brutality reigned
there. The view of the daily recurring events revolted or
suppressed all the moral instincts of man ; everything was
abandoned to chance or to force ; we scarcely meet, in the
interior world, with that empire of idea of duty, that respect
for right, which is the foundation of the security of life and
the repose of the soul. They were found in the legends.
Whoever will cast a glance, on the one hand, upon the
chronicles of civil society, on the other, upon the lives of the
saints, — whoever, in the History of Gregory of Tours alone,
will compare the civil traditions and the religious traditions,
will be struck with their difference ; in- the one, morality
only appears, so to speak, in spite of mankind and without
their knowledge ; interest and passions alone reign : people
are plunged into their chaos and darkness ; in the others,
amidst a deluge of absurd fables, morality bursts forth with an
immense influence ; it is seen, it is felt ; this sun of intellect
shines upon the world in the bosom of which it lives. I might
refer you almost indifferently to all the legends ; you would
everywhere meet with the fact I point out. Two or three ex-
amples will make it fully evident.

Saint Bavon, or Bav, hermit and patron of the town of
Ghent, who died in the middle of the seventh century, had at
first led a worldly life ; I read in his history, written by a co-
temporary :

" One day he saw a man come to him, whom formerly, and
while he still led a worldly life, he had himself sold. At this
sight, he fell into a violent fit of despair for having committed
so great a crime towards this man ; and, turning towards
him, he fell upon his knees, saying, ' It is I by whom thou wast
sold, tied with thongs ; remember not, I implore thee, lh«

342 HISTORY OF

evil that I have done to thee, and grant me one prayer. Strike
my body with rods, shave my head as thou wouldst that of a
robber, and cast me in prison as I deserve, with my feet and
hands tied ; may be, if thou dost this, the Divine mercy will
grant me his pardon.5 The man .... says that he dare not
do such a thing to his master ; but the holy man, who spoke
eloquently, strove to induce him fo do what he asked.
Finally, constrained, and despite himself, the other, overcome
by his prayers, did as he required him ; he tied the hands of
the godly man, shaved his head, tied his feet to a stick, and
conducted him to the public prison ; and the holy man re-
mained there many days, deploring day and night those acts
of a worldly life, which he had always before his mind's eye.
as a heavy burden."1

The exaggeration of these details is of little importance ;
even the material truth of the history is of little importance :
it was written at the beginning of the seventh century, to
those men of the seventh century who incessantly had under
their observation servitude, the sale of slaves, and all the
iniquities, all the sufferings, which ensued from their condi-
tion. You can understand what a charm this simple recital
possessed for them. It was a real moral relief, a protest
against odious and powerful facts, a weak but precious echo
of the rights of liberty.

Here is a fact of another nature : I take it from the Life of
Saint Wandregisilus, Abbot of Fontenelle, who died in 667,
and who, before embracing the monastic life, had been count
of the palace of king Dagobert : —

" While he still led a lay life, as he was travelling one day
accompanied by his people, he arrived at a certain place on
his road ; the people in insurrection abandoned themselves to
all the transports of fury against the holy man : impelled by
a barbarous and insensate rage, and fallen into the condition
of beasts, a crowd of people rushed towards him, and much
blood would have been shed, if his intervention and the power
of Christ had not provided a remedy. He implored the succor
of Him to whom it is said : ' Thou art my refuge against tri-
bulations f and trusting to words instead of his sword, he
placed himself under the shield of Divine mercy. Divine

1 In 653 or 657. Life of Saint Bavon, § 10, Acta Santt. Ord. S
Ben., vol. ii., p. 400.

CIVIL ZATION IN FRANCE. 343

nelp did not fail him, when human help was wanting ; this
crowd of madmen stood immoveable. The discourse of the
holy man then dispersed and saved them at the same time ;
they came in fury, and they retired in quiet."1

Would you suppose that at this epoch it would have occurred
to any barbarian, to any man a stranger to religious ideas,
thus to manage the multitude, to employ only persuasion and
words, in order to appease a disturbance ? It is very probable
that he would have had immediate recourse to force. The
rash employment of force was repugnant to a pious man, pre
occupied with the idea that he had to do with souls ; instead
of physical force, he invoked moral force ; before massacre,
he tried a sermon.

I now take an example in which the relations of men shall
be nothing, in which no attempt shall be made to substitute
moral for physical force, nor to protest against social iniquity ;
in which there is no question concerning anything but indi-
vidual, private sentiments, of the internal life of man. I read
in the life of Saint Valery, who died in 622, abbot of Saint
Valery, in Picardy :

" As this godly man returned on foot from a certain place,"
says Cayeux, " to his monastery, in the winter season, it hap-
pened, by reason of the excessive rigor of the cold, that he
stopped to warm himself in the dwelling of a certain priest.
This latter and his companions, who should have treated such '
a guest with great respect, began, on the contrary, boldly to
hold unsuitable and ill discourse with the judge of the place.
Faithful to his custom always to put the salutary remedy of
the Divine word upon corrupted and frightful wounds, he
attempted to check them, saying : ' My sons, have you not
seen in the Evangelist that at the day of judgment you will
have to account for every idle word V But they, scorning
his admonition, abandoned themselves more and more to gross
and obscene discourse, for the mouth speaks from the over-
flowing of the heart. As for him, he said : ' I desired, by
reason of the cold, to warm my fatigued body a little at your
fire ; but your guilty discourse forces me to depart, all frozen
as I am.' And he left the house."2

1 Life of Saint Wandregisilus, § 4, in the Acta Sanct. Ord. S. Ben.
TO. M., p. 535.

» Life of Saint Valery, § 25, in the Acta Sanct. Ord. S Ben., voi
ti., p. 86.

344 HISTORY OP

Of a surety the manners and language of the men of thii
age were very coarse, disorderly, impure ; still, doubtless,
respect, a taste even for gravity, for purity, both in thought
and word, was not abolished ; and when they found an occa-
sion, many among them certainly took pleasure in satisfying
that taste. The legends alone furnished them with the means.
There was presented the image of a moral state, highly supe-
rior, in every respect, to that of the external society, of
common life ; the human mind might there repose, relieved
from the view of crimes and vices which assailed it on all
sides. Perhaps it scarcely itself sought this -elief ; I doubt
if it ever made account of it ; but, when it came upon it, it.
eagerly enjoyed it ; and this, no doubt, was the first and most
powerful cause of the popularity of this literature.

This was not all : it also answered to other wants of our
nature, to those wants of affection, of sympathy, which pro-
ceed, if not from morality, properly so called, at least from
moral sensibility, and which exercise so much influence over
the soul. The sensible faculties had much to suffer at the
epoch which occupies us ; men were hard, and were treated
harshly ; the most natural sentiments, kindness, pity, friend-
ship, both of family and of choice, took but a weak or painful
development. And yet they were not dead in the heart of
man : they often sought to display themselves ; and the sight
of their presence, of their power, charmed a population con-
demned to so little enjoyment of them in real life. The
legends gave them this spectacle ; although by a very false
idea, in my opinion, and one which has produced deplorable
extravagances, the religion of the time often commanded the
sacrifice, even the contempt of the most legitimate feelings,
still it did not stifle, it did not interdict the development of
human sensibility ; while very often ill directing its applica-
tion, it favored rather than suppressed its exercise. We find,
in the lives of the saints, more benevolence, more tenderness
of heart, a larger part given to the affections, than in any
other monument of this epoch. I will place before you some
instances ; I am convinced you will be struck with the deve-
lopment of our sensible nature, which breaks forth amidst the
theory of sacrifice and self-denial.

The ardent zeal of Saint Germain, bishop of Paris in the
ast half of the sixth century,1 for the redemption of slaves, is

1 Died in 576

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 349

tnown by every one ; many pictures have perpetuated it, but
the touching details of it must be read in his life :

" Were even the voices of all united in one, you could not
say how prodigal were his alms ; often contenting himself
with a tunic, he covered some poor naked object with the res'
of his clothes, so that while the beggar was warm, the bene
factor was cold. It is impossible to enumerate in how manv
places, or in what number, he redeemed captives. Thr
neighboring nations, the Spaniards, the Scotch, the Britons
the Gascons, the Saxons, the Burgundians, may attest i»
what way recourse was had, on all sides, to the name of the
Saint, in order to be delivered from the yoke of slavery.
When he had nothing more left, he remained seated, sorrow-
ful and restless, with a more grave visage- and a more solemn
conversation. If by chance any one then invited him to a
repast, he excited the guests, or his own servants, to concert
the manner of delivering a captive, and the soul of the bishop
escaped a little from its despondency. If the Lord, in any
way, sent means to the saint, immediately, seeking in his
mind, he was accustomed to say : • Let us return thanks to the
Divine clemency, for the means of effecting redemption has
arrived,' and at once, without hesitation, the effect followed
the words. When, therefore, he had thus received anything,
the wrinkles on his forehead disappeared, his countenance
was more serene, he walked with a lighter step, his discourse
was more copious and lively ; so much so that one would
have thought that, in redeeming others, this man delivered
himself from the yoke of slavery."1

Never has the passion of goodness been painted with a mor»
simple and a truer energy.

In the life of Saint Wandregisilus, abbot of Fontenelle, o<
whom I have just spoken, I find this anecdote :

" As he repaired one day to king Dagobert, just as he ap
proached the palace, there was a poor man whose cart hat'
been overthrown before the very gate of the king : many peo
pie passed in and out, and not only they did not lend him anv
aid, but many passed over him, and trod him under foot. Thi
man of God, when he arrived, saw the impiety which thes<
children of insolence committed, and immediately descending

i Life of Saint Germain, bishop of Paris, § 71, in the Acta Sand
Ord S. Ben., vol. i., p. 244.

946 HISTORY OF

from his horse, he held his hand out to the poor man, and both
together, they raised the cart. Many of those present, seeing
him all soiled with mud, mocked and insulted him ; but he
cared not, following with humility the humble example of his
Master ; for the Lord himself has said in the Gospel : ' If they
have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much
more shall they call them of his household V >n

Here is another taken from the Life of Saint Sulpicius the
Pious, bishop of Bourges, in which breathes, amidst the most
puerile credulity, a benevolence and a mildness certainly very
foreign to the general manners of the epoch.

" One night, a ruffian, doubtless poor, introduced himself
violently into the pantry of the holy man : he soon seized upon
what, in his criminal heart, he proposed stealing, and hastens
to get out ; but he finds no opening, he is imprisoned within
the surrounding walls, and confined on all sides. The night
slipt away fruitlessly to this man who had entered so easily,
and who could not see the slightest outlet. However, the light
of day began to light the world ; the man of God called one
of his guards, ordered him to take a comrade, and to bring to
him the man they should find in the office, plunged in crime,
and as if bound.

" The servant went without delay to seek a companion, and
repaired to the office : there they found the guilty man, and
seized him to carry him off; the knave escaped from their
hands ; and seeing himself loaded with crimes, surrounded
with people, preferring a speedy death to the punishment of
his long transgressions, he rushed into a well nearly eighty
cubits deep, which he saw near him ; but at the moment when
he fell into the abyss, he implored the prayers of the blessed
bishop. The man of God ran quickly, and ordered one of
his servants to descend into the well by means of a cord, en-
joining him expressly immediately to draw up the criminal
who had thrown himself in. All exclaimed that any one
whom such an abyss had swallowed could not live, and that
surely he was dead already ; but the holy man ordered his
servant to obey him without delay. The latter waited no
longer, and, strengthened with the benediction of the saint,
he found him whom they believed dead sound and safe.

'Life of Saint Wandregiailus, § 7, in the Acta Sand. Old. S. Ben.,
»oJ. ii., p. 528.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 347

Having surrounded him with cords, he drew him captive on
to his native soil. The walls could not contain the crowd ;
almost the whole town had hastened to such a spectacle, and
all made a great noise with their cries and plaudits. The
criminal, as if shaking off a profound stupor, threw himself
at the feet of the saint, and implored his pardon. The latter,
full of charity, immediately granted it to him, and even gave
him what he had need of, recommending him to ask, for the
future, instead of taking, and saying that he would rather
make him presents than be robbed by him. Who can express
the perfect humility of this man, the prompt mercy, the holy
simplicity, patience, and forbearance I'-
ll we desire examples of the development of sensibility
alone, without any precise application, without any beneficial
or direct result, the life of Saint llusticula, abbess of the mo-
nastery that Saint Cesaire had founded at Aries, will furnish
us with two which seem to me to have a lively interest. Saint
Rusticula was born in Provence, in the territory of Vaison :
her parents had already one son.

" One night, when her mother Clemence was asleep, she
saw herself, in a dream, nursing, with great affection, two
small doves, one as white as snow, the other of a mixed color.
As she occupied herself about them with much pleasure and
tenderness, she thought that her servants came to tell her that
Saint Cesaire, bishop of Aries, was at her gate. Hearing
this, and delighted at the arrival of the saint, she ran joyfully
to him, and eagerly saluting him, humbly prayed him to
grant to her house the blessing of his presence. He entered,
and blessed her. After having done him the due honors, she
prayed him to take some nourishment, but he answered —
' My daughter, I only desire thee to give me this dove, which
I have seen thee rearing so carefully.' Hesitating within
herself, she thought whence he could know that she had this
dove ; and she denied that she possessed anything of the kind.
He then answered — ' Before God, I tell thee I will not leave
this place till thou grant me my request.' She could no
longer excuse herself; she showed her doves, and offered
them to the holy man. He joyfully took that which was of
a brilliant white, and, congratulating himself, put it into his

1 Life of Saint Sulpicius, § 28 and 29, in the Acta Sanct. Ord. S
Ben., vol. ii., p. 175

348 HISTORY OF

bosom ; and after taking leave of her, he departed. When
she awoke, she reflected upon what all this signified, and she
sought in her soul why he who was no more had appeared to
her. She knew not that Christ had chosen her daughter in
marriage, he who has said, * A city that is set on a hill can-
not be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under
a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light unto all that
are in the house.' ,n

There is certainly nothing remarkable in the incidents of
this account ; the foundation is little conformable to natural
sentiments, since it is concerning a daughter being taken
from her mother ; and yet there reigns in i a general tinge
of sensibility, of sweet and lively tenderness, which penetrates
even into the allegory by which this sacrifice is asked of the
mother, and sheds much charm and grace over it.

Saint Rusticula governed her abbey with great success, and
especially inspired a deep affection in her nuns : in 632 she
was ill, and near to death :

" It happened one Friday, that after having, according to
her custom, sung the vespers with her daughters, and feeling
fatigued, she went beyond her powers in giving her accus-
tomed reading : she knew that she only went quicker to the
Lord. The Saturday morning she was rather cold, and had
lost all strength in her limbs. Then lying down in her little
bed, she was seized with a severe fever : she, however, did not
cease to praise God, and, fixing her eyes on heaven, she re-
commended to his care her daughters, whom she left orphans,
and, with a firm voice, consoled those who wept around her.
On the Sunday she found herself worse ; and as it was cus-
tomary to make her bed only once a year, the servants of God
asked her to allow herself a rather softer couch, in order to
spare her body so rough a fatigue ; but she would not consent
thereto. On Monday, the day of Saint Lawrence the martyr,
she still lost strength, and her chest made a great noise. To
this sight the sorrowful virgins of Christ answered with- tears
and sighs. As it was the third hour of the day, and as, in its
affliction, the nuns read the psalms in silence, the holy mother
asked why she did not hear the psalms : the nuns answered
they could not sing by reason of their sorrow : ' Sing stil!

1 Life of Saint Rusticula, § 3, in the Acta Sanct. Ord. S. Ben., vol.
ii., p. 140

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 34S

ouder,' said she, • that I may receive the help of it, for it is
very sweet to me.' The following day, when her body was
almost without motion, her eyes, which preserved their vigor,
still shone like stars, and looking on all sides, and being una-
ble to speak, she imposed silence with her hand, on those
who wept, and gave them consolation. When one of the
sisters touched her feet to see if .hey were warm or cold,
she said : ' It is not yet the hour.' But shortly after, at the
sixth hour of the day, with a serene countenance, with eyes
shining, and as if she smiled, this glorious, blest soul, passed
.o heaven, and associated with the innumerable choirs of
saints."1

I know not if any of you have ever opened a collection,
entitled Memoires pour servir a VHisloire de Port Royal,3
which contains the account of the life and death of the prin-
cipal nuns of that celebrated abbey ; among others, of the
two Angelique Arnaulds, who successively governed it. Port-
Royal, the branch for women as well as that for men, was,
as you know, the asylum for the most ardent, the most inde-
pendent souls, as well as for the most elevated minds, that
honored the age of Louis XIV. Perhaps human sensibility
is nowhere displayed with more richness and energy than in
the moral history of these pious women, of whom many
shared at once the intellectual development of Nicolle and
of Pascal. Well ; the recital of their last moments a good
deal resembles what I have just read : we find there the same
emotions of piety and friendship, almost the same language ;
and the sensible nature of mankind appears to us, in the
seventh century, almost as lively, and as developed, as that
of the seventeenth amidst the most passionate characters of
the age.

I might greatly multiply these examples ; but we must
proceed. I have some to present to you of another kind.

Independently of the satisfaction which they gave to mo-
rality and human sensibility, the condition of which in the
external world was so bad, the legends also corresponded tc
other faculties, to other wants. Much is at present said con-
cerning the interest, the movement which, in the course of
what is vaguely called the middle ages, animated the life of

1 Life of Saint Rusticula, § 31, p. 14«
•Three vols., 12mo. Utrecht, 1742.

850 HISTORY OF

nations. It seems that great adventures, spectacles and re-
citals incessantly excited the imagination ; that society was a
thousand times more varied and amusing than it is among
us. It may have been so for some men placed in the superior
ranks, or thrown into peculiar situations ; but for the mass of
the population, life was, on the contrary, prodigiously monoto-
nous, insipid, wearisome ; its destiny went on in the same
place, the same scenes were produced before the eyes ; there
was scarcely any external movement, still less movement of
mind ; its pleasures were as few as its blessings, and the con-
dition of its intellect was not more agreeable than its physical
existence. It nowhere so much as in the lives of the saints,
found nourishment for this activity of imagination, this incli-
nation for novelty, for adventures, which exercises so much
influence over men. The legends were to the Christians of
this age (let me be allowed this purely literary comparison),
what those long accounts, those brilliant and varied histories,
of which the Thousand and One Nights gives us a specimen,
were to the Orientals. It was there that the popular imagi-
nation wandered freely in an unknown, marvellous world, full
of movement and poetry. It is difficult for us, in the present
day, to share the pleasure which was taken in them twelve
centuries since ; the habits of mind have changed ; distrac-
tions beset us : but we may at least understand that there was
therein a source of powerful interest for this literature. In
the immense number of adventures and scenes with which it
charmed the Christian people, I have selected two which
will perhaps give you some idea of the kind of attraction
which they had for it. The first is taken from the life of
Saint Seine (Saint, Seqaanus), the founder in the sixth cen-
tury of the abbey in Burgundy, which took his name, and
it describes the incident which induced him to select its site :
" When Seine found himself — thanks to his laudable zeal
— well instructed in the dogmas of the divine scriptures, and
learned in monastical rules, he sought a place suited for
building a monastery ; as he went over all the neighboring
places, and communicated his project to all his friends, one of
his relations, Thiolaif, said to him : ' Since thou interrogatest
me, I will point out a certain place where thou mayest estab-
lish thyself, if what thou desirest to do is inspired by the love
of God. There is an estate which, if I do not deceive my-
self, belongs to me by hereditary right ; but the people around
feed themselves, like ferocious beasts, with human blood and

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 351

flesh ; this renders it difficult to go among them, unless one
pays a troop of armed men.' The blessed Seine answered
him : • Show me the place, to the end that if my desires have
been conceived by a divine instinct, all the ferocity of these
men may be changed into the mildness of the dove.' Hav-
ing, therefore, taken his companions, he arrived at the place
of which they had spoken. It was a forest, the trees of
which almost touched the clouds, and whose solitude had not
for a long time been interrupted : they asked themselves how
they could penetrate into it, when they saw a winding foot-
path, so narrow, and full of briars, that they could scarcely
place their feet upon the same line, and from the thickness of
the branches, it was with difficulty that one foot followed the
other. However with much labor, and having their clothes
torn, they got into the depths of this rough forest ; then, bend-
ing towards the ground, they began to watch the profound
darkness with an attentive eye.

" Having for some time looked with attention, they per-
ceived very narrow openings to a cavern, obstructed by stones
and plants; besides which, the interlaced branches of the
trees rendered the cavern so dark, that wild beasts themselves
would have hesitated to enter it. This was the cavern of the
robbers, and the resort of unclean spirits. When they ap-
proached it, Seine, agreeable to God, bent his knees at the
entry, and extending his body over the bushes, addressed a
prayer to God, mixed with tears, saying — ' Lord, who hast
made Heaven and earth, which thou givest to the wishes of
him who implores thee, and who originatest all good, and
without whom all the weak efforts of humanity are useless,
if thou orderest me to live in this solitude, make the same
known unto me, and lead to good the beginnings which thou
hast granted to my devotion.' When he had finished his
prayer, he arose, and raised his hands towards heaven, and
his eyes, which were moist with tears. Knowing then that v
was under the conduct of the Saviour that he had repaired
into this dark forest, after having blessed the place, he imme-
diately set about placing the foundations of a cell where he
had kneeled to pray. The report of his arrival came to the
ears of the neighboring inhabitants, who, each exhorting the
other, and impelled by a divine movement, repaired near him.
When they had seen him, from wolves they became lambs,
so that those who were formerly a sourco of terror were
henceforth ministers of help ; and, from that time, this place,

352 HISTOEY OF

wnieh was the resort for divers cruel demons and robbers,
became the abode of innocents."1

Should we not suppose that we were reading the accoun
of the establishment of some colonists in the heart of the most
distant forests of America, or of some pious missionaries
amidst the most savage hordes ?

Here is an account of a different character, but which is no
less full of movement and inteiest.

Still young, and before entering into the ecclesiastical order,
Saint Austregesilus, bishop of Bourges, at the commencement
of the seventh century, manifested a lively desire to forsake
the world, and not to marry.

" Hearing him speak thus, his parents began to press him
earnestly to obey them in this respect. He, in order that he
might not see them discontented, whom he desired to see
satisfied, promised to do as they asked him, if such was the
will of God.

" When, therefore, he was occupied in the king's service,
he began to return to this business, and to seek what would
best befit him to do. He recollected three men of the same
nation, and of equal fortune. He wrote their names upon
three tablets, and put them under the cover of the altar in the
cathedral of Saint John, near the town of Chalons, and made
a vow to pass three nights in prayer without sleeping. After
the three nights, he was to put his hands upon the altar, tak-
ing the tablet which the Lord should deign to make him find
first, and demand in marriage the daughter of the man whose
name should be upon the tablet. After having passed one
night without sleep, the next night he found himself overcome
by it, and towards the middle of the night, unable to resist
any longer, his limbs gave way, and he fell asleep upon a
seat. Two old men presented themselves to his view. One
said to the other : ' Whose daughter is Austregesilus to mar-
ry V The other answered : ' Art thou ignorant that he is
already married V ' To whom V ' To the daughter of judge
Just.' Austregesilus then awoke, and applied himself to
finding out who this Just was, of what place he was judge,
and if he had a virgin daughter. As he could not find him,
he repaired, according to custom, to the king's palace. He

1 Life of Saint Seine, § 7 and 8. Acta Sanct. Ord. S. Ben., vol i.,
V 264

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 353

arrived in a village where there was an inn. Some travel
lers were assembled there, among others, a poor veteran with
his wife. When this woman saw Austregesilus, she said to
him :

" ' Stranger, stop an instant, and I will tell thee what I have
lately seen concerning thee in a dream ; it appeared as if I
heard a great noise, like that of the singing of psalms, and I
said to my host : " Man, what is this that I hear ? what festi-
val is now being celebrated by the priests, that they make
this procession t He answered : " Our guest Austregesilus
is being married." Full of joy, I was eager to see the young
bride, and to view her face and form. When the priests,
clothed in white, carrying crosses, and singing psalms in the
usual manner, were passed, thou earnest out, and all the peo-
ple followed behind ; for me, I looked with curiosity, and I
saw no woman, not even the girl whom thou wert to marry ;
I said to thy host : " Where is the virgin whom Austregesilus
is to marry Vs he answered : " Do you not see her in his
hands ?" I looked, and I only saw in thy hands the book of
the gospel.' Then the saint understood by his vision and the
dream of this woman, that the voice of God called him to the
priesthood."1

There is here no miracle, properly so called ; all is confined
to dreams ; but you see what movement of imagination is
connected with all the sentiment, with all the incidents of a
religious life, and with what eagerness the people received
them.

These are the true sources of this literature ; it gave to the
moral, physical, and poetical nature of man, a nourishment, a
satisfaction which it found nowhere else ; it elevated and agi-
tated his soul ; it animated his life. Hence its fertility and
its credit.

If it were our purpose to consider it under a purely literary
point of view, we should find its merits neither very brilliant
nor very varied. Truth of sentiment and naivete of tone are
not wanting to it ; it is devoid of affectation and pedantry. The
narrative is not only interesting, but it is often conceived under
a rather dramatic form. In the eastern countries, where the
charm of narration is great, the dramatic form is rare ; we

1 Life of Saint Austregesilus, § 2, in the Acta Sand. Ord. S. Ben,
vol. ii., p. 95.

354 HISTORY OF

there meet with few conversations, few dialogues, with little
getting np, properly speaking. There is much more of this
in the legends ; dialogue is there habitual, and often progresses
with nature and vivacity. But we should in vain seek a little
order in them, any art of composition ; even for the least ex-
acting minds, the confusion is extreme, the monotony great ;
credulity continually descends to the ridiculous, and the Ian-
guage has arrived at a degree of imperfection, of corruption,
of coarseness, which, in the present day, pains and wearies the
reader.

I wish to say a few words also on a portion (very inconsider-
able, it is true, but which, however, I ought not to omit) of the
literature of this period, that is, its profane literature. I have
observed that, dating from the sixth century, sacred literature
was alone, that all profane literature had disappeared ; there
were, however, some remains of it ; certain chronicles, certain
occasional poems which belonged not to religious society, and
which merit a moment's attention. In our next lecture, I shall
present to you, on some of those monuments so little known in
the present day, developments which appear to me not unin-
teresting.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 355

EIGHTEENTH LECTURE.

Some wrecks of profane literature from the sixth to the eighth century
— -Of their true character — 1st, Prose writers — Gregory of Tours —
His life — His Ecclesiastical History of the Franks — The influence
of the ancient Latin literature unites with that of the Christian doc-
trines— Mixture of civil and religious history— Fredegaire— His
Chronicle — 2dly, Poets — Saint Avitus, bishop of Vienne — His life —
His poems on the Creation — Original sin — The condemnation of man
— The Deluge — The passage of the Red Sea — The praise of virginity
— Comparison of the three first with the Paradise Lost of Milton —
Fortunatus, bishop of Poictiers — His life — His relations with Saint
Radegonde — His poems— Their character — First origin of French
literature.

I mentioned in our last lecture that we should now occupy
ourselves with the wrecks of profane literature, scattered here
and there, from the sixth to the eighth century, amidst ser-
mons, legends, theological dissertations, and escaping from the
universal triumph of sacred literature. I shall, perhaps, be a
little embarrassed with my promise, and with this word profane,
which I have applied to the works of which I mean to speak.
It seems to say, in fact, that their authors or their subjects are
of a lay character, that they belong not to the religious sphere.
Yet, see the names of the writings, and of the authors. There
are two prose writers, and two poets : the prose writers are
Gregory of Tours, and Fre'de'gaire ; the poets, Saint Avitus,
and Fortunatus. Of these four men, three were bishops:
Gregory at Tours, Saint Avitus at Vienne, and Fortunatus at
Poictiers ; all three were canonized ; the fourth, Fredegaire,
was probably a monk. With regard to the persons, there can
scarcely be anything less profane ; assuredly they belong to
sacred literature. As regards the works themselves, that of
Gregory of Tours bears the title of Ecclesiastical History of
the Franks ; that of Frddegaire is a simple chronicle ; the
poems of Saint Avitus turn upon the Creation, Original Sin,
the Expulsion from Paradise, the Deluge, the Passage of the
Red Sea, the Praise of Virginity ; and although in those of
Fortunatus many treat of the incidents of a worldly life, as
the marriage of Sigebert and Brunehault, the departure of

356 HISTORY OF

queen Galsuinthe, &c, still the greater part relate to religious
events or interests, as the dedications of cathedrals, the praise
of saints or bishops, the feasts of the church, &c, so that, to
judge by appearances, the subjects as well as the authors enter
into sacred literature, and it seems that there is nothing to
which the name of profane can be suitable .

I might easily allege that some of these writers were not
always ecclesiastics ; that Fortunatus, for example, for a long
time lived a layman ; that many of his poems date from this
period of his life. It is not certain that Fredegaire was a
monk. Gregory of Tours formally expressed his intention
.j>f mixing the sacred and the profane in his history. But
these would be poor reasons. I had far rather admit that, in
some respects, the works I intend to speak of at present belong
to sacred literature ; and still I maintain what I have said ;
they belong to profane literature ; they bore its character in
more than one respect, and they should bear its name. And
here is the reason :

I have just passed before you the two principal kinds of the
sacred literature of this epoch, on one hand sermons, on the
other, legends. Nothing of this kind had existed in antiquity ;
neither the Greek nor Latin literature furnished a model ol
similar compositions. They took their rise from Christianity
— from the religious doctrines of the age ; they were original ;
they constituted a new and truly religious literature, for it had
no impress of ancient literature, of the profane world, neither
in form nor groundwork.

The works of which I am about to speak are of another
nature : the authors and the subjects are religious, but the
character of the compositions, the manner in which they are con-
ceived and executed, belong not to the new religious literature ;
the influence of pagan antiquity is clearly shown in them ;
we incessantly find there the imitation of the Greek or Latin
writers ; it is visible in the turn of the imagination ; in the
forms of the language ; it is sometimes direct and avowed.
This is nothing like that truly new Christian mind, foreign,
even hostile, to all ancient recollections, which is visible in the
sermons and legends ; here, on the contrary, and even in the
most religious subjects, one feels the traditions, the intellectual
customs of the pagan world, a certain desire to be connected
with profane literature, to preserve and reproduce its merits.
It is hence that the name is applied correctly to the works of
which I speak, and that they form in the literature from the

CIVILIZATION IN FEANCE. 357

sixth to the eighth century a separate class, which, in a mea-
sure, unites the two epochs, the two societies, and claims espe-
cial inquiry.

Let us pass in review the four writers I have just named .
we shall recognize this characteristic in their writings.

I begin by the prose writers, and by Gregory of Tours, in.
contestably the most celebrated.

You will recollect whether historical compositions had fallen
in the Roman empire : high history, the poetical, political,
philosophical history, that of Livy, that of Polybius, and that
of Tacitus, had equally vanished ; they could only keep a
register, more or less exact, more or less complete, of events
and men, without retracing their concatenation or moral cha-
racter, without uniting them to the life of the state, without
seeking therein the emotions of the drama, or of the true
epopee. History, in a word, was no more than a chronicle.
The last Latin historians, Lampridius, Vopiscus, Eutropius,
Ammianus Marcellinus himself, are all mere chroniclers.
The chronicle is the last form under which history presents
itself in the profane literature of antiquity.

It is likewise under this form that it re-appears in the rising
Christian literature ; the first Christian chroniclers, Gregory
of Tours among others, did nothing but imitate and perpetuate
their pagan predecessors.

George Florentius, who took the name of Gregory from his
great grandfather, bishop of Langres, was born on the 3d of
November, 539, in Auvergne, in the bosom of one of those
families which called themselves senatorial, and which formed
the decaying aristocracy of the country. The one to which
he belonged was noble in the civil and the religious order : he
had many illustrious bishops for ancestors and relations, and
he was descended from a senator of Bourges, Vettius Epaga-
tus, one of the first and most glorious martyrs of Christianity
in Gaul. It appears (and this fact is so commonly met with
in the history of celebrated men, that it becomes matter of
suspicion), it appears that from his infancy, his intellectual and
pious tendencies, he attracted the attention of all around him,
and that he was brought up with particular care as the hope
of his family and of the church, among others, by his uncle,
Saint Nizier, bishop of Lyons, Saint Gal, bishop of Clermont,
and Saint Avitus, his successor. He had very ill health, and,
already ordained deacon, he made a journey to Tours, in
the hope of being cured at the tomb of Saint Martin. He was

30

358 * HISTORY OF

actually cured, and he returned to his country. We find him,
in 573, at the court of Sigebert I., king of Austrasia, to whom
Auvergne belonged. He received news that the clergy and
people of Tours, doubtless struck with his merits during the
sojourn which he had made among them, had just elected him
bishop. After some hesitation, he consented, was consecrated
onthe22d of August by the bishop of Reims, and immediately
repaired to Tours, where he passed the rest of his life.

He, however, often left it ; and even on affairs foreign to
those of the church. Gontran, king of Burgundy, and Chil-
debert II. king of Austrasia, employed him as a negotiator in
their long quarrels ; we find him in 585 and in 588, travelling
from one court to another to reconcile the two kings. He
appeared likewise at the council of Paris, held in 577, to
judge Pretextat, archbishop of Rouen, whom Chilper'c and
Fr6degonde wished to expel, and whom in fact they did expel
from his diocese.

In his various missions, and especially at the council of
Paris, Gregory of Tours conducted himself with more inde-
pendence, good sense, and equity, than was evinced by many
other bishops. Doubtless, he was credulous, superstitious,
devoted to the interests of the clergy : still few ecclesiastics of
his time had a devotion, I will not say as enlightened, but less
blind, and kept to so reasonable a line of conduct in what con-
cerned the church.

In 592, according to his biographer, Odo of Cluny, who
wrote his life in the tenth century, he made a journey to
Rome to see pope Gregory the Great. The fact is doubtful,
and of little interest : still the account of Odo of Cluny con-
tains a rather piquant anecdote, and one which proves what a
high estimation Gregory and his contemporary were held in
at the tenth century. He was, as I have said, remarkably
weak and puny.

" Arrived in the presence of the pontiff," says his biogra-
phers, " he kneeled and prayed. The pontiff, who was of a
wise and deep mind, admired within himself the secret, dis-
pensations of God, who had placed so many divine graces in
so small and puny a body. The bishop, internally advised,
by the will on high, of the thought of the pontiff, arose, and
regarding him with a tranquil air, said to him : « It is the Lord
who makes us, and not ourselves ; it is the same with the
great and with the small.' The holy pope seeing that he
thus answered to his thought, conceived a great veneration

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 859

for him, and took so much to heart the dignifying of the see
of Tours, that he presented a chair of gold to it, which is still
preserved in that church."1

Close upon his return from his journey to Rome, if it is
true that he made one, Gregory died at Tours, the 17th of
November, 593, very much regretted in his diocese, and cele-
brated throughout western Christendom, where his works
were already spread. That which interests us most in the
present day was certainly not at that time the most ardently
sought for. He composed, 1st, a treatise of the Glory of the
Martyrs, a collection of legends, in one hundred and seven
chapters, devoted to the recital of the miracles of martyrs ;
2. A treatise on the Glory of the Confessors, in one hundred
and twelve chapters ; 3. A collection, entitled, Lives of the
Fathers, in twenty chapters, and which contains the history
of twenty -two saints, of both sexes, of the Gaulish church ;
4. A treatise on the Miracles of Saint Julianus, bishop of
Brioude, in fifty chapters ; 5. A treatise on the Miracles of
Saint Martin of Tours, in four books ; T3. A treatise on the
Miracles of Saint Andrew. These were the writings which
rendered his name so popular. They have no distinguishing
merit amid the crowd of legends, and nothing which requires
us to stop at them.

The great work of the bishop of Tours, that which has
brought his name down to us, is his Ecclesiastical History of
the Franks. The mere title of the book is remarkable, for il
points out its character to be at once civil and religious ; the
author did not wish to write a history of the church merely,
nor of the Franks alone ; he thought that the destinies of the
laity and those of the clergy should not be separated.

He says, " I shall indiscriminately combine, and without
any other order than that of time, the virtues of the saints and
the disasters of the people. I am not of opinion that it should
be regarded as unreasonable to mix the felicities of the blessed
with the calamities of the miserable in the account, not for
the convenience of the writer, but in order to conform with
the progress of events .... Eusebius, Severus, Jerome, and
Orosius, have mixed up in like manner in their chronicles,
the wars of kings and the virtues of martyrs."8

1 Vita S. Gregorii, &c, by Odo, abbot of Cluny, § 24.
'Gregory of Tours, vol. i., p. 39, in my Collection des Miutoiret sin
F Histoire de France.

360 HISTORY OF

I shall have recourse to no other testimony than that of
Gregory of Tours himself, for distinguishing in his work that
influence of ancient literature, that mixture of profane and
sacred letters, which I pointed out at the beginning. He pro-
tests his contempt for all pagan traditions ; he eagerly repudi-
ates all heritage of the world in which they reigned.

" I no not occupy myself," he says, "with the flight of
Saturn, nor the rage of Juno, nor the adulteries of Jupiter ;
I despise all such things which go to ruin, and apply myself
far rather to Divine things, to the miracles of the gospel."1

And elsewhere, in the Preface of his history, we read :—

" The cultivation of letters and the liberal sciences were
declining, were perishing in the cities of Gaul, amidst the
good and evil actions which were then committed ; while the
barbarians abandoned themselves to their ferocity, and the
kings to their fury, while the churches were alternately en-
riched by pious men, and robbed by the infidels, we find no
grammarian able in the art of logic, who undertook to de-
scribe these things either in prose or verse. Many men
accordingly groan, saying - < Unhappy are we ! the study oi
letters perishes among us, and we find no person who can
describe in his writings present facts.' Seeing this, I have
thought it advisable to preserve, although in an uncultivated
language, the memory of past things, in order that future men
may know tnem."2

What does the writer lament ? the fall of the liberal studies,
of the liberal sciences, of grammar, of logic. There is no-
thing Christian there ; the Christian never thought of them.
On the contrary, when the mere Christian spirit dominated,
men scorned what Gregory calls the liberal studies; they
called them profane studies.

It is the ancient literature which the bishop regrets, and
which he wishes to imitate as far as his weak talent will
allow him ; it is that which he admires, and which he flatters
himself with the hope of continuing.

You see here the profane character breaks through. No-
thing is wanting to this work to place it in sacred literature :
it bears the name of Ecclesiastical History, it is full of the
religious doctrines, traditions, the affairs of the Church. And

i Article upon Greg, of Tours, vol. i., p. 22, in my Collection
* Art. on Greg, of Tours, vol. i., p. 23, in my Collection.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 361

still civil affairs likewise find a place in it, and it is a chroni-
cle very like the last of the pagan chronicles ; and respect
and regret for pagan literature, as formally expressed in it,
with the design of imitating it.

Independently of the narrative, the book is very curious
from the double character which unites it to the two societies,
and marks the transition from one to the other. As to the
rest, there is no art of composition, no order ; even the chro-
nological order, which Gregory promises to follow, is inces
santly forgotten and interrupted. It is merely the work of a
man who has collected all he has heard said, all that passed
in his time, traditions and events of every kind, and has in-
serted them, good and bad, in a single narration. The same
enterprise was executed, and in the same spirit, at the end of
the eleventh century, by a Norman monk, Orderic Vital.
Like Gregory of Tours, Orderic collected all the recollec-
tions, all facts, both lay and religious, which came within his
knowledge, and inserted them promiscuously, connected by a
small thread, and, to complete the resemblance, he also gave
his work the title of Ecclesiastical History of Normandy. I
shall speak minutely of it when we arrive at the civilization
of the eleventh century ; I merely wished here to point out
the analogy. The work of the bishop of Tours, precisely by
reason of this shadow of ancient literature, which we may
catch a glimpse of in the distance, is superior to that of the
Norman monk. Although the Latin is very corrupt, the
composition very defective, and the style undignified, it has
still some merit in the narration, some movement, some truth
of imagination, and a rather acute knowledge of men. It is,
upon the whole, the most instructive and amusing chronicle
of the three centuries. It begins at the year 377, at tho
death of Saint Martin, and stops in 591.

Fredegaire continued it. He was a Burgundian, probably
a monk, and lived in the middle of the eighth century. This
is all that is known of him, and even his name is doubtful.
His work is very inferior to that of Gregory of Tours ; it is a
general chronicle, divided into five books, and commences at
the creation of the world. The fifth book only is curious ; it
is there that the narration of Gregory of Tours is taken up,
and continued up to 641. This continuation is of no value
except for the information which it contains, and because it
is almos* the only work there is upon the same epoch. For

362 HISTORY OF

the rest, it has no literary merit, and, except two passage^
contains no picture the least detailed, nor does it cast any
light upon society and manners. Fredegaire himself was
struck, I Will not say with the mediocrity of his work, bui
with the intellectual decay of his time.

" We can only draw with trouble," says he, " from a
source which does not still run. Now the world ages, and
the force of mind deadens in us : no man in the present age
is equal to the orators of past times, and no one dare even pre-
tend to emulate them."1

The distance between Gregory of Tours and Fredegaire
is, in fact, great. In the one, we still feel the influence, and,
as it were, the breath of Latin literature ; we recognize some
traces, some tinges of a taste for science and elegance in mind
and manners. In Fredegaire all recollection of the Roman
world has vanished ; he is a barbarous, ignorant, and coarse
monk, whose thought, like his life, is inclosed within the walls
of his monastery.

From the prose writers let us pass to the poets ; they are
worthy of our attention.

I just now called to your recollection what had been the
last state, the last form of history, in Latin literature, from
the third to the fifth century. Without falling quite so low,
the decay of poetry was profound. All great poetry had dis-
appeared, that is, all epic, dramatic, or lyrical poetry ; the
epopee, the drama, and the ode, those glories of Greece and
Rome, were not even aimed at. The only kinds still slightly
cultivated, were : 1, didactic poetry, sometimes taking that
philosophic tone, of which Lucretius gave the model, and
more frequently directed towards some material object, the
chase, fishing, &c. ; 2, descriptive poetry, the school of which
Ausonius is the master, and in which are found numerous
narrow but elegant minds ; 3, lastly, occasional poetry,
epigrams, epitaphs, madrigals, epithalamiums, inscriptions, all
that kind of versification, sometimes in mockery, sometimes
..i praise, whose only object is to draw some momentary
amusement from passing events. This was all that remained
of the poetry of antiquity.

The same kinds, the same characteristics, appear in the
«emi-profane, and the semi-Christian poetry of this epoch.

1 Preface to Fredegaire, vol. ii., p. 164, of ray Collection

CIVILIZATION IN FKANCE. 363

In my opinion, the most distinguished of all the Christian
poets from the sixth to ihe eighth century, although he may
not be the most talked of, is Saint Avitus, bishop of Vienne.
He was born about the middle of the fifth century, like
Gregory of Tours, of a senatorial family in Auvergne. Epis-
copacy was there a kind of inheritance, for he was the fourth
generation of bishops ; his father Isique preceded him in the
see of Vienne. Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus mounted it in 490,
and occupied it until the 5th of February, 525, the time of
his death. During all that period, he played an important
part in the Gaulish church, intervened in events of somt
importance, presided at many councils, among others, at that
of Epaone in 517, and especially took a very active part in
the struggle between the Arians and the orthodox. He was
the chief of the orthodox bishops of the east and south of
Gaul. As Vienne belonged to the Burgundian Arians, Saint
Avitus had often to struggle in favor of orthodoxy, not only
against his theological adversaries, but also against the civil
power ; he got out of it happily and wisely, respecting and
managing the masters of the country without ever abandoning
his opinion. The conference which he had at Lyons, in 499,
with some Arian bishops in presence of king Gondebald,
proved his firmness and his prudence. It is to him that the
return of king Sigismond to the bosom of orthodoxy is attri-
buted. However this may be, it is as a writer, and not as a
bishop, that we have to consider him at present.

Although much of what he wrote is lost, a large number of
his works remains ; a hundred letters on the events of his
times, some homilies, some fragments of theological treatises,
and lastly, his poems. Of these there are six, all in hexa-
meter verses. 1. Upon the Creation, in 325 verses; 2.
Upon Original Sin, in 423 verses ; 3. On the Judgment of
God and the Expulsion from Paradise, 435 verses ; 4. Upon
the Deluge, 658 verses ; 5. On the Passage of the Red Sea,
719 verses; 6. In praise of Virginity, 666 verses. The first
three, The Creation, Original Sin, and The Judgment of
God, together form a triad, and may be considered as three
parts of one poem, that one might — indeed, that one ought to
call, to speak correctly, Paradise Lost. It is not by the subject
alone this work recalls to mind that of Milton ; the resem-
blance in some parts of the general conception, and in some of
the more important details, is striking. It does not follow
that Milton was acquainted with the poems of Saint Avitus ;

364 HISTORY OF

doubtless, nothing proves the contrary ; they were published
at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and the classical
and theological learning of Milton was very great, but it is of
little importance to his glory whether or not he was acquainted
with them. He was one of those who imitate when they
please, for they invent when they choose, and they invent
even while imitating. However it may be, the analogy of the
two poems is a rather curious literary fact, and that of Saint
Avitus deserves the honor of being closely compared with
that of Milton.

The first part, entitled, Of the Creation, is essentially de-
scriptive ; the descriptive poetry of the sixth century appears
there in all its development. It singularly resembles the de-
scriptive poetry of our time, the school, of which the abb6
Delille is the chief, that we have seen so flourishing, and
which at present scarcely counts a few languishing inheritors.
The essential characteristic of this kind is to excel in con-
quering difficulties which are not worth being conquered, to
describe what has no need of being described, and thus to
arrive at a rather rare literary merit, without it resulting
in any truly poetical effect. There are some objects which
it is sufficient to name, occasions in which it is sufficient to
name the objects, in order that poetry may take rise, and the
imagination be struck ; a word, a comparison, an epithet,
place them vividly before one's eyes. Descriptive poetry,
such as we know it, is not content with this result : it is
scientific more than picturesque ; it troubles itself less with
making objects seen, than with making them known ; it
minutely observes, and surveys them as a designer, as an
anatomist, is intent upon enumerating them, upon displaying
every part of them; and this being the fact, that which,
simply named or designated by a single stroke, by a general
image, would be real and visible to the imagination, ap-
pears only decomposed, cut up, dissected, destroyed. This is
the radical vice of modern descriptive poetry, ani the trace
of it is imprinted in its happiest works. It is found in that
of the sixth century ; the greater part of the descriptions of
Saint Avitus have the same fault, the same character.

God works at the creation of man : " He places the head
on the most elevated place, and adapts the countenance,
pierced with seven outlets, to the wants of the intellect. From
thence are exercised the senses of smell, hearing, sight, and
teste : that of touch is the only sense which feels and judges

CIVILIZATION IN FEANCE. 363

oy the whole body, and whose energy is spread through all
its members. The flexible tongue is attached to the roof of
the mouth, so that the voice, driven into this cavity as if
struck by a bow, resounds with various modulations through
the moved air. From the humid chest, placed before the
body, extend the robust arms with the ramifications of the
hands. After the stomach comes the belly, which upon each
side surrounds the vital organs with a soft envelopment. Be.
low, the body is divided into two thighs, in order to walk more
easily by an alternate movement. Behind, and below the
occiput, descends the nape of the neck, which everywhere
distributes its innumerable nerves. Lower and on the inside
are placed the lungs, which must be separated by a light air,
and which, by a strong breath, alternately receive and re-
turn it."1

Are we not in the workshop of a mechanic ? are we not
present at that slow and successive labor which announces
science and excludes life ? In this description, there is great
accuracy of facts, the structure of the human body and the
agency of the various organs are very faithfully explained
everything is there, except man and the creation.

It would be easy to find, in modern descriptive poetry, per-
fectly analogous passages.

Do not suppose, however, that there is nothing but things
of this kind, and that, even in this description of poetry, Saint
Avitus has always executed as badly as this. This book
contains many of the most happy descriptions, many most
poetical, those especially which trace the general beauties of
nature, a subject far more within the reach of descriptive po-
etry, much better adapted to its means. I will quote, for an
example, the description of Paradise, of the garden of Eden,
and I will at the same time place before you that of Milton,
universally celebrated.

" Beyond India, where the world commences, where it is
said that the confines of heaven and earth meet, is an elevated
retreat, inaccessible to mortals, and closed with eternal barri-
ers, ever since the author of the first crime was driven out
alter his fall, and the guilty saw themselves justly expelled
their happy dwelling. . . . No changes of season there bring
oack frost ; there the summer sun is not succeeded by the ice

i Poems of Avitus, 1, i., De Initio Mttndi, v. 82 — 107

366 HISTORY OF

of winter j while elsewhere the circle of the year brings us
stifling heat, or fields whitened by frost, the kindness of
Heaven there maintains an eternal spring ; the tumultuous
South wind penetrates not there ; the clouds forsake an air
always pure, and a heaven always serene. The soil has no
need of rains to refresh it, and the plants prosper by virtue
of their own dew. The earth is always verdant, and its
surface, animated by a sweet warmth, resplendent with
beauty. Herbs never abandon the hills, the trees never lose
their leaves ; and although constantly covered with flowers,
they quickly repair their strength by means of their own sap.
Fruits, which we have but once in the year, there ripen every
month ; there the sun does not wither the splendor of the lily ;
eo touch stains the violet ; the rose always preserves its
color and graceful form. . . . Odoriferous balm continually
runs from fertile branches. If, by chance, a slight wind
arises, the beautiful forest, skimmed by its breath, with a
sweet murmur agitates its leaves and flowers, from which
escape and spread afar the sweetest perfumes. A clear
fountain runs from a source of which the eye with care pene-
trates to the bottom ; the most polished gold has no such splen
dor ; a crystal of frozen water attracts not so much light.
Emeralds glitter on its shores j every precious stone which the
vain world extols, are there scattered like pebbles, adorn the
fields with the most varied colors, and deck them as with a
natural diadem."

Now see that of Milton ; it is cut into numerous shreds,
and scattered throughout the fourth book of his poem ; but I
choose the passage which best corresponds to that which I
have just quoted from the bishop of Vienne :

" Thus was this place
A happy rural seat of various view ;
Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm ;
Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind,
Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true,
If true, here only, and of delicious taste :
Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks
Grazing the tender herb, were interpos'd,
Or palmy hillock ; or the flowery lap
Of some irriguous valley, 'spread her store,
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose ;

l L. l., De Initio Mundi, v. 211—257.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 367

Anotner side, umbrageous grots and caves
Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vin«,
Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps
Luxuriant ; meanwhile, murmuring waters fall
Down the slope hills, dispers'd, or in a lake,
That to the fringed bank with myrtle crown'd,
Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams.
The birds their quire apply ; airs, vernal airs,
Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune
The trembling leaves, while universal Pan
Knit with the graces and the hours in dance,
Led on the eternal spring."1

The description of Saint Avitus is certainly, rather superior
than inferior to that of Milton ; although the first is much
nearer to paganism, he mixes far fewer mythological recol-
lections in his pictures : the imitation of antiquity is perhaps
less visible, and the description of the beauties of nature Ap-
pears to me at once more varied and more simple.

In the same book I find a~ description of the overflowing of
the Nile, which also deserves quotation. You know that, in
all religious traditions, the Nile is one of the four rivers of
Paradise ; it is for this reason that the poet names it, and
describes its annual inundations.

" Whenever the river, by swelling, extends over its banks
and covers the plains with its black slime, its waters become
fertile, heaven is calm, and a terrestrial rain spreads on all
sides. Then Memphis is surrounded with water, is seen in
the midst of a large gulf, and the navigator is seen upon his
fields, which are no longer visible. There is no longer any
limit ; boundaries disappear by the decree of the river, which
equalizes all and suspends the labors of the year ; the shep-
herd joyfully sees the fields which he frequents swallowed
up; and the fish, swimming in foreign seas, frequent the
places where the herds fed upon the verdant grass. At last,
when the water has espoused the altered earth and has im-
pregnated all its germs, the Nile recedes, and re-collects its
scattered waters : the lake disappears ; it becomes a river,
returns to its bed, and encloses its floods in the ancient dyke
of its banks."2

Many features of this description are marked with faults of
style ; we find many of those labored comparisons, those arti-
ficial antitheses, which he takes for poetry : " the terrestrial

Milton, Paradise Lost, iv., 246 — 68. 8 Avitus, 1 i., v. 266—281

868 HISTORY OF

rain," for example, " the water espouses the se'i," &c. ; still
the picture is not devoid of truth and effect. In his poem
upon The Deluge, Saint Avitus has described an analogous
phenomenon, but far more vast and terrible, the fall of the
waters of Heaven, and the simultaneous overflow of all the
waters of tne earth, with much vigor and effect ; but the
length of the passage forbids my quoting it to you.

In the second book, entitled, Of the Original Sin, the poet
follows, step by step, the sacred traditions ; but they do not
subdue his imagination, and he sometimes even elevates him-
self to poetical ideas, in which he quits them without posi-
tively contradicting them. Every one knows the character
with which Milton has invested Satan, and the originality of
that conception which has preserved in the demon the grandeur
of the angel, carrying down to the pit of evil the glorious
traces of goodness, and thus shedding, over the enemy of God
and man, an interest, which, however, has nothing illegitimate
or perverse. Something of this idea, or rather of this inten-
tion, is found in the poem of Saint Avitus : his Satan is by no
means the demon of mere religious traditions, odious, hideous,
wicked, a stranger to all elevated or affectionate feeling. He
has preserved in him some traits of his first state, a certain
moral grandeur ; the instinct of the poet has overcome the
doctrine of the bishop ; and although his conception of the
character of Satan is far inferior to that of Milton, although
he could not bring forth in it those combats of the soul, those
fierce contrasts which render the work of the English poet so
admirable, still his is not devoid of originality and energy.
Like Milton, he has painted Satan at the time when he enters
Paradise and perceives Adam and Eve for the first time.

" When he saw," says he, " the new creatures in a peaceful
dwelling, leading a happy and cloudless life, under the law
which they had received from the Lord, with the empire of
the universe, and enjoying, amidst delicious tranquillity, all
which was subjected to them, the flash of jealousy raised a
sudden vapor in his soul, and his burning rage soon became
a terrible fire. It was then not long since He had fallen from
Heaven, and had hurried away with him, into the low pit,
the troop attached to his fate. At this thought, and reviewing
his recent disgrace in his heart, it seemed t.Tiat he had lost
more, since he saw another possessed of such happiness ; and
shame mixing itself with envy, he poured out his angry
regrets in these words :

CIV'LIZATION IN FRANCE. 369

" ' O sorrow ! this work of earth is suddenly raised before
as, and our ruin has given birth to this odious race ! I,
Virtue ! I possessed heaven, and I am now expelled it, and
dust has succeeded to the honor of angels ! A little clay,
arranged unaer a pitiful form, will here reign, and the power
torn from us is transferred to him ! But we have not en-
tirely lost it ; the greatest portion thereof remains ; we can
and we know to injure. Let us not delay then ; this combat
pleases me ; I will engage them at their first appearance,
while their simplicity, which has as yet experienced no deceit,
is ignorant of everything, and offers itself to every blow. Il
will be easier to mislead them while they are alone, before
they have thrown a fruitful posterity into the eternity of ages.
Let us not allow anything immortal to come out of the earth ;
let us destroy the race at its commencement : O that the de-
feat of its chief may become the seed of death ; that the prin-
ciple of life may give rise to the pangs of death ; that all may
be struck in one ; the root cut, the tree will never raise itself.
These are the consolations which remain to me in my fall.
If I cannot again mount to the heavens, they will at least be
closed for these creatures : it seems to me less harsh to be
fallen, if the new creatures are lost by a similar fall ; if, the
accomplices of my ruin, they become companions of my pun-
ishment, and share with us the fire which I now catch a
glimpse of. But, in order to attract them without difficulty,
it is needful that I myself, who have fallen so low, should
show them the route which T myself travelled over ; that the
same pride which drove me from the celestial kingdom, may
chase men from the boundaries of Paradise.' He thus spoke,
and, heaving a sigh, became silent."1

Now for the Satan of Milton, at the same time, and in the
came situation :

" 0 hell, what do mine eyes with grief beho.d :
Into our room of bliss, thus high advanc'd,
Creatures of other mouldy earth, born, perhaps,
Not spirits, yet to heavenly spirits bright
Little inferior ; whom my thoughts pursue
With wonder, and could love, so lively shines
In them Divine resemblance, and such grace
The hand that form'd them on their shape hath pour'd.

« Avitus, 1. ii.,v. 60—117.

S70 HISTOKY OF

Ah, gentle pair, ye little think how nigh

Your change approaches, when all these delight*

Will vanish, and deliver ye to woe ;

More woe, the more your taste is now of joy ;

Happy, but for so happy, ill secur'd

Long to continue, and this high seat your Heav'n,

111 fenc'd for Heaven to keep out such a foe

As now is enter'd ; yet no purpos'd foe

To you, whom I could pity thus forlorn,

Though I unpitied : league with you I seek,

And mutual amity so strait, so close,

That I with you must dwell, or you with me

Henceforth ; my dwelling haply may not please,

Like this fair Paradise, your sense ; yet such

Accept your Maker's work ; he gave it me,

Which I as freely give : Hell shall unfold,

To entertain you two, her widest gates,

And send forth all her kings ; there will he room,

Not like these narrow limits, to receive

Your numerous offspring ; if no better place,

Thank him who puts me loath to this revenge

On you, who wrong me not, for him who wrong'd.

And should I at your harmless innocence

Melt as I do, yet public reason just,

Honor and empire with revenge enlarg'd

By conquering this new world, compels me now

To do what else, though damn'd, I should abhor."'

Here the superiority of Milton is great. He gives to Satan
far more elevated, more impassioned, more complex feelings
—perhaps even too complex — and his words are far more
eloquent. Still there is a remarkable analogy between the
two passages ; and the simple energy, the menacing unity of
the Satan of Saint Avitus, seems to me to be very effective.

The third book describes the despair of Adam and Eve
after their fall, the coming of God, his judgment, and their
expulsion from Paradise. You will surely remember that
famous passage of Milton, after the judgment of God, when
Adam sees everything overthrown around him, and expects
to be driven out of Paradise ; he abandons himself to the
harshest rage against the woman :

* Whom thus afflicted when sad Eve beheld,
Desolate where she sat, approaching nigh,
Soft words to his fierce passion she assay'd :
But her with stern regard he thus repell'd :

1 Milton, Paradise Lost, iv., 358 — 392

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 371

« Out of my sight, thou serpent ! that name best _

Befits thee with him leagued, thyself as false

And hateful ; nothing wants, but that thy shape,

Like his, and color serpentine, may show

Thy inward fraud, to warn all creatures from thee

Henceforth ; least that too heavenly form pretended

To hellish falsehood, snare them. But for thee

I had persisted happy ; had not thy pride

And wandering vanity, when least was safe.

Rejected my forewarning, and disdained,

Not to be trusted ; longing to be seen,

Though by the devil himself: him overweening

To overreach ; but with the serpent meeting,

Fool'd and beguil'd ; by him, thou, I by thee,

To trust thee from my side, imagin'd wise,

Constant, mature, proof against all assaults ;

And understood not all was but a show,

Rather than solid virtue ; all but a rib

Crooked by nature, bent, as now appears,

More to the part sinister, from me drawn ;

Will if thrown out as supernumerary,

To my just number found. 0 ! why did God,

Creator wise, that peopled highest Heaven

With spirits masculine, create at last

This novelty on earth, this fair defect

Of nature, and not fill the world at once

With men and angels, without feminine ;

Or find some other way to generate

Mankind ? This mischief had not then befall'n,

And more that shall befall ; innumerable

Disturbances on earth through female snares,

And strait conjunction with this sex."i

The same idea occurred to Saint Avitus ; only that it is to
God himself, not to Eve, that Adam addresses the explosion
of his rage :

" When thus he saw himself condemned, and that the most
just inquiry had made evident all his fault, he did not hum-
bly ask his pardon and pray ; he answered not with shrieks
and tears ; he sought not to deter, with suppliant confession,
the deserved punishment ; already miserable, he invoked no
pity. He erected himself, he irritated himself, and his pride
broke out into insensate clamors : • It was then to bring my
ruin that this woman was united to my fate 1 That which,
by thy first law, thou hast given for a dwelling : it is she who,
overcome herself, has conquered me with her sinister, coun

1 Milton, Paradise Lost, x., 863 — 897.

372 HISTORY OF

sels ; it is she who has persuaded me ,o take that fruit which
she herself already knew. She is the source of evil ; from
her came crime. 1 was credulous ; but thou, Lord, taught
me to believe her by giving her to me in marriage, in joining
me to her by sweet knots. Happy if my life, at first solitary,
had always so run on, if I had never known the ties of such
an union, and the yoke of this fatal companion !'

" At this outburst of irritated Adam, the Creator addressed
these severe words to desolate Eve : ' Why, in falling, hast
drawn down thy unhappy spouse ? Deceitful woman, why,
instead of remaining alone in thy fall, hast thou dethroned the
superior reason of the man V She, full of shame, her cheeks
covered with a sorrowful blush, said that the serpent had per-
suaded her to touch the forbidden fruit."1

Does not this passage appear at least equal to that of Mil-
ton ? It is even free from the subtle details which disfigure
the latter, and diminish the progress of the sentiment.

The book terminates with the prediction of the advent of
Christ, who shall triumph over Satan. But with this conclu-
sion the poet describes the very leaving of Paradise, and these
last verses are, perhaps, the most beautiful in the poem :

" At these words, the Lord clothes them both with the skins
of beasts, and drives them from the happy retreat of Para-
dise. They fall together to the earth ; they enter upon the
desert world, and wander about with rapid steps. The world
is covered with trees and turf: it has green meadows, and
fountains and rivers ; and yet its face appears hideous to them
after thine, 0 Paradise ! and they are horror-struck with it ;
and, according to the nature of men, they love better what
they have lost. The earth is narrow to them ; they do not
see its limits, and yet they feel confined, and they groan.
Even the day is dark to their eyes, and under the clear sun,
they complain that the light has disappeared."2

The three other poems of Saint Avitus, the Deluge, the
Passage of the Red Sea, and the Praise of Virginity, are very
inferior to what I have just quoted ; still some remarkable
fragments may be found in them, and certainly we have rea-
son to be astonished that a work which contains such beau-
ties should remain so obscure. But the age of Saint Avitua

1 Avitus, 1. iii., v. 9fi— 112. 2 Ibid., v. 195—207.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 373

is all obscure, and he has fallen under the general decay in
the midst of which he lived.

I named a second poet, Fortunatus, bishop of Poictiers.
He was not of Gaulish origin ; he was born in T)30, beyond
the Alps, near Ceneda, in the Trevisan ; and about 565, a
little before the great invasion of the Lombards, and the de-
solation of the north of Italy, he passed into Gaul, and stopped
in Austrasia at the time of the marriage of Sigebert and
Brunehault, daughter of Athanagilde, king of Spain. It ap-
pears that he remained there one or two years, making epi-
thalamiums, laments, a court poet there, devoted to the cele-
bration of its adventures and pleasures. We then find him
at Tours, paying his devotions to Saint Martin ; he was then
a layman. Saint Radegonde, wife of Clotaire I., had just
retired, and founded a monastery of nuns. Fortunatus con-
nected himself ^with her in close friendship, entered into
orders, and soon became her chaplain, and almoner of the
monastery. From this period, no remarkable incident of his
life is known. Seven or eight years after the death of Saint
Radegonde, he was made bishop of Poictiers, and there died
at the beginning of the seventh century, after having long
celebrated with his verses all the great men of his age, and
having been in assiduous correspondence with all the great
bishops.

Independently of seven lives of saints, of some letters or
theological treatises in prose, of four books of hexameters on
the life of Saint Martin of Tours, which are merely a poetical
version of the life of the same saint by Sulpicius Severus,
and some trifling works which are lost, there remain of him
two hundred and forty-nine pieces of verse in all kinds of
metres, of which two hundred and forty-six were collected by
himself in eleven books, and three are separate. Of these
two hundred and forty-nine pieces, there are fifteen in honor
of certain churches, cathedrals, oratories, &c, composed at
the time of' their construction or dedication ; thirty epitaphs ;
twenty-nine pieces to Gregory of Tours, or concerning him ;
twenty-seven to Saint Radegonde, or to sister Agnes, abbess
of the monastery of Poictiers, and one hundred and forty-
eight other pieces to all sorts of persons, and upon all sorts of
subjects.

The pieces addressed to Saint Radegonde, or to the abbess
Agnes, are incontestably those which best make known and

374 HISTORY OF

characterize the turn of mind, and the kind of poetry, of For
tunatus. On these only I shall dwell.

One is naturally led to attach to the relations of such per
sons the most serious ideas, and it is, in fact, under a grave
aspect that they have been described : it has been mistakenly ;
do not suppose that I have here to relate some strange anec-
dote, or that his history is subject to the embarrassment of
some scandal. There is nothing scandalous, nothing equivo-
cal, nothing which lends the slightest malignant conjecture, to
be met with in the relation between the bishop and the nuns
of Poictiers ; but they are of a futility, of a puerility which
it is impossible to overlook, for even the poems of Fortunatus
are a monument of them.

These are the titles of sixteen of the twenty, seven pieces
addressed to Saint Radegonde, or to Saint Agnes :

Book VIII., piece 8, to Saint Radegonde upon violets.

" 9, upon flowers put on the altar.

" 10, upon flowers which he sent her.

Book XL, piece 4, to Saint Radegonde for her to drink
wine.

" 11, to the abbess upon flowers.

" 13, upon chestnuts.

" 14, upon milk.

u 15, idem.

" 16, upon a repast.

" 18, upon sloes.

" 19, upon milk and other dainties.

" 20, upon eggs and nlums.

" 22, upon a repast.

" 23, idem.

" 24, idem.

« 25, idem.

Now see some samples of the pieces themselves ; they prove
that the titles do not deceive us.

" In the midst of my fasting," writes he to Saint Radegonde,
" thou sendest me various meats, and at the sight of them thou
painest my mind My eyes contemplate what the doctor for-
bids me to use, and his hand interdicts what my mouth desires.
Still when thy goodness gratifies us with this milk, thy gifts
surpass those of kings. Rejoice, therefore, I pray thee, like

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 375

a good sister with our pious mother, for at this momen I have
the sweet pleasure of being at table."1

And elsewhere, after having a repast : " Surrounded by
various delicacies, and all kinds of ragouts, sometimes I sleep,
sometimes I eat ; I open my mouth, then I close my eyes,
and I again eat of everything ; my mind was confused, be-
lieve it, most dear ones, and I could not easily either speak
with liberty, or write verses. A drunken man has an uncer-
tain hand ; wine produced the same effect upon me as upon
other drinkers ; methinks I see the table swimming in pure
wine. However, as well as I am able, I have traced in soft
language this little song for my mother and my sister, and
although sleep sharply presses me, the affection which 1 bear
for them has inspired what the hand is scarcely in a state to
write."8

It is not by way of amusement that I insert these singular
quotations, which it would be easy for me to multiply j I de-
sire, on the one hand, to place before your eyes a view of the
manners of this epoch, which are but little known ; and on the
other, to enable you to see, and, so to speak, to touch with
your finger, the origin of a kind of poetry which has held
rather an important place in our literature, of that light and
mocking poetry which, beginning with our old fabliaux, down
to Ver-vert, has been pitilessly exercised upon the weakness
and ridiculous points of the interior of monasteries. Fortu-
natus, to be sure, did not mean to jest ; actor and poet at the
same time, he spoke and wrote very seriously to Saint Rade-
gonde and the abbess Agnes ; but the very manners which
this kind of poetry took for a text, and which so long provoked
French fancy, that puerility, that laziness, that gluttony, as-
sociated with the gravest relations, — you see them begin here
with the sixth century, and under exactly the same traits with
those which Marot or Gresset lent to them ten or twelve cen-
turies later.

However, the poems of Fortunatus -have not all of them
this character. Independently of some beautiful sacred
hymns, one of which, the Vexilla Regis, was officially adopt-
ed by the church,* there is in many of these small lay and reli-
gious poems a good deal of imagination, of intehbet, and

» Tertun Carm., 1. xi., No. 19 ; Bib. Pat, vol. v., p. 59ft.
•Ibid., No. 24; ibid.

376 HISTORY OF

animation. I shall only quote a passage from an elegiac poem
of three hundred and seventy-one verses, about the departure
of Galsuinthe, sister of Brunehault, from Spain, her arrival in
France, her marriage with Chilperic, and her deplorable end ;
I select the lamentations of Galsuinthe, her mother, wife of
Athanagilde ; she sees her daughter about to quit her, em.
braces her, looks at her, embraces her again, and cries :

" Spain, so full of inhabitants, and too confined for a mother,
land of the sun, become a prison to me, although thou extend,
est from the country of Zephyr to that of the burning Eous,
from Tyrhenia to the ocean — although thou sufficest for nu-
merous nations, since my daughter is not longer here, thou art
too narrow for me. Without thee, my daughter, I shall be
here as a foreigner and wanderer, and, in my native country,
at once a citizen and an exile. I ask, what shall these eyes
look at which everywhere seek my daughter ? . . . Whatever
infant plays with me will be a punishment ; thou wilt weigh
upon my heart in the embraces of another: let another run,
step, seat herself, weep, enter, go out, thy dear image will
always be before my eyes. When thou shalt have quitted
me, I shall hasten to strange caresses, and, groaning, I shall
press another face to my withered breast ; I shall dry with
my kisses the tears of another child ; I shall drink of them ;
and may it please God that I may thus find some refreshment
for my devouring thirst ! Whatever I do, I shall be torment-
ed, no remedy can console me ; I perish, O Galsuinthe, by
the wound which comes to me from thee ! I ask what dear
hand will dress, will ornament thy hair ? Who, when I shall
not be there, will cover thy soft cheeks with kisses ? Who
will warm thee in her bosom, who carry thee on her knees,
surround thee with her arms ? Alas ! when thou shalt be
without me, thou wilt have no mother. For the rest, my sad
heart charges thee at the time of thy departure ; be happy, I
implore thee ; but leave me : go : farewell : send through the
air some consolation to thy impatient mother ; and, if the
wind bears me any news, let it it be favorable."1

The subtlety and affectation of bad rhetoric are to be found
in this passage ; but its emotion is sincere, and the expression
ingenious and vivid. Many pieces of Fortunatus have the
same merits.

lFortun. Carm., 1. vi., No 7 ; Bib. Pat,, vol x„ p. 562

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 377

I shaL prosecute this inquiry no further ; I think I have
fully justified what I said in commencing : sacred literature is
not there ; the habits, and even the metrical forms of the
dying pagan literature, are clearly stamped upon them.
Ausonius is more elegant, more correct, more licentious than
Fortunatus ; but, speaking literally, the bishop is a continua-
tion of the consul ; Latin tradition was not dead ; it had passed
into the Christian society ; and here commences that imitation
which, amid the universal overthrow, unites the modern to
the ancient world, and, at a later period, will play so consi-
derable a part in all literature.

We must pause : we have just studied the intellectual state
of Frankish Gaul from the sixth to the eighth century. This
study completes for us that of the development of our civiliza-
tion during the same period, that is, under the empire of the
Merovingian kings. Another epoch, stamped with the same
character, began with the revolution which raised the family
of the Pepins to the throne of the Franks. In our next lec-
ture I shall attempt to describe the revolution itself; and we
shall then enter into the new paths which it forced France to
take.

378 HISTORY O*

NINETEENTH LECTURE.

The causes and the character of the revolution which substituted the
Carlovingians for the Merovingians — Recapitulation of the history of
civilization in France under the Merovingian kings — The Frankish
state in its relations with the neighboring nations — The Frankish state
in its internal organization — The aristocratical element prevailed
in it, but without entirety or regularity — The state of the Frankish
church — Episcopacy prevails in it, but is itself thrown into decay —
Two new powers arise — 1st. The Austrasian Franks — Mayors of the
palace — The family of the Pepins — 2. Papacy— Circumstances fa-
vorable to its progress — Causes which drew and united the Austra-
sian Franks to the popes — The conversion of the Germans beyond the
Rhine — Relations of the Anglo-Saxon missionaries, on the one hand
with the popes, on the other, with the mayors of the palace of Aus-
trasia — Saint Boniface — The popes have need of the Austrasian
Franks against the Lombards — Pepin- le-Bref has need of the pope to
make himself king — Their alliance and the new direction which it
impressed upon civilization — Conclusion of the first part of the
course.

We have arrived at the eve of a great event, of the revolu-
tion which threw the last of the Merovingians into a cloister,
and carried the Carlovingians to the throne of the Franks. It
was consummated in the month of March, 752, in the semi-lay
and semi-ecclesiastical assembly held at Soissons, where Pe-
pin was proclaimed king, and consecrated by Boniface, arch-
bishop of Mayence. Never was a revolution brought about
with less effort and noise ; Pepin possessed the power : the fact
was converted into right ; no resistance was offered him ; no
protest of sufficient importance to leave a trace in history.
Everything seemed to remain the same ; a title, merely, was
changed. Yet there can be no doubt but that a great event
was thus accomplished ; there can be no doubt but that this
change was the indication of the end of a particular social
state, of the commencement of a new state, a crisis, a verita-
ble epoch in the history of French civilization.

It is the crisis that I wish to bring before you at present.
I wish to recapitulate the history of civilization under the
Merovingians, to indicate how it came to end in such a result,
»nd to represent the new character, the new direction which

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 379

it was obliged to take under the Carlovingians, by plainly
setting forth the transition and its causes.

Civil society and religious society are evidently the two-
fold subject of this recapitulation. We have studied them
seoarately, and in their relations ; we shall so study them in
the period upon which we are about to enter. It is necessary
that we should know exactly at what point they had each ar-
rived at the crisis which now occupies us, and what was their
reciprocal situation.

I commence with civil society. From the opening of this
course, we have been speaking of the foundation of modern
states, and in particular of the Frank state. We marked its
origin at the reign of Clovis ; it is even by concession that we
are permitted not to go farther back, not to go to Pharamond.
Let it be understood, however, that even in the epoch at which
we have arrived, at the end of the Merovingian race, there
was nothing established which the Franko-Gaulish society
had, nothing invested with a somewhat stable and general
form, that no principle prevailed in it so completely as to
regulate it ; that neither within nor without did the Frankish
•state exist ; that in Gaul there was no state at all.

What do we mean by a State ? a certain extent of territory
having a determinate centre, fixed limits, inhabited by men
who have a common name, and live involved, in certain
respects, in the same destiny. Nothing like this existed in
.he middle of the eighth century, in what we now call France.

You know how many kingdoms had there alternately ap-
peared and disappeared. The kingdoms of Metz, Soissons,
Orleans, Paris, had given place to the kingdoms of Neustria,
Austrasia, Burgundy, Aquitaine, incessantly changing mas-
ters, frontiers, extent, and importance ; reduced at length to
two, the kingdoms of Austrasia and Neustria, even these two
had nothing stable or regular, their chiefs and their limits
continually varied ; the kings and the provinces continually
passed from one to the other ; so that even in the interior of
the territory occupied by the Frankish population, no political
association had any consistency or firmness.

The external frontiers were still more uncertain. On the
cast and north the movement of the invasion of the German
nations continued. The Thuringians, the Bavarians, the
Allemandi, the Frisons, the Saxons, incessantly made efforts
to pass the Rhine, and take their share of the territory which
the Franks occupied. In order to resist them, the Franks

380 HISTORY OF

crossed the Rhine ■ they ravaged, at several times, tke coun.
tries of the Thuringians, the Allemandi, and the Bavarians,
and reduced these nations to a subondinate condition, doubt-
less very precarious, and incapable of exact definition. But
the Frisons and Saxons escaped this semi-defeat, and the
Austrasian Franks were forced to maintain an incessant wa*
fare against them, which prevented their frontiers from gain,
ing the least regularity on this side.

On the west, the Britons and all the tribes established in
the peninsula known under the name of Armorica, kept the
frontiers of the Neustrian Franks in the game state of uncer-
tainty.

In the south, in Provence, Narbonnese, and Aquitaine, it
was no longer from the movement of the barbarous and half
wandering colonies that the fluctuation proceeded ; but there
was fluctuation. The ancient Roman population incessantly
labored to regain its independence. The Franks had con-
quered, but did not fully possess these countries. When their
great incursions ceased, the towns and country districts re-
belled, and confederated in order to shake off the yoke. A
new cause of agitation and instability was joined to their
efforts. Mohammedanism dates its rise from the 16th of
July, 622 ; and at the end of the same century, or at least at
the commencement of the eighth, it inundated the south of
Italy, nearly the whole of Spain, the south of Gaul, and made
on this side a still more impetuous effort than that of the Ger-
man nations on the borders of the Rhine. Thus, on all
points, on the north, the east, the west, and the south, the
Frankish territory was incessantly invaded, its frontiers
changed . at the mercy of incessantly repeated incursions.
Upon the whole, there can be no doubt but that, in this vast
extent of country, the Frankish population dominated ; it was
the strongest, the most numerous, the most established ; but
still it was without territorial consistency, without political
unity ; as distinct frontier nations, and under the point of view
of the law of nations, the state, properly so called, did not
exist.

Let us enter into the intenor of the Gaulo-Frankish society ;
we shall not find it any more advanced ; it will offer us no
greater degree of entirety or fixedness.

You will recollect that, in examining the institutions of the
German nations before the invasion, I showed that they could
flot be transplanted into the Gaulish territory, and that the free

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 38 4

institutions, in particular the government of public affairs by
assemblies of free men, become inapplicable to the new situa-
tion of the conquerors, had almost entirely perished. Even the
class of free men, that condition of which individual independ-
ence and equality were the essential characteristics, continually
diminished in number and importance ; it was evidently not
this class, nor the system of institutions and influences analo-
gous to its nature, that was to prevail in the Gaulo-Frankish
society, and govern it. Liberty was then a cause of disorder,
not a principle of organization.

In the first periods following the invasion, royalty, as you
have seen, made some progress ; it collected seme wreck of the
inheritance of the empire ; religious ideas gave it some power :
but this progress soon stopped ; the time of the centraliza-
tion of power was still far distant ; all means of gaining obe-
dience were wanting ; obstacles arose on all sides. The
speedy and irremediable humiliation of the Merovingian royalty
proves how little capable the monarchical principle was of pos-
sessing and regulating the Gaulo-Frankish society. It was
nearly as impotent as the principle of free institutions.

The aristocratical principle prevailed : it was to the great
proprietors, each on his domain, to the companions of the
king, the antrustions, leudes, jideles, that the power actually
belonged. But the aristocratical principle itself was incapable
of giving any stable or general organization to society ; it
prevailed in it, but with as much disorder as would have
flowed from any other system, without conferring any more
simple or regular form. Consult all modern historians who
have attempted to describe and explain this epoch. Some
have sought its key in the struggle of the free men against the
leudes, that is, the conquering nation against that which was
to become the nobility of the court; others adhere to the
diversity of races, and will speak of the struggle of the Ger-
mans against the Gauls; others, again, attach great import-
ance to the struggle of the clergy against the laity, the bishops
against the great barbarian proprietors, and there see the secret
of most of the events. Others, again, especially insist upon
the struggle of the kings themselves against their companions,
their leudes, who aspired to the rendering themselves inde-
pendent, and annulling and invading the royal power. All,
in some measure, have a different word for the enigma which
the social state of this epoch presents : a great reason for pre-
luming that no word can explain it. All these struggles,

31

382 HISTORY OF

in fact, existed ; all these forces contested with&ut any of
them gaining enough of the ascendency to dominate with
any regularity. The aristocratic tendency, which must have
arisen later than the feudal system, was certainly dominant ;
but no institution, no permanent organization, could yet arise
from it.

Thus, within and without, whether we consider the social
order or the political order, everything was restless, incessantly
brought into question ; nothing appeared destined to a long or
powerful development.

From civil society let us pass to religious society ; the
recapitulation, if I mistake not, will show it to be in the same
state.

The idea of the unity of the church was general and domi-
nant in minds ; but in facts it was far from having the same
extension, the same power. No general principle, no govern-
ment, properly so called, reigned in the Gaulo-Frankish
church ; it was, like civil society, an entire chaos.

And first, the remains of the free institutions which had
presided at the first development of Christianity, had almost
entirely disappeared. You have seen them gradually reduced
to the participation of the clergy in the election of bishops, to
the influence of councils in the general administration of the
church. You have seen the election of bishops, and the influ-
ence of councils decline, and almost vanish in their turn. At
the commencement of the eighth century, a mere vain shadow
remained of them • the bishops, for the most part, owed their
elevation to the orders of kings, or of the mayors of the palace,
or to some such form of violence. Councils scarcely ever
met. No legal, constituted liberty preserved any real power
in the religious society.

We have seen the dawn of universal monarchy ; we have
seen papacy take a marked ascendency in the west. Do not
suppose, however, that at the epoch which occupies us, and
in Gaul especially, this ascendency resembled a real authority
a form of government. Nay, at the end of the seventh cen.
tury it was in a rapid decay. When the Franks were esta-
blished in Gaul, the popes tried to preserve with these new
masters the credit which they had enjoyed under the Roman
empire. At the fifth century, the bishop of Rome possessed
considerable domains in southern Gaul, especially in the dio-
cese of Aries, a powerful means of relation and influence with
/hose countries. They remained to him under the Visigoth,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 383

Burgundian, or Frank kings, and the bishop of Aries continued
to be habitually his vicar, as much for his personal interests
as for the general affairs of the church. Thus the relations
of the popes with the Frank kings were frequent in the sixth
and at the beginning of the seventh century ; numerous monu-
ments of them have come down to us ; among others, a letter
from Gregory the Great to Brunehault ; and, upon some
occasions, the Franks themselves had recourse to the inter-
vention of papacy. But in the course of the seventh century,
by a multitude of rather complex causes, this intervention
almost entirely ceased. We find from Gregory the Great
to Gregory II. (from the year 604 to the year 715) scarcely
a single letter, a single document, which proves any cor-
respondence between the masters of Frankish Gaul and the
papacy.

The prodigious disorder which then reigned in Gaul, the
instability of all kingdoms, and of all kings, doubtless contri-
buted to it ; no one had any time to think of contracting or
keeping up relations so distant ; everything was decided at
once upon the spot, and on direct and immediate motives.
Beyond the Alps almost equal disorder reigned ; the Lombards
invaded Italy, and menaced Rome ; a personal and pressing
danger retained the attention of the papacy within the circle
of its own peculiar interests. Besides, the composition of the
episcopacy of the Gauls was no longer the same ; many bar-
barians had entered into it, strangers to all the recollections,
all the customs which had so long united the Gaulish bishops
to the bishop of Rome. All circumstances concurred to make
null the religious relations between Rome and Gaul ; so that
at the end of the seventh century, the Gaulo-Frankish church
was no more governed by the principle of universal monarchy
than by that of common deliberation ; papacy was scarcely
more powerful than liberty.

There, as elsewhere, in religious society, as in civil society,
the aristocratical principle had prevailed. It was to episco-
pacy that the government of the Gaulo-Frankish church be-
longed. It was administered during the fifth and sixth cen-
turies, with a good deal of regularity and continuity ; but in
the course of the seventh, from the causes which I have al-
ready spoken of, the episcopal aristocracy fell into the same
corruption, the same anarchy which seized upon the civil
aristocracy ; the metropolitans lost all authority ; mere priests
lost all influence ; many bishops reckoned more on their influ-

384 HISTORY OF

ence as proprietors, than on their mission as chiefs of the
church; Many of the laity received or usurped the bishop-
rics as private domains. Each occupied himself with his
temporal or diocesan interests ; all unity vanished in the go-
vernment of the secular clergy. The monastic order pre-
sented a similar aspect ; the rule of Saint Benedict was com
monly adopted in it, but no general administration connected
the various establishments among themselves ; each monastery
ruled and governed itself apart; so that, at the end of th»
seventh century, the aristocratical system which dominates
alike in church and state, was here almost as disordered, al-
most as incapable of giving rise to any approach to a general
and regular government.

Nothing, therefore, was established at this epoch, in eilhei
one or other of the two societies from which modern society
has arisen. The absence of rule and public authority was,
, perhaps, more complete than immediately after the fall of the
empire ; then, at all events, the wrecks of Roman and German
institutions still subsisted, and maintained some kind of social
order amidst the most agitated events. When the fall of the
Merovingian race approached, even these wrecks had fallen
into ruin, and no new edifice had as yet arisen ; there was
scarcely a trace of the imperial administration, or of the mals
or assemblies of the free men of Germany, and the feudal
organization was not seen. Perhaps at no epoch has the chaos
been so great, or the State had so little existence.

Still, under this general dissolution, two new forces, two
principles of organization and government, were being pre-
pared in civil and religious society, destined to approach each
other and to unite, in order, at last, to make an attempt to put
an end to the chaos, and to give to church and state the en-
tirety and fixity which they wanted.

Whoever will observe, attentively, the distribution of the
Franks over the Gaulish territory, from the sixth to the
eighth century, will be struck with a considerable difference
between the Franks of Austrasia, situated on the borders of
the Rhine, the Moselle, and the Meuse, and that of the Franks
of Neustria, transplanted into the centre, the west and the
south of Gaul. The first were probably more numerous, and
certainly less dispersed. They still kept to that soil whence
the Germans drew their power and fertility, so to speak, as
Antasus did from the earth. The Rhine alone separated them
from ancient Germany; they lived in continual relation,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 385

hostile or pacific, with the German and partly Frankish
colonies who inhabited the right bank. Still they were well
established in their new country, and wished firmly to guard
it. They were also less separated from the manners of the
ancient German society than were the Neustrian Franks, and,
at the same time, having become proprietors, they daily more
and more contracted the wants and habits of their new situa-
tion, and of the social organization which might be adapted to
it. Two facts, apparently contradictory, bring out into bold
relief this particular characteristic of the Austrasian Franks.
It was more especially from Austrasia that those bands of
warriors set out whom we see, in the course of the sixth and
seventh centuries, still spreading over Italy and the south of
Gaul, and there abandoning themselves to a life of incursion
and pillage ; and yet it is in Austrasia that the most remarka-
ble monuments of the passage of the Franks into the condition
of proprietors are seen ; upon the borders of the Rhine, the
Moselle, and the Meuse, are the strongest of those habitations
of theirs which became castles, so that Austrasian society is
the most complete and faithful image of the ancient manners
and the new situation of the Franks ; it is there that one least
meets with Roman or heterogeneous elements ; it is there that
the spirit of conquest and the territorial spirit, the instincts of
the proprietor and those of the warrior are allied, and display
themselves with the greatest energy.

A fact so important could not fail to become evident, and to
exercise a great influence over the course of events ; the Aus-
trasian society could not but give rise to some institution,
some power, which expressed and developed its character.
This was the part taken of its mayors of the palace, and in
particular by the family of the Pepins.

The mayor of the palace is met with in all the Frankish
kingdoms. I shall not enter here into a long history of the
institution, I shall confine myself to remarking its character
and general vicissitudes. The mayors were at first merely
the first superintendents, the first administrators of the interior
of the palace of the king ; the chiefs whom he put at the head
of his companions, of his leudes, still united around him. It
was their duty to maintain order among the king's men, to
administer justice, to look to all the affairs, to all the wants,
of that great domestic society. They were the men of the
King with the leudes ; this was their first character, their first
state.

386 HISTORY OF

Now for the second. After having exercised the power of
the king over his leudes, his mayors of the palace usurped it
to their own profit. The leudes, by grants of public charges
and fiefs, were not long before thev became great proprietors.
This new situation was superior .o that of companions of the
king ; they detached themselves from him, and united in
order to defend their common interests. According as their
fortune dictated, the mayors of the palace sometimes resisted
them, more often united with them, and, at first servants of
the king, they at last became the chiefs of an aristocracy,
against whom royalty could do nothing.

These are the two principal phases of this institution : it
gained more extension and fixedness in Austrasia, in the
family of the Pepins, who possessed it almost a century and a half,
than anywhere else. At once great proprietors, usufructuaries
of the royal power, and warlike chiefs, Pepin-le-Vieux, Pepin
l'Heristal, Charles Martel, and Pepin-le-Bref, by turns de-
fended these various interests, appropriated their power to
themselves, and thus found themselves the representatives of
the aristocracy, of royalty, and of that mind, at once territo-
rial and conquering, which animated the Franks of Austrasia,
and secured to them the preponderance. There resided the
principle of life and organization which was to take hold of
civil society, and draw it, at least for some time, from the
state of anarchy and impotence into which it was plunged.
The Pepins were the depositories of its power, the instrument
of its action.

In the religious society, but out of the Frank territory, a
power was also developed capable of introducing, or at least
of attempting to introduce, order and reformation into it : this
was papacy.

I shajl not repeat here what I have already said of the first
origin of papacy, and of the religious causes to which it owed
the progressive extension of its power. Independently of
these causes, and in a purely temporal point of view, the
bishop of Rome found himself placed in the most favorable
situation. Three circumstances, you will recollect, especially
contribute i to establish the power of the bishops in general :
1st, their vast domains, which caused them to take a place in
tha. hierarchy of great proprietors to which European society
had belonged for so long a period ; 2d, their intervention in
the municipal system, and the preponderance which they
exercised in cities, by being directly or indirectly receiving

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 381

the inheritance of the ancient magistracies ; 3d, their quality
as councillors of the temporal power ; they surrounded the
new kings, and directed them in their attempts at govern-
ment. Upon this triple base the episcopal power raised
itself in the rising states. The bishop of Rome was, more
than any other, prepared to profit by it. Like others, he was
a great proprietor. At a very early period he possessed con-
siderable domains in the Campagna di Roma, in the south of
Italy, and upon the borders of the Adriatic sea. Considered
as a councillor of the temporal power, no one had so good a
chance : instead, like the Frank, Spanish, Anglo-Saxon,
bishops, of being the servant of a king present, he was the
representative, the vicar of a king absent ; he depended on
the emperor of the east, a sovereign who rarely cramped his
administration, and never eclipsed it. The empire, it is
true, had other representatives than the pope in Italy ; the
exarch of Ravenna, and a duke who resided at Rome, were
the real delegates with regard to the civil administration ;
but, in the interior of Rome, the attributes of the bishop
in civil matters, and in default of attributes, his influence in
other respects, conferred almost all the power upon him. The
emperors neglected nothing to retain him in their dependence;
they carefully preserved the right of confirming his election ;
he paid them certain tributes, and constantly maintained at
Constantinople, under the name of Apocrisiary, an agent
charged to manage all his affairs there, and to answer for
his fidelity. But if these precautions retarded the complete
and external emancipation of the popes, it did not prevent
their independence being great, nor, under the title of dele-
gates of the emperor, their daily approaching nearer to be-
coming its successors.

As municipal magistrates, as chiefs of the people within the
walls of Rome, their situation was not less advantageous.
You have seen that in the remainder of the west, particularly
in Gaul, and as the inevitable effect of the disasters of the in-
vasion, the municipal system was declining ; there certainly
remained its wrecks, and the bishop almost alone disposed of
them ; but they were only wrecks ; the importance of the
municipal magistrates was daily lowered under the violent
blows of counts, or other barbarous chiefs. It was far from
being thus in Rome : there the municipal system, instead
of being weakened, was fortified. Rome in no way remained
in the possession of the barbarians ; they only pillaged it in

'£68 HISTORY OF

passing ; the imperial power was too distant to be real ; the
municipal system soon became the only government ; the in-
fluence of the Roman people in its affairs was much more
active, much more efficacious, at the sixth and seventh cen-
turies, than it had been in preceding ages. The municipal
magistrates became political magistrates j and the bishop, who,
under forms more or less fixed, by means more or less direct,
was in some measure their chief, took the first lead in this
general and unperceived elevation towards a kind of sove-
reignty, while elsewhere the episcopal power arose not be-
yond the limits of a narrow and doubtful administration.

Thus, as proprietors, councillors of sovereign, and as popu-
lar magistrates, the bishops of Rome had the best chances ;
and while religious circumstances tended to increase their
power, political circumstances had the same result, and im-
pelled them in the same paths. Thus, in the course of the
sixth and seventh centuries, papacy gained a degree of impor-
tance in Italy, which it had formerly been very far from
possessing ; and although at the end of this epoch it was a
stranger to Frankish Gaul, although its relations both with the
kings and with the Frank clergy had become rare, yet, such
was its general progress, that in setting foot again in the mon-
archy of the Frankish church, it did not fail to appear there
with a force and credit superior to all rivalry.

Here, then, we see two new powers which were formed
and confirmed amidst the general dissolution ; in the Frank
state, the mayors of the palace of Austrasia ; in the Christian
church, the popes ; here are two active, energetic principles,
which seem disposed to take possession, the one of civil
society, the other of religious society, and capable of attempt-
ing some work of organization, of establishing some govern-
ment therein.

It was, in fact, by the influence of these two principles,
and of their alliance, that, in the middle of the eighth century,
the great crisis of which we seek the character shone forth.

After the fifth century, papacy took the lead in the con-
version of the pagans ; the clergy of the various spates of the
west, occupied both in its religious local duties, and in its
temporal duties, had almost abandoned this great enterprise :
the monks alone, more interested and less indolent, continued
to occupy themselves arduously in it. The bishop of Rome
undertook to direct them, and they in general accepted him
for a chief. At the end of the sixth century, Gregory the

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. ■ 389

Great accomplished the most important of these conversions,
that of the Anglo-Saxons established in Britain. By his
orders, Roman monks set out to undertake it. They began
with the county of Kent, and Augustin, one among them,
was the first archbishop of Canterbury. The Anglo-Saxon
church was thus, at the seventh century, the only one in the
west which owed its origin to the Romish church. Italy,
Spain, and Gaul, had become Christian without the help of
papacy ; their churches were not bound to that of Rome
by a filial power ; they were her siste; s, not her daughters.
Britain, on the contrary, received her faith and her first
preachers from Rome. She was, therefore, at this epoch,
far more than any other church in the west, in habitual
correspondence with the popes, devoted to their interests,
docile to their authority. By a natural consequence, and
also by reason of the similitude of idioms, it was more
especially with the Anglo-Saxon monks that the popes under-
took the conversion of the other pagan nations of Europe,
among others, of Germany. One need only glance over the
lives of the saints of the seventh and eighth centuries to be
convinced that the greater part of the missionaries sent to
the Bavarians, the Frisons, the Saxons, Willibrod, Rupert
Willibald, Winfried, came from Britain. They could not
labor at this work without entering into frequent relations
with the Austrasian Franks, and their chiefs. The Austra-
sians on all sides bordered the nations beyond the Rhine, and
were incessantly struggling to prevent them from again in-
undating the west. The missionaries were obliged to
traverse their territory, and to obtain their support, in ordei
to penetrate into the barbarous countries. They therefore
failed not to claim that support. Gregory the Great even
ordered the monks whom he sent into Britain to pass through
Austrasia, and recommended them to the two kings, Theodoric
and Theodebert, who then reigned at Chalons and at Metz.
The recommendation was far more necessary and pressing
when the matter in hand was to convert the German colonies.
The Austrasian chiefs on their side, Arnoul, Pepin l'Herital,
and Charles Martel, were not long in foreseeing what advan-
tages such labors might have for them. In becoming Chris-
tians, these troublesome colonies were obliged to become
fixed, to submit to some regular influence, at least to enter into
the path of civilization. Besides, the missionaries were ex-
cellent explorers of t hose countries with which communication

390 HISTORY OF .

was so difficult of accomplishment ; by their mediation could
be procured information and advice. Where could be found
such skilful agents, such useful allies ? Accordingly, tho
alliance was soon concluded. It was in Austrasia that the
missionaries who were spread over Germany found their prin-
cipal fulcrum j it was from thence that they set out, to it that
they returned ; it was to the kingdom of Austrasia that they
annexed their spiritual conquests ; it was with the masters
of Austrasia on the one hand, and with the popes on the
other, that they were in intimate and constant correspond-
ence. Glance at the life, follow the works of the most illus-
trious and most powerful among them, namely, Saint
Boniface, and you will recognize all the facts of which I
have just spoken.

Saint Boniface was an Anglo-Saxon, born about 680, at
Crediton, in the county of Devon, and called Winfried. A
monk in the monastery of Exeter at a very early period, and
later, in that of Nutsell, it is not known whence came his de-
sign of devoting himself to the conversion of the German
nations ; perhaps he merely followed the example of many
of his compatriots. However this may be, from the year
715, we find him preaching amidst the Frisons ; incessantly
renewed warfare between them and the Austrasian Franks
drove him from their country ; he returned to his own, and
re-entered the monastery of Nutsell. In 718, we encounter
him at Rome, receiving from pope Gregory II. a formal
mission, and instructions for the conversion of the Germans.
He goes from Rome into Austrasia, corresponds with Charles
Martel, passes the Rhine, and pursues his enormous enterprise
with indefatigable perseverance among the Frisons, the Thu-
ringians, the Bavarians, the Catti, and the Saxons. His entire
life was devoted to it, and it was always with Rome that
were connected his works. In 723, Gregory II. nominated
him bishop ; in 732, Gregory III. conferred upon him the titles
of archbishop and apostolic vicar ; in 738, Winfried, who no
longer bore the name of Boniface, made a new journey to
Rome, in order to regulate definitively the relations of the
Christian church which he had just founded, with Christianity
in general ; and for him Rome is the centre, the pope is the
chief of Christianity. It was to the profit of papacy that he sent
in all directions the missionaries placed under his orders,
erected bishoprics, conquered nations. Here is the oath which
tie took when the pope nominated him archbishop of Mayence,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 39/

and metropolitan of the bishoprics which he should found in
Germany.

" I, Boniface, bishop by the grace of God, I promise to thee,
blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, and to thy vicar, the
holy Gregory, and to his successors, by the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost, the holy and indivisible Trinity, and by
thy sacred body, here present, always to keep a perfect
fidelity to the holy catholic faith ; to remain, with the aid of
God, in the unity of that faith, upon which, without doubt,
depends the whole salvation of Christians ; not to lerjd myself,
upon the instigation of any one, to anything which can be
against the universal church, and to prove, in all things, my
fidelity, the pureness of my faith, and my entire devotion to
thee, to the interests of thy church, who hast received from
God the power to tie and to untie, to thy said vicar, and to
his successors : and if I learn that the bishops are against the
ancient rule of the holy fathers, I promise to have no alliance
nor communion with them, any more than to repress them if
I am able ; if not, I will at once inform my apostolic lord.
And if (which God forbid !) I ever, whether by will or occa-
sion, do anything against these my promises, let me be found
guilty at the eternal judgment — let me incur the chastise-
ment of Ananias and of Sapphira, who dared to lie unto you,
and despoil you of part of their property. I, Boniface, an
humble bishop, have with my own hand written this attesta-
tion of oath, and depositing it on the most sacred body of the
sacred Peter, 1 have, as it is prescribed, taking God to judge
and witness, made the oath, which I promise to keep."1

To this oath I add the statement which Boniface himself
has transmitted to us of the decrees of the first German
council held under his presidence in 742 :

" In our synodal meeting, we have declared and decreed
that to the end of our life we desire to hold the catholic faith
and unity, and submission to the Roman church, Saint Peter,
and his vicar ; that we will every year assemble the synod ;
that the metropolitans shall demand the pallium from the see
of Rome, and that we will canonically follow all the precepts
of Peter, to the end that we may be reckoned among the
number of his sheep, and we have consented and subscribed

. S. Bonif. Epjst., cp. 118; Bib. Pat., vol. xiii., p. 119; ed of
Lyons.

392 HISTORY OF

to this profession. I have sent it to the body of Saint Peter
prince of the apostles, and the clergy and the pontiff have
joyfully received it.

" If any bishop can correct or reform anything in his dio-
cese, let him propose the reformation in the synod before the
archbishops and all there present, even as we ourselves have
promised with oath to the Roman church. Should we see the
priests and people breaking the law of God, and we are unable
to correct them, we will faithfully inform the apostolic see,
and the vicar of Saint Peter, in order to accomplish the said
reform. It is thus, if I do not deceive myself, that all bishops
should render an account to the metropolitan, and he to the
pontiff of Rome, of that which they do not succeed in re-
forming among the people, and thus they will not have the
blood of lost souls upon their heads."1

Of a surety, it is impossible more formally to submit
the new church, the new Christian nations to the papal
power.

A scruple, which I must express, impedes my progress : 1
fear that you are tempted to see more especially in this con-
duct of Saint Boniface the influence of temporal motives, of
ambitious and interested combinations : it is a good deal the
disposition of our time ; and we are even a little inclined to
boast of it, as a proof of our liberty of mind and our good
sense. Most certainly led us judge all things in full liberty
of mind ; let the severest good sense preside at our judgments ;
but let us feel that, wherever we meet with great things and
great men, there are other motives than ambitious combina-
tions and personal interests. Let it be known that the thought
of man can be elevated, that its horizon can be extended only
when he becomes detached from the world and from himself;
and that, if egoism plays a great part in history, that of dis-
interested and moral activity is, in the eyes of the most rigor.
ous critic, infinitely superior to it. Boniface proves it as well
as others. All devoted as he was to the court of Rome, he
could, when need was, speak truth to it, reproach it with its
evil, and urge it to take heed to itself. He learned that it
granted certain indulgences, that it permitted certain licences
which scandalized severe consciences. He wrote to the pope
Zachary :

1 Labbe, Counc, vol. xi., col. 1544-45

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 393

" These carnal men, these simple Germans, or Bavarians,
or Franks, if they see things done at Rome which we forbid,
suppose that it has been permitted and authorized by the
priests, and turn it against us in derision, and take advantage
of it for the scandal of their life. Thus, they say that every
year, in the calends of January, they have seen, at Rome,
both day and night, near the church, dancers overrunning the
public places, according to the custom of the pagans, and
raising clamors, after their fashion, and singing sacrilegious
songs ; and this day, they say, and till night-time, the tables
are loaded with meats, and no one will lend to his neighbor
either fire or iron, or anything in his house. They say also,
that they have seen women carry phylacteries, and fillets
attached to their legs and arms, and offer all sorts of things
for sale to the passers by ; and all these things seen by carnal
men, and those but little instructed, are subjects of derision,
and an obstacle to our preaching, and to the faith. ... If
your paternity interdict these pagan customs in Rome, it will
acquire a great reputation, and will assure us a great progress
in the doctrine of the church."1

I might cite many other letters, written with as much
freedom, and which prove the same sincerity. But a fact
speaks louder than all the letters in the world. After having
founded new bishoprics and many monasteries, at the highest
point of his success and glory, in 753, that is at seventy-
three years of age, the Saxon missionary demanded and
obtained authority to quit his bishopric of Mayence, and to
place therein his favorite disciple Lullus, and to again prose-
cute the works of his youth among the still pagan Frisons.
He in fact went amid woods, morasses, and barbarians, and
was massacred in 755, with many of his companions.

At his death, the bringing over of Germany to Christianity
*vas accomplished, and accomplished to the profit of papacy.
But it was also to the profit of the Franks of Austrasia, to
the good of their safety and their power. It follows that it
was for them as much as for Rome, that Boniface had labored ;
it was upon the soil of Germany, in the enterprise of con-
verting its tribes by Saxon missionaries, that the two new
powers, which were to prevail, the one in the civil society,

» 8. Bonif.Ep. ad Zacharium, ep 132; Bib. Pat., vol. xiii , p
19$, ed. of Lyons

394 HISTORY OF

the other in the religious society, encountered each other, the
mayors of the palace of Austrasia, and the popes. In order
to consummate their alliance, and to make it bear all its
fruits, an occasion was only wanting on either side ; it was
not long in presenting itself.

I have already spoken of the situation of the bishop of
Rome with regard to the Lombards, and of their incessant
eifbrts to invade a territory, which daily became more posi-
tively his domain. Another real, although less pressing dan-
ger, also approached him. As the Franks of Austrasia, with
the Pepins at their head, had on the north to combat the Fri-
sons and the Saxons, and on the south the Saracens, so the
popes were pressed by the Saracens and the Lombards. Their
situation was analogous ; but the Franks achieved victory
under Charles Martel ; the papacy, not in a condition to de-
fend herself, everywhere sought soldiers. She tried to obtain
them from the emperor of the east ; he had none to send her.
In 739, Gregory III. had recourse to Charles Martel. Boni-
face took charge of the negotiation ; it was without result :
Charles Martel had too much to do on his own account ; he
cared not to involve himself in a new war ; but the idea was
established at Rome that the Franks alone could defend the
church against the Lombards, and that sooner or later they
would cross the Alps for her good.

Some years after, the chief of Austrasia, Pepin, son of
Charles Martel, in his turn, had need of the pope. He
wished to get himself declared king of the Franks, and, how-
ever well his power might be established, he wanted a sanc-
tion to it. I have many times remarked, and am not tired of
repeating it, that power does not suffice to itself; it wants
something more than success, it wants to be converted into
right ; it demands that characteristic, sometimes of the free
assent of men, sometimes of religious consecration. Pepin
invoked both. More than one ecclesiastic, perhaps Boniface,
suggested to him the idea of getting his new title of king of
the Franks sanctioned by the papacy. I shall not enter into
the details of the negotiation undertaken upon this subject ; it
offers some rather embarrassing questions and chronological
difficulties : it is not the less certain that it took place, and
that Boniface conducted it, as his letters to the pope often
show ; we see him, among others, charge his disciple Lullus
to inform the pope of certain important affairs which he would
ather not commit to vriting. Lastly, in 751,

CIVILIZATION N FRANCE. 396

Burchard, bishop of Wurtzburg, ancLFulrad, a chaplain
priest, were sent to Rome to pope Zachary, in order to con-
suit the pontiff touching the kings who were then in France,
and who had merely the name without any power. The pope
answered by a messenger, that he thought that he who already
possessed the power of the king, was the king ; and giving
his full assent, he enjoined that Pepin should be made king.
.... Pepin was then proclaimed king of the Franks, and
anointed for this high dignity with the sacred unction by the
holy hand of Boniface, archbishop and martyr of happy
memory, and raised upon the throne, according to custom of
.he Franks, in the town of Soissons. With regard to Childe-
-ic, who invested himself with the false name of king, Pepin
lad him shaved and put in a monastery."1

Such was the progressive march of the revolution j such
were the indirect and true causes of it. It has been repre-
sented in later times2 (and- 1 myself have contributed to pro-
pagate this idea3) as a new German invasion, as a recent con-
quest of Gaul by the Franks of Austrasia, more barbarians,
more Germans, than Franks of Neustria, who had gradually
amalgamated with the Romans. Such was in fact the result,
and, so to speak, the external character of the event ; but its
character does not suffice to explain it ; it had far more dis-
tant and more profound causes than the continuation or re-
newal of the great German invasion. I have just placed
them before you. The civil Gallo-Frankish society was in a
complete dissolution ; no system, no power had come to
establish itself in it, and to found it in ruling it. The reli-
gious society had fallen almost into the same state. Two
principles of regeneration were gradually developed ; the
mayor of the palace among the Franks of Austrasia ; and
'lie papacy at Rome. These new powers were naturally
drawn together by the mediation of the conversion of the
German tribes, in which they had a common interest. The
missionaries, and especially the Anglo-Saxon missionaries,
were the agents of this junction. Two particular circum-
stances, the perils in which the Lombards involved the pa-

1 Annalcs d'Eginhard, vol. iii., p. 4, in my Collection des Mtmoires
relatifs a FHistoire de France.
' Histoire des Francois, by M. de Sismondi, vol. ii., p. 168 — 171.
* See my Essais sur F Histoire de France, third Essai, pp G7--85

396 HISTORY OF

pacy, and the need which Pepin had of the pope in order ta
get his title of king sanctioned, made it a close alliance. It
raised up a new race of sovereigns in Gaul, destroyed the
kingdom of the Lombards in Italy, and impelled civil and
religious Gallo-Frankish society in a route which tended to
make royalty prevail in the civil .order, and papacy in the
religious order. Such will appear to you the character of the
attempts at civilization made in France by the Carlovingians,
that is to say, by Charlemagne, the true representative of that
new direction, although it failed in its designs, and did no-
thing but throw, as it were, a bridge between barbarism and
feudalism. This second epoch, the history of civilization in
France under the Carlovingians, in its various phases, will te
the subject of the following lectures.

CIVILIZATION iN FRANCE. 397

TWENTIETH LECTURE.

Reign of Charlemagne — Greatness of his name — Is it true that he set-
tled nothing ? that all that he did has perished with him ? — Of the
action of great men — They play a double part — That which they do,
in virtue of the first, is durable ; that which they attempt, under the
second, passes away with them — Example of Napoleon — Necessity
of being thoroughly acquainted with the history of events under
Charlemagne, in order to understand that of civilization — How the
events may be recapitulated in tables — 1. Charlemagne as a warrior
and conqueror ; Table of his principal expeditions — Their meaning
and results — 2. Charlemagne as an administrator and legislator — Of
the government of the provinces — Of the central government — Ta-
ble of national assemblies under his reign — Table of his capitularies
— Table of the acts and documents which remain of this epoch — 3.
Charlemagne as a protector of intellectual development: Table of
the celebrated cotemporaneous men — Estimation of the general re-
sults, and of the character of his reign.

We enter into a second great epoch of the history of French
civilization, and as we enter, at the first step, we encounter a
great man. Charlemagne was neither the first of his race,
nor the author of its elevation. He received an already es-
tablished power from his father Pepin. I have attempted to
make you understand the causes of this revolution and its
true character. When Charlemagne became king of the
Franks, it was accomplished ; he had no need even to defend
it. He, however, has given his name to the second dynasty ;
and the instant one speaks of it, the instant one thinks of it, it
is Charlemagne who presents himself before the mind as its
founder and chief. Glorious privilege of a great man ! No
one disputes that Charlemagne had a right to give name to
his race and age. The homage paid to him is often blind
and undistinguishing ; his genius and glory are extolled with-
out discrimination or measure ; yet, at the same time, persons
repeat, one after another, that he founded nothing, accom-
plished nothing ; that his empire, his laws, all his works,
perished with him. And this historical common-place intro-
duces a crowd of moral common-places on the ineffectualness
and uselessness of great men, the vanity of their projects, the
.ittle trace which fhey leave in the world, after having trou-
bled it in all directions.

398 HISTORY ov

Is this true ? Is it the destiny of great men to be merely a
burden and a useless wonder to mankind ? Their activity so
strong, so brilliant, can it have no lasting result ? It costs
very dear to be present at the spectacle ; the curtain fallen,
will nothing of it remain ? Should we regard these powerful
and glorious chiefs of a century and a people, merely as a
sterile scourge, or at very best, as a burdensome luxury ?
Charlemagne, in particular, should he be nothing more ?

At the first glance, the common-place might be supposed to
be a truth. The victories, conquests, institutions, reforms,
projects, all the greatness and glory of Charlemagne, vanished
with him ; he seemed a meteor suddenly emerging from the
darkness of barbarism, to be as suddenly lost and extin-
guished in that of feudality. There are other such examples
in history. The world has more than once seen, we our-
selves have seen an empire like it, one which took pleasure
in being compared to that of Charlemagne, and had a right so
to be compared ; we have likewise seen it fall away with a
man.

But we must beware of trusting these appearances. To
understand the meaning of great events, and measure the
agency and influence of great men, we need to look far deeper
into the matter.

The activity of a great man is of two kinds ; he performs
two parts ; two epochs may generally be distinguished in his
career. First, he understands better than other people the
wants of his time ; its real, present exigencies ; what, in the
age he lives in, society needs, to enable it to subsist and attain
its natural development. He understands these wants better
than any jther person of his time, and knows better than any
other how to wield the powers of society, and direct them
skilfully towards the realization of this end. Hence proceed
his power and glory ; it is in virtue of this, that as soon as he
appears, he is understood, accepted, followed ; that all give
their willing aid to the work which he is pei forming for the
benefit of all.

But he does not stop here. When the real wants of his
time are in some degree satisfied, the ideas and the will of the
great man proceed further. He quits the region of present
facts and exigencies ; he gives himself up to views in some
measure personal to himself; he indulges in combinations
more or less vast and spacious, but which are not, like his
orevious labors, founded on the actual state, the common in

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 399

stincts, the determined wishes of society, but are remote and
arbitrary. He aspires to extend his activity and influence
indefinitely, and to possess the future as he has possessed the
present. Here egoism and illusion commence. For some
time, on the faith of what he has already done, the great man
is followed in his new career ; he is believed in and obeyed ;
men lend themselves to his fancies ; his flatterers and his
dupes even admire and vaunt them as his sublimest concep-
tions. The public, however, in whom a mere delusion is
never of any long continuance, soon discovers that it is im-
pelled in a direction in which it has no desire to move At
first the great man had enlisted his high intelligence and pow-
erful will in the service of the general feeling and wish ; he
now seeks to employ the public force in the service of ms in-
dividual ideas and desires ; he is attempting things which he
alone wishes or understands. Hence disquietude first, and
then uneasiness ; for a time he is still followed, but sluggishly
and reluctantly ; next he is censured and complained of ;
finally, he is abandoned and falls ; and all which he alone had
planned and desired, all the merely personal and arbitrary
part of his work, perishes with him.

I shall avoid no opportunity of borrowing from our age the
torch which it offers, in this instance, in order to enlighten a
time so distant and obscure. The fate and name of Napoleon
at present belong to history. I shall not feel the least embar-
rassed in speaking of it, and speaking of it freely.

Every one knows that at the time when he seized the
power in France, the dominant, imperious want of our coun-
try was security — without, national independence ; inwardly,
civil life. In the revolutionary troubles, the external and
internal destiny, the state and society, were equally compro-
mised. To replace the new France in the European confede-
ration, to make her avowed and accepted by the other states,
and to constitute her within in a peaceable and regular man-
ner,— to put her, in a word, into the possession of indepen-
dence and order, the only pledges of a long future, this waa
the desire, the general thought of the country. Napoleon
understood and accomplished it.

This finished, or nearly so, Napoleon proposed to himself a
thousand others: potent in combinations, and of an ardent
imagination, egoistical and thoughtful, machinator and poet,
ne, as it were, poured out his activity in arbitrary and gigan-
tic projects, children of his own, — solitary foreign to the reaj

400 HISTORY OF

wants of our time, and of our France. She followed him
for some time, and at great cost, in this path which she had
not selected ; a day came when she would follow no further,
and the emperor found himself alone, and the empire vanished,
and all things returned to their proper condition, to their na-
tural tendency.

It is an analogous fact which the reign of Charlemagne
offers us at the ninth century. Despite the immense differ-
ence of time, situation, form, even groundwork, the general
phenomenon is similar : these two parts of a great man, these
two epochs of his career, are found in Charlemagne as in Na-
poleon. Let us endeavor to state them.

Here I encounter a difficulty which has long pre-occupied
me, and which I do not hope to have completely sumounted.
At the commencement of the course, I engaged to read you a
general history of France. I have not recounted events to
you ; I have sought only general results, the concatenation of
causes and effects, the progress of civilization, concealed un-
der the external scenes of history ; as regards the scenes
themselves, I had taken it for granted that you know them.
Hitherto I have cared little to know if you had taken this pre-
caution ; under the Merovingian race, events, properly so
called, are of rare occurrence — so monotonous, that it is less
necessary to regard them nearly : general facts only are im-
portant, and they may, up to a certain point, be brought to
light and understood without an exact knowledge of the de-
tails. Under the reign of Charlemagne, it is entirely differ-
ent : wars, political vicissitudes of all kinds, are numerous
and brilliant ; they occupy an important place, and general
facts are concealed far behind the special facts which occupy
the front of the scene. History, properly so called, envelopes
and covers the history of civilization. The latter will not
be clear to you unless the former is presented to you ; I can.
not give you an account of events, and yet you require to
know them.

I have attempted to sum them up in tables, to present under
that form the special facts of this epoch ; those, lit least, which
approach nearly to general facts, and immediately concern
the history of civilization. Statistical tables are looked upon
in the present day, and with good reason, as one of the best
means of studying the state of a society, under certain rela-
tions ; why should not the same method be applied to the past 1
It does not produce them with vividness and animation, like

CIVILIZATION IN FEANCE.

401

recital ; but it raises their frame- work, so to speak, and pre.
/ents general ideas from floating in vagueness and at chance.
In proportion as we advance in the course of civilization, we
shall often be obliged to employ it.

Three essential characteristics appear in Charlemagne : he
may be considered under three principal points of view : 1st,
as a warrior and a conqueror ; 2d, as an administrator ana
legislator ; 3d, as a protector of sciences, letters, arts, of in-
tellectual development in general. He exercised a great
power, outwardly by force, inwardly by government and
laws ; he desired to act, and in fact did act, upon mankind it-
self, upon the human mind as upon society. I shall endeavor
to make you understand him in these three respects, by pre-
senting to you, in tables, the facts which relate to him, and
from which the history of civilization may be deduced.

I commence with the wars of Charlemagne, of which the
following are the most essential facts :

Table of the principal Expeditions of Charlemagne.

Date.

769
772
773

774

Enemies.

r,

774

C

775

7

776

B

776

9

778

10

778

11

779

12

780

13

733

II

783

15

7S4

10

735

17

785

tfi

786

19

■ 787

■I)

1 787

Against the Aquitani.

" the Saxons.

" the Lombards.
" Idem.

" the Saxons.
" Idem.

"* the Lombards.

" the Saxons.

" the Arabs of Spain.

" the Saxons.
" Idem.

" Idem.

" Idem.

" Idem.

" Idem.

" Idem.

" theThuringiara

** the Bretons

" the Lombards of

Benevento.
" the Bavarians.

SA

Observations.

He goes to the Dordogne.
He goes beyond the Weser.
He goes to Pavia and Verona.
He takes Pavia, and goes to
Rome.

He goes to Treviso.

He goes to the sources of the

Lippe.
He goes to Saragossa.

He goes to the country of

08nabruck.
He goes to the Elbe.
He goes to the conflux of the

Weser and the Aller.
He goes to the Elbe.
He goes to the Sale and the

Elbe.
He goes to the Elbe.
He does not go in person.

Idem.
He goes to Capua.

He goes to Augsburg

LI-3BARY

*T"TFWERSC*LEfiE
TA t *a u » a * . ..

402

HISTORY

IT

21

Date.

Enemies.

Observations.

788

Against the Huns or Avares

He goes to Ratisbon.

22

789

• • the Slavonian Wilt-

He goes between the Lower

zes.

Elbe and the Oder.

23

791

" the Huns or

He goes to the conflux of the

Avares.

Danube and the Raab.

24

794

" the Saxons

25

795

Idem.

26

796

Idem.

27

796

" the Huns or Avares

Under the orders of his son
Louis, king of Italy.

28

796

" the Arabs.

Under the orders of his son
Pepin, king of Aquitaine.

29

797

" the Saxons.

He goes to the Lower Weser

.

and the Lower Elbe.

30

797

" the Arabs.

By his son Louis.

31

798

" the Saxons.

He goes beyond the Elbe.

32

801

" the Lombards of
Benevento.

By his son Pepin to Chieti.

33

801

" the Arabs of Spain.

By his son Louis to Barcelona.

34

802

" the Saxons.

By his sons beyond the Elbe.

35

804

Idem.

He goes between the Elbe and
the Oder. He transplants
tribes of Saxons into Gaul
and Italy.

36

805

" the Slavonians of
Bohemia.

By his eldest son Charles

37

806

Idem.

By his son Charles.

38

806

" the Saracens of By his son Pepin.

Corsica.

39

806

" the Arabs of Spain.

By his son Louis.

40

807

" the Saracens of
Corsica.

By Generals.

41

807

" the Arabs of Spain.

Idem.

42

808

" the Danes and

Normans.

43

809

" the Greeks.

In Dalmatia,by his son Pepin.

44

809

" the Arabs of Spain.

45

810

" the Greeks.

Liem.

46

810

" the Saracens in
Corsica and
Sardinia.

47

810

" the Danes.

He goes in person to the conflux
of the Weser and the Aller.

48

811

Idem.

£

811

" the Avares.

811

" the Bretons.

51

812

" the Slavonian Wilt-

He goes between the Elbe and

zes.

the Oder.

52

812

" the Saracens in
Corsica.

53

813

Idem.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 408

That is, in all, fifty-three expeditions, namely :
1 against the Aquitani.
18 — Saxons.
5 — Lombards.
7 — Arabs of Spain.

1 — Thuringians.
4 — Avares.

2 — Bretons.

1 — Bavarians.

4 — Slavonians beyond the Elbe.

5 — • Saracens in Italy.
5 — Danes.

2 — Greens.

Without counting numerous other small expeditions, of which
no distinct and positive monuments are left.

From this table alone it is clearly seen that these wars did
not the least resemble those of the first race ; they are not the
dissensions of tribe against tribe, of chief against chief; ex-
peditions undertaken with a view of establishment or pillage;
they are systematic and political wars, inspired by an inten-
tion of government, commanded by a certain necessity.

What is this system ? What is the meaning of these expe-
ditions ?

You have seen various German nations — Goths, Burgun-
dians, Franks, Lombards, &c. — established upon the Roman
territory. Of all these tribes or confederations, the Franks
were the strongest, and occupied the central position in the
new establishment. They were not united among themselves
by any political tie; they incessantly make war. Still, in
some respects, and whether they knew it or not, their situation
was similar, and their interests common.

You have seen that, from the beginning of the eighth cen-
tury, these new masters of western Europe, the Roman-Ger-
mans, were pressed on the north-east, along the Rhine and
the Danube, by new German, Slavonian, and other tribes pro-
ceeding to the same territory ; on the south by the Arabs
spread on all the coasts of the Mediterranean ; and that thus
a two-fold movement of invasion menaced with an approach-
ing fall the states but just rising out of the ruins of the Roman
empire.

Now let us see what was the work of Charlemagne in this
situation ; he rallied against this two-fold invasion, against the
new assailants who crowded upon the various frontiers of the

404 HISTORY OF

empire, all the recently-established inhabitants of his tern,
tory, ancient or modern, Romans or Germans. Follow the
course of his wars. He begins by definitively subduing, on
one side, the Roman population, who still attempted to free
themselves from the barbarian yoke, as the Aquitani in the
south of Gaul ; on the other, the later-arrived German popu-
lation, the establishment of whom was not consummated, as
the Lombards in Italy, &c. He snatched them from the vari-
ous impulsions which animated them, united them all under
the domination of the Franks, and turned them against the
two-fold invasion, which, on the north-east and south, menaced
all alike. Seek a dominant fact which shall be common to
all the wars of Charlemagne ; reduce them all to theii simple
expression ; you will see that their true meaning is, that they
are the struggle of the inhabitants of the ancient empire, con-
quering or conquered, Romans or Germans, against the new
invaders.

They are, therefore, essentially defensive wars, brought
about by a triple interest of territory, race, and religion. It
was the interest of territory which especially broke out against
the nations of the right bank of the Rhine, for the Saxons and
Danes were Germans, like the Franks and the Lombards:
there were Frankish tribes among them, and some learned
men think that many pretended Saxons may have been only
Franks, established in Germany. There was, therefore, no
diversity of race ; it was merely in defence of the territory
that war took place. The interest of territory and the interest
of race were united against the wandering nations beyond the
Elbe, or on the banks of the Danube, against the Slavonians
and the Avares. Against the Arabs who inundated the south
of Gaul, there was interest of territory, of race, and of reli-
gion, all together. Thus did the various causes of war vari-
ously combine ; but, whatever might be the combinations, it
was always the German Christians and Romans, who de-
fended their nationality, their territory, and their religion,
against nations of another origin or creed, who sought a soil
to conquer. All their wars have this character — all are de-
rived from this triple necessity.

Charlemagne had in no way reduced this necessity into a
general idea or theory ; but he understood and faced it : great
men rarely do otherwise. He faced it by conquest ; defensive
war took the offensive form ; he carried the struggle into the
territory of nations who wished to invade his own ; he labored

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 405

to reduce the foreign races, to extirpate the hostile creeds.
Hence arose his mode of government, and the foundation of
his empire ; offensive war and conquest required this vast and
formidable unity.

At the death of Charlemagne, the conquests cease, the unity
disappears, the empire is dismembered and falls to pieces ; but
is it true that nothing remained, that the warlike exploits of
Charlemagne were absolutely sterile, that he achieved nothing,
founded nothing ? There is but one way to resolve this ques-
tion ; it is, to ask ourselves if, after Charlemagne, the countries
which he had governed found themselves in the same situation
as before ; if the two-fold invasions which, on the north and
on the south, menaced their territory, their religion, and -heir
race, recommenced after being thus suspended ; if the Saxons,
Slavonians, Avares, Arabs, still kept the possessors of the
Roman soil in perpetual disturbance and anxiety. Evidently
it was not so ; true, the empire of Charlemagne was broken
up, but into separate states, which arose as so many barriers
at all points where there was still danger. Up to the time of
Charlemagne, the frontiers of Germany, Spain, and Italy were
in continual fluctuation ; no constituted public force had at-
tained a permanent shape ; he was compelled to be constantly
transporting himself from one end to the other of his dominions,
in order to oppose to the invaders the moveable and temporary
force of his armies. After him, the scene is changed ; real
political barriers, states more or less organized, but real and
durable, arose ; the kingdoms of Lorraine, of Germany, Italy,
the two Burgundies, Navarre, date from that time ; and, in
spite of the vicissitudes of their destiny, they subsist, and suf-
fice to oppose effectual resistance to the invading movement.
Accordingly, that movement ceases, or continues only in the
form of maritime expeditions, most desolating at the points
which they reach, but which cannot be made with great masses
of men, nor produce great results.

Although, therefore, the vast domination of Charlemagne
disappeared with him, it is not true that he founded nothing ;
he founded all the states which sprung from the dismember-
ment of his empire. His conquests entered into new combi-
nations, but his wars attained their end : the foundation of the
work subsisted, although its form was changed. It is thus
that the action of great men is in general exercised. Charle-
magne, as an administrator and legislator, appears to us under
tUe name aspect.

406 HISTORY OF

His government is more difficult to sum up than his wara
Much has been said of the order which he introduced into his
states, of the great system of administration which he attempted
to found. I indeed believe he attempted it, but he was very far
from succeeding in his attempt : despite the unity, despite the
activity of his thought and of his power, the disorder around
him was immense and invincible ; he repressed it for a moment
on one point, but the evil reigned wherever his terrible will
did not come ; and when it had passed, recommenced the
moment it was at a distance. We must not allow ourselves
to be deceived by words. Open, in the present day, the
Almanac Royal ; you may read the system of the administra-
tion of France : all the powers, all the functionaries, from the
last step to the most elevated, are there indicated and classed
according to their relations. And there is no illusion —
the things pass, in fact, as they are written ; the book is
a faithful image of the reality. It would be easy to construct
a similar administrative chart for the empire of Charlemagne,
to place in it dukes, counts, vicars, centeniers, sheriffs
(scabini), and to distribute them, hierarchically organized,
over the territory. But this would only be a vast fiction ;
more frequently, in most places, these magistrates were
powerless, or themselves disorderly. The effort of Charle-
magne to institute them and to make them act was continual,
but as inoessantly failed. Now that you are warned, and on
your guard against the systematic appearances of this govern-
ment, I may sketch the features — you will not conclude too
much from them.

The local government must be distinguished from the cen-
tral government.

In the provinces, the power of the emperor was exercised
by two classes of agents — one local and permanent, the other
sent to a distance, and transitory.

In the first class were included — first, dukes, counts, vicars
of courts, centeniers, scabini, all resident magistrates nominated
by the emperor himself or by his delegates, and charged in his
name to raise forces, to render justice, to maintain order, to
receive tribute ; second, beneficiaries, or vassals of the king,
who held from him, sometimes hereditarily, more frequently
for life, still more frequently without any stipulation or rule,
estates or domains, throughout the extent of which they exer*
cised, mostly in their own name, partly in that of the emperor,
a certain jurisdiction, and almost all the rights of sovereignty.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE.

407

Nothing was well determined or very clear with regard to
the situation of beneficiaries, and the nature of their power ;
they were at once delegates and independent, proprietors and
usufructuaries ; and one or other of these characters prevailed
in them alternately. But however that may be, they were,
without doubt, in habitual relation with Charlemagne, who
made use of them everywhere in order to convey and execute
his will.

Above the local and resident agents, magistrates, or benefi-
ciaries, were the missi dominici, temporary ambassadors,
charged, in the name of the emperor, to inspect the provinces,
authorized to penetrate into conceded domains, as well as into
free lands, invested with the right of reforming certain abuses,
and called upon to render an account of every thing to their
master. The missi dominici were for Charlemagne, at least
in the provinces, the principal medium of order and adminis-
tration.

With regard to the central government, putting aside for a
moment the action of Charlemagne himself, and of his per-
sonal counsellors, that is to say, with regard to the true gov-
ernment, the national assemblies, to judge from appearances,
and if we may believe almost all modern historians, occupied
an important place. They were, indeed, frequent and active
under his reign. The following is a table of those which ara
expressly mentioned by the chroniclers of the time :

1

Date.

Place.

•

770

Worms.

2

771

Valenciennes.

3

772

Worms.

4

773

Geneva.

5

775

Duren.

6

776

Worms.

7

777

Paderborn.

9

779

Duren.

9

780

Ehresburg.

10

781

Worms.

11

782

At the source of the Lippe.

12

785

Paderborn.

13

786

Worms.

14

787

Ibid.

15

783

Ingelheim.

16

789

Aix-la-Chapelle.

17

790

Worms.

18

792

Katisbon.

-

408

HISTORY OF

19

Date.

Place.

793

Ibid.

20

794

Frankfort.

21

795

Kuffenstein.

22

797

Aix-la-Chapelle. •

23

799

Lippenheim.

24

800

Mayence.

25

803

Ibid.

26

804

At the source of the Lippe.

27

SOS

Thionville.

2S

806

Nimeguen.

29

807

Coblentz.

30

809

Aix-la-Chapelle.

31

810

Verden.

32

811

Ibid.

33

812

Boulogne.

34

812

Aix-la-Chapelle.

35

813

Ibid.

To know the number and periodical regularity of these
great meetings, doubtless, is something ; but what passed
within their breast, and what was the character of their
political intervention ? this is an important point.

A very curious monument remains upon this subject ; one
of the cotemporaries and counsellors of Charlemagne, his
cousin-german, Adalhard, abbot of Corbie, wrote a treatise
entitled De Ordine Pdlatii, destined to make known the
internal government of Charlemagne, and more especially the
general assemblies. This treatise is lost ; but, towards the
end of the ninth1 century, Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, re-
produced it almost complete in a letter of instruction written
at the request of some great men of the kingdom, who had had
recourse to his counsel for the government of Carloman, one
of the sons of Louis-le-Begue. Certainly, no document merits
more confidence. Here we read —

" It -was the custom of the time to hold two councils every

year in both of them, and in order that they might not

appear convoked without motive,2 they submitted to the

i In 882.
JVe quasi sine causa convocari viderentur. This phrase indicates
that most of the members of those assemblies looked upon the
obligation of repairing thither as a burden ; that they had but little
desire to share in the legislative power, and that Charlemagne wished
to legitimate their convocation by giving them something to do,
far rather than that he subjected himself to the necessity of obtaining
tb«ir adhesion.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 409

examination and deliberation of the nobles .... and, in virtue
of the orders of the king, the articles of the law named capu
tula, which the king himself had drawn up by the inspiration
of God, or the necessity of which had been made manifest tc
him in the interval between the meetings."

The proposition of the capitularies, or, to speak in modern
phraseology, the initiative, therefore, emanated from the
emperor. It must have been so : the initiative is naturall)
exercised by him who wishes to' regulate, to reform, and it
was Charlemagne who had conceived this design. Still I
do not doubt any the more that the members of assembly
might have made any propositions which appeared desirable
to them ; the constitutional mistrusts and artifices of our times
were, certainly, unknown to Charlemagne, too sure of hi.°
power to fear the liberty of deliberations, and who saw ii
these assemblies a means of government far more than a
barrier to bjs authority. I resume the text of Hincmar :

" After having received these communications, they deli-
berated upon them one, two, three, or even a greater number
of days, according to the importance of the matter. Messen-
gers from the palace, going and coming, received their ques-
tions and reported the answers ; and no stranger approached
the place of their meeting, until the result of their delibera-
tions had been put before the eyes of the great prince, who
then, with the wisdom which he received from God, adopted
a resolution to which all obeyed."

The definitive resolution always depended therefore on
Charlemagne alone ; the assembly only gave him information
and counsel. Hincmar continues :

" The things, accordingly, went on thus for one, two, or
more capitularies, until, with the aid of God, all the necessities
of the times were provided for.

" While his affairs were treated of in this manner out of the
presence of the king, the prince himself, amidst the multitude
which generally came to the general councils, was occupied
in receiving presents, saluting the most considerable men,
discoursing with those whom he rarely saw, testifying
an affectionate interest in the more aged, making merry
with the younger ; and doing these and similar things alike
for ecclesiastics as for seculars. Still, if those who deli-
berated upon matters submitted to their examination manifested
a desire therefor, the king repaired to them ; remained with them
as long as they wished ; and they reported to him with com-

410 HISTORY OF

plete familiarity what they thought of everything, and what
were the friendly discussions which had been raised among
them. I must not forget to mention that, if the weather was
fine, all this passed in the open air ; if not, in distinct build-
ings, where those who had to deliberate upon the propositions
of the kings were separated from the multitude of persons
who came to the assembly, and then the less considerable
men could not enter. The places destined for the meeting of
the lords were divided into two parts, so that the bishops,
abbots, and priests, high in dignity, could be united without
any mixture of the laity. In the same way the counts and
other principal men of the state were separated, in the morn-
ing, from the rest of the multitude, until, the king present or
absent, they were all met together ; and the above-mentioned
lords, the priests on their side, and the laity on theirs,
repaired to the hall assigned to them, and where they
had honorably prepared their seats. When the lay and
ecclesiastical lords were thus separated from the multitude, it
remained in their option to sit together, or separately, ac-
cording to the affairs of which they had to treat — ecclesias-
tical, secular, or both. So if they wished any one to come,
whether to demand nourishment, or to ask a question, and
again to dismiss him, after having received what they wanted,
they could do so. Thus passed the examination of the affairs
which the king proposed to their deliberations.

" The second occupation of the king was to demand of every
one what he had to report to him, or to teach him concerning
the part of the kingdom whence he came. Not only was this
permitted to every one, but they were strictly recommended
to inquire, in the intervals of the assemblies, what passed
within or without the kingdom ; and that they should seek to
know this from foreigners as well as countrymen, enemies as
well as friends, sometimes by employing envoys, and without
taking much care as to how the intelligence was acquired. The
king wished to know whether, in any part, any corner of the
kingdom, the people murmured .and were agitated, and what
was the cause of its agitation, and whether it had come to a
disturbance upon which it was necessary that a general
council should be employed, and other similar details. He
also wished to know if any of the subdued nations thought of
revolting ; if any of those who had revolted seemed disposed
to submit ; if those who were still independent menaced the
kingdom with any attack, &c. Upon all these matters,

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE.

411

wherever a disturbance or a danger became manifest, he
principally asked what were its motives or occasion."1

I shall have no need of long reflections in order to make
you recognize the true character of these assemblies ; it is
clearly shown in the picture which has been traced by
Hincmar. Charlemagne alone fills it ; he is the centre and
soul of all things ; it is he who says that the assemblies shall
meet, that they shall deliberate ; it is he who occupies himself
about the state of the country, who proposes and sanctions
laws ; in him reside the will and impulsion ; it is from him
that all emanated, la order to return to him. There was
there no great national liberty, no true public activity ; but
there was a vast means of government.2

This means was by no means sterile. Independently of
he force which Charlemagne drew from it for current affairs,
you have seen that it was- there that the capitularies were
generally drawn up and decreed. In our next lecture I shall
occupy you more especially with this celebrated legislation.
I desire at present merely to give you an idea of it.

While waiting for more details, here is a table of the ca-
pitularies of Charlemagne, with their number, their extent,
and their object :

Tabic of the Capitularies of Charlemagne.

a

c-

Date.

Place.

o

!&3

3.2

U

C-2

4)

<

£

W|-J

1

769
779

78S

18
23

8

l

15

7

17
8
1

2

3

4

789

Aix-la-Chapelle..

80

19

61

5

Id.

16

, .

16

0

Id.
Id.

23
34

14
20

9
14

7

S

793

17

15

2

9

794

54

18

36

10

797

Aix-la-Chapelle..

11

11

11

799

5

..

5

1 Hincm. App. de Ordine Palatii, vol. ii., pp. 201 — 215.
• See mj Etsais sur PHistoire de France, pc 315 — 344.

412 HISTORY OF

Table of the Capitularies of Charlemagne — continued.

Date.

Before.

12

800

13

800

14

801

15

Id.

10

Id.

17

802

18

Id.

19

803

20

Id.

21

Id.

22

Id.

23

«. W.

24

Id.

25

Id.

26

Id.

27

Id.

28

Id.

29

804

Id.

30

805

31

Id.

32

Id.

33

Id.

34

806

35

Id.

36

Id.

37

Id.

33

Id.

39

Id.

40 .

807

41

808

42

809

43

Id.

44

810

45

Id.

46

Id.

47

811

48

Id.

49

Id.

Place.

Aix-la-Chapelle

Idem

Idem

Worms

Seltz

Idem

Thionville

Idem

Idem

Idem

Nimeguen

Aix-la-Chapelle.

Idem

Idem

9

C

<

c
o

5-1

>3

70

5

5

S

8

1

22

41

27

23

18

7

. .

1»

••

11

ii

29

27

12

12

22

20

8

8

13

11

3

8

12

16

25

23

16

14

1

202

8

7

6

6

8

7

19

18

23

7

7

30

28

37

36

70

15

18

14

16

13

5

5

12

7

13

9

9

= .2
3 "3 ,° 2

^-3

1

22
14
5
7
1
1

2

2

2
3
8
12
16
2
2
1

1

1
23

2
1
1
4
3

5
13

»Domestic and Rural Legislation. This is the capitulary Be Villi*.
* Political Legislation. Division of States.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 413

Tabic of the Capitularies of Charlemagne — continued.

50
51

52
53
54
55
56

57
58
59

60

Date.

Place.

■

B

C

<

o
o

"6-2
bD

Religious
Legislation.

812
Id.
Id.
813
Id.
Id.
Date un-
certain.

Id.
Id.
Id.
Id.

9
11
13
28
20
46
59

14

13

13

9

9
11
13

9
19
46
26

12

19
1

33

14
13

1
9

Aix-la-Chapelle..

i.

1126

621

415

Surely such a table gives evidence of great legislative ac
tivity ; and yet it says nothing of the revision which Charle
magne caused to be made of the ancient barbarous laws,
especially the Salic and Lombard laws. In fact, activity, an
universal indefatigable activity, the desire to think of every,
thing, of introducing everywhere at once animation and rule,
is the true, the great characteristic of the government of
Charlemagne — the character which he himself, and he alone,
impressed on his times. I am about to place before you a
new proof of this. This was not a time (allow me the ex-
pression) for much writing and scribbling ; of a surety, the
multitude of official acts drawn up under a reign would not
prove any great things in favor of the genius of a monarch
in the present day. It was different with those of Charle-
magne. There can be no doubt but that the large number of
public acts of all kinds which have come down to us from
it, is an incontestible testimony of the immense and conta-
gious activity, which was, perhaps, his greatest superiority and
his surest power. The following is a table and classification
of those acts — of those, at least, which have been printed in
learned collections. Many others are doubtless lost ; others
perhaps, remain in manuscript, and unknown.

414

HISTORY OF

Table of the Principal Diplomas, Documents, Letters, and Variotu
Acts emanated from Charlemagne or other great men, Lay or JSc-

lesiasti

cal, %

mder h

is Me

tgn.

TO

a
|

•"c 9

tj o

a ** .

»j

4)

a

S

B
C

a
£

TO

c
9

O

> 0)

sg

O <u

f'JS

SI

o

so

nations a
ncessions
urches.

nations a
ncessions
masteries

TO

E

c

TO

3

a

s

(M

Cw

«o

o

o O.J=i

o 6 &

o

3

q

5

o

o

«<

<3

Poo

flug

»3

>

769

23

6

17

, t

3

4

14

2

770

16

3

13

5

8

3

771

9

1

8

2

. .

7

772

33

7

26

1

2

12

16

1

1

773

18

2

16

2

9

6

. .

1

774

21

7

14

2

1

3

n

6

2

775

19

8

11

. .

2

6

7

4

776

20

4

16

. .

1

3

10

4

2

777

18

4

14

1

5

11

1

778

16

5

11

6

8

2

779

19

6

13

1

2

8

8

780

10

3

7

2

2

5

1

781

12

6

6

2

2

1

5

, #

2

782

21

6

15

. .

, .

6

4

9

2

783

11

1

10

. .

, ,

4

5

2

784

6

1

5

, .

. .

2

2

_ #

2

785

15

. .

15

. .

1

, ,

7

6

1

786

15

4

11

2

4

. .

6

2

1

787

26

10

16

2

6

3

5

9

1

788

27

3

24

3

2

2

12

7

1

739

16

7

9

3

2

1

6

1

3

790

22

11

11

2

3

2

14

1

791

20

1

19

. ,

1

4

12

2

1

792

7

1

6

. .

1

1

5

793

28

3

25

4

1

1

7

12

3

794

20

8

12

. .

7

4

4

3

2

795

14

3

11

, .

1

3

5

3

2

796

32

4

28

, ,

2

3

15

11

1 '

797

15

8

7

4

1

3

5

2

798

21

2

19

1

2

2

10

5

1

799

27

3

24

1

4

4

6

6

6

800

23

6

17

3

3

12

1

4

801

23

5

18

1

3

4

13

2

802

30

13

17

4

8

3

9

5

1

803

26

15

11

7

3

7

7

2

804

3S

5

33

2

2

9

24

1

805

15

6

9

2

2

4

7

806

25

8

17

5

2

3

13

1

1

807

33

3

30

1

1

11

10

2

8

I 808

29

3

26

1

• •

17

7

3

1

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE.

41ft

Table of the Principal Diplomas, Sfc. — continued.

V

t-

9)

e

a

B
I

a

V

B

O

1

GO

E
O

6a

■si

GO O

S
be e

% S
P5 a

Cm QJ

o >.

nations and
ncessions to
urches.

nations and
ncessions to
nasteries.

01

E

CO

O

0]

D

o

0

&

o

O

•<

o o..c

flou

fiuS

ti

w

rf

809

15

5

10

3

2

5

1

4

810

19

6

13

3

. .

1

5

8

1

811

27

5 •

22

4

1

7

14

. .

1

812

19

7

12

5

. .

1

10

. .

3

813

42

13

29

4

6

6

26

814

10

7

1

2

Vear an-

certain.

194

19

175

4

2

129

27

21

11

745

257

87S

80

87

322

428

155

73

Note. — The elements of this table are taken from the " History of
the Germanic Empire" of Count Biinau, vol. ii., pp. 872 — 930; Leip-
zick, 1732.

Such are the facts — at least, such are the frames in which
they are placed. Now, I here reproduce the question which
I raised just now concerning the wars of Charlemagne. Is it
true, is it possible, that of this government, so active and
vigorous, nothing remained — that all disappeared with Char-
lemagne— that he founded nothing for the internal consolidation
of society ?

What fell with Charlemagne, what rested upon him alone,
and could not survive him, was the central government.
After continuing some time under Louis le Debonnaire and
Charles le Chauve, but with less and less energy and influ-
ence, the general assemblies, the missi dominici, the whole
machinery of the central and sovereign administration, dis-
appeared. Not so the local government, the dukes, counts,
vicaires, centeniers, beneficiaries, vassals, who held authority
in their several neighborhoods under the rule of Charle-
magne. Before his time, the disorder had been as great in
each locality as in the commonwealth generally ; landed pro-
perties, magistracies were incessantly changing hands ; nc

416 HISTORY OF

local positions or influences possessed any steadiness or per
manence. During the forty-six years of his government^
these influences had time to become rooted in the same soil,
in the same families ; they had acquired stability, the first
condition of the progress which was destined to render them
independent and hereditary, and make them the elements of
the feudal regime. Nothing, certainly, less resembles feu.
dalism than the sovereign unity which Charlemagne aspired
to establish ; yet he is the true founder of feudal society • it
was he who, by arresting the external invasions, and repress*
ing, to a certain extent, the intestine disorders, gave to local
situations, fortunes, influences, sufficient time to take real
possession of the country. After him, his general govern-
ment perished like his conquests ; his unity of authority like
his extended empire ; but as the empire was broken into
separate states, which acquired a vigorous and durable life,
so the central sovereignty of Charlemagne resolved itself
into a multitude of local sovereignties, to which a portion of
the strength of his government had been imparted, and which
had acquired under its shelter the conditions requisite for
reality and durability ; so that in this second point of view,
in his civil as well as military capacity, if we look beyond
first appearances, he accomplished and founded much.

I might show him to you accomplishing and leaving analo-
gous results in the church ; there also he arrested dissolution,
until his time always increasing : there also he gave society
time to rest, to acquire some consistency and to enter upon
new paths. But time presses : I have yet at present to speak
o ' the influence of Charlemagne in the intellectual order, and
of the place occupied by his reign in the history of the human
mind ; scarcely shall I be able to point out the principal
features.

It is more difficult here than anywhere else to sum up
facts and present them in a table. The acts of Charlemagne
in favor of moral civilization form no entirety, manifest no
systematic form ; they are isolated, scattered acts ; at times
the foundation of certain schools, at times measures taken for
the improvement of ecclesiastical offices, and the progress of
the knowledge which depends on them ; also general recom-
mendations for the instruction of priests and laymen ; but
most frequently an eager protection of distinguished men, and
a particular care to surround himself with them.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE.

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CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 421

There is nothing systematic, nothing that can he estimate:)
by the mere juxtaposition of figures and words. I wish, how
ever, with a touch, and without entering into details, to place
before you some facts which may give you an idea of that kind
of action of Charlemagne, of which more is said than is known.
It appears to me that a table of the celebrated men who were
born and died under his reign — that is, of the celebrated men
whom he employed, and those whom he made — would tend
efficiently towards this end ; this body of names and of works
may be taken as a decided proof, and even as a correct
estimate of the influence of Charlemagne over minds.

Surely such a table is sufficient to prove that at this epoch,
and under the star of Charlemagne, intellectual activity was
great. Recall to your minds the times from whence we set
out ; call to mind that from the sixth to the eighth century,
we had great difficulty in finding any names, any works ; that
sermons and legends were almost the only monuments which
we encountered. Here, on the contrary, you see reappear,
and that almost at once, philosophical, historical, philological,
and critical writings ; you find yourself in the presence of
study and science — that is to say, of pure and disinterested
intellectual activity, of the real movement of mind. I shall
soon discuss with you, in a more detailed manner, the men
and the works I have just named, and you will see that they
truly commence a new epoch, and merit the most serious
attention.

Now, I ask, have we a right to say that Charlemagne has
founded nothing, that nothing remains of his works ? I have
merely given you a glimpse, as in a transient panorama, of
their principal results ; and yet their permanence is thus
shown therein as clearly as their grandeur. It is evident
that, by his wars, by his government, and by his action upon
minds, Charlemagne has left the most profound traces ; that
if many of the things he did perished with him, many others
have survived him ; that western Europe, in a word, left his
hands entirely different from what it was when he received
it.

What is the general dominant character of this change, of
the crisis over which Charlemagne presided ?

Take in at one view, that history of the civilization in
France under the Merovingian kings which we have just stu-
died ; it is the history of a constant, universal decline. In
individual man as in society, in the religious society as in

422 HISTORY OF

civil society, everywhere we have seen anarchy and weak,
ness extending itself more and more ; we liave seen every
thing become enervated and dissolved, both institutions ano
ideas, what remained of the Roman world and what tbe Ger-
mans had introduced. Up to the eighth century, nothing of
what had formerly been could continue to exist ; nothing
which seemed to dawn could succeed in fixing itself.

Dating from Charlemagne, the face of things changes ; de-
cay is arrested, progress recommences. Yet for a long period
the disore^r will be enormous, the progress partial, but little
visible, or often suspended. This matters not : we shall no
more encounter those long ages of disorganization, of always
increasing intellectual sterility : through a thousand suffer-
ings, a thousand interruptions, we shall see power and life
revive in man and in society. Charlemagne marks the limit
at which the dissolution of the ancient Roman and barbarian
world is consummated, and where really begins the formation
of modern Europe, of the new world. It was under his reign,
and as it were under his hand, that the shock took place by
which European society, turning right round, left the paths
of destruction to enter those of creation.

If you would know truly what perished with him, and
what, independently of the changes of form and appearance, is
the portion of his works which did not survive him, if I mis-
take not, it is this :

In opening this course, the first fact which presented itself
to your eyes, the first spectacle at which we were present,
was that of the old Roman empire struggling with the barba-
rians. The latter triumphed ; they destroyed the Empire.
In combating it, they respected it ; no sooner had they des-
troyed it, than they aspired to reproduce it. All the great
barbaric chiefs, Ataulphe, Theodoric, Euric, Clovis, showed
themselves full of the desire of succeeding to the Roman em-
perors, of adapting their tribes to the frame of that society
which they had conquered. None of them succeeded there-
in ; none of them contrived to resuscitate the name and forms
of the empire, even for a moment ; they were overcome by
that torrent of invasion, by that general course of dissolution
which carried all things before it ; barbarism incessantly ex-
tended and renewed itself, but the Roman empire was still
present to all imagination ; it was between barbarism and
Roman civilization that, in all minds of any compass at all,
the question lay.

CIVILIZATION IN FRANCE. 423

It was still in this position when Charlemagne appeared ;
he also, he especially nursed the hope of resolving it, as all
the great barbarians who went before him had wished to re-
solve it, — that is to say by reconstituting the empire. What
Diocletian, Constantine, Julian, had attempted to maintain
with the old wrecks of the Roman legions, that is, the strug-
gle against the invasion, Charlemagne undertook to do with
Franks, Goths, and Lombards : he occupied the same terri-
tory ; he proposed to himself the same design. Without, and
almost always on the same frontiers, he maintained the samt
struggle ; within, he restored its name to the empire, he at«
tempted to bring back the unity of its administration ; he
placed the imperial crown upon his head. Strange contrast !
He dwelt in Germany ; in war, in national assemblies, in the
interior of his family, he acted as a German ; his personal
nature, his language, his manners, his external form, his way
of living, were German ; and not only were they German,
but he did not desire to change them. " He always wore,"
says Eginhard, " the habit of his fathers, the habit of the
Franks. . . . Foreign costumes, however rich, he scorned,
and suffered no one to be clothed with them. Twice only
during the stay which he made at Rome, first at the request
of pope Adrian, and then at the solicitation of Leo, the suc-
cessor of that pontiff, he consented to wear the long tunic, the
chlamys, and the Roman sandal." He was, in fact, com-
pletely German, with the exception of the ambition of his
thought ; it was towards the Roman empire, towards Roman
civilization that it tended ; that was what he desired to estab-
lish, with barbarians as his instruments.

This was, in him, the portion of egoism and illusion ; and
in this it was that he failed. The Roman empire, and its
unity, were invincibly repugnant to the new distribution of
the population, the new relations, the new moral condition
of mankind ; Roman civilization could only enter as a trans-
formed element into the new world which was preparing.
This idea, the aspiration of Charlemagne, was not a public
idea, nor a public want ; all that he did fpr its accomplish-
ment perished with him. Yet even of this vain endeavor
something remained. The name of the western empire,
revived by him, and the rights which were thought to be
attached to the title of emperor, resumed their place among
the elements of history, and were for several centuries longer
an object of ambition, an influencing principle of events.

424 HISTORY OF

Even, therefore, in the purely egoistical and ephemera,
portion of his operations, it cannot be said that the ideas of
Charlemagne were absolutely sterile, nor totally devoid of
duration.

Here we must stop ; the way is long, and I have proceedea
so quickly that J have hardly had time to describe the princi-
pal events of the journey. It is difficult, it is fatiguing to
have to compress within a few pages what filled the life of a
great man. I have as yet only been able to give you a
general idea of the r«ign of Charlemagne, and of his place in
the history of our civilization. I shall probably employ many
of the following lectures in making you acquainted with him
under certain special relations ; though I shall be very far
from doing justice to the subject.

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