By the time of Louis le Débonnaire, the clergy had already attained greater power than royalty, and the alternate attempts to throw off the growing abuse, and an abject submission to its will, entailed a succession of conflicts which made one long and bitter struggle of the imperial reign. At this period the most stupid barbarism corrupted the free course of justice. It was thought that God would rather perform a miracle, than allow an innocent person to suffer to be cleared of an accusation, it was necessary to plunge the arm into boiling water, or to grasp a red-hot iron. At other times crimes and differences were arranged by duel. Men of law, and the clergy even, were obliged to have their champions.

The burning of Paris by the Danes, like its temporary subjection by the Normans and the English, are events in its history as a city, which have little or no connexion with the history of its people, and of the progress of the Parisian mind and intellect; to which, matters attach themselves of far greater importance to the world at large, and to the progress of civilisation, than the temporary triumphs of princes or the ever-varying fortunes of mere military enterprises.

The Parisians may be said to have first signalised that personal bravery which has since so often characterised their history, when under the Count Odon, or Eudes, they so gallantly defended their city against the Normans for two long years. In the time of Louis le Débonnaire, the bishops had dethroned and nominated kings; in the time of Charles the Simple, of Louis IV., or Lothaire, and of Louis V., it was the turn for the feudal barons to exercise the same privilege of a power that had grown up to be superior to that of the monarchy itself. At length feudalism assumed itself a monarchical form, when the Counts of Paris, having seized upon the richest abbeys, and for a long time nominated the kings, allowed Hughes Capet to be proclaimed by his friends and vassals. The people of Paris were now serfs. Their condition was little better than that of cattle. A serf could be beaten, or even killed, with impunity. The clergy, at war with the barons, despoiled the people who were called vilains in the country, bourgeois in the towns and boroughs; castles and abbeys were alike independent principalities and fortresses. But the right of carrying arms was the exclusive privilege of the barons. A noble on horseback, covered with his iron armour, made a whole population tremble. The church alone succeeded for a time in obtaining what was called la paix de Dieu. It, was, however but a temporary relief to this frightful anarchy of the sword, that could not even be tempered by anathemas.

But apart from this social point of view of feudalism, which failed in founding either legal order or political guarantees, it still remained a system which was indispensable to give a new commencement in Europe to a society so utterly dissolved by barbarism, as to be incapable of a more regular or extended form.

The third feudal King, Henry I., solemnly proclaimed the universal sovereignty of the pope, an amount of submissiveness to the church, which William the Conqueror, when he introduced the feudal system into England had the courage to resist. There can be no doubt but that the church has aided from the earliest times in giving an extension and variety to the development of the human mind which it had never

attained previously. In the East, intellectual progress was altogether religious; in the Greek society it was almost exclusively human. In the modern world again, the religious spirit has mingled with all things, without excluding any. Human sentiments and interests hold a material place in our literatures, and yet the religious character of man, that portion of his existence which is directed to another world, appears at every step therein; insomuch that the two great sources of the development of man, humanity and religion, have flowed abundantly and at the same time; so that in spite of all the evil and all the abuses mixed up with it in an intellectual point of view, the church has always exercised the most beneficial influence on the progress of the human mind.

In a political point of view, M. Guizot in his "History of Civilisation" considers the matter to be different. In that which affects the relations of governments with subjects, of power with liberty, that able writer does not believe that upon the whole that the influence of the church has been beneficial. He says the church has always come forward as the interpreter, and defender of two systems, the theocratical and the imperial, that is to say, of despotism; sometimes under a religious form, sometimes under a civil. But the abuses of the system are here placed in the position of the thing itself. It is impossible but that that system which by softening feelings and manners, by denying and suppressing a great number of barbarous practices, contributed so powerfully to the amelioration of the social state, must have also benefited the political condition of the people. Every thing in human affairs tends to abuse, and abuse leads to resistance and to revolution. Theocracy is an abuse of the avocation of the priesthood; but is a whole people without abuses? The error of modern Parisian dialectics is, that they expose so ably, the corruptions and abuses of parties, factions, and institutions; and yet they seem to think it impossible that a nation can unitedly commit an error. A pure democracy appears to them in the light of an illumination of mind and intellect of almost heavenly purity, and a pinnacle in the progress of political societies. The opening made for abuses of all kinds, and consequently the chances of falling back into a state of barbarity, are instead of that, as infinitely multiplied, as the number of opinions exceed in such a state, the conflicting sentiment that guided parties under the previously existing institutions.

The Crusades relieved Europe to a great extent of feudalism, but the church gained in temporal power by the same events; and royalty, which also profited by the same movement, was more than ever shackled by an ambitious and turbulent theocracy. Louis VI., who could not avoid being excommunicated by the Bishop of Paris, had still sufficient constitutional spirit to establish little democracies of people independent of their feudal lords, under certain conditions, and which were called communes, a political distinction which has been handed down to this present day. Feudal barons began also at the same time to barter liberty to their serfs for money; in other places the people themselves rose up against the barons and established their own communes.

At this time, however, men, driven to extremities by the pride and the excesses of the clergy, began to preach reform. The University of Paris had attained a celebrity at that time unrivalled in the world. Three thousand students listened in the open air to the lessons of the dialectician

Abailard; but at that time truth was sought for not in nature or in reason, but in the corrupted precepts of Aristotle, The progress made by the human mind was very slight. Berenger, and Arnaud de Bresce were exceptions; they were the forerunners of reform. The troubadours were singing the praises of love and beauty throughout the provinces ; chivalry flourished in the castles, and the people were oppressed by the most polished and gallant men in the world.

The epoch of Louis IX. was that of great political and judicial ameliorations. Philip IV. convoked the national assemblies, then called les états generaux, in order to obtain their succour against the fulminations of an irate pope, and he made the parliament sedentary at Paris. The introduction of the tiers-état, or deputies of the middle classes, into parliament was adopted from what had already taken place in England. The new parliament also adopted the code of Justinian, in opposition to the clergy; made the study of the principles of Roman law a matter of necessity, and for the first time enabled men of education and letters to enjoy that authority and influence which had hitherto been usurped by men of arms and the clergy. The mind now took some steps in intellectual progress. The great impulse had been given by Roger Bacon. A library had been formed in Paris in the time of Louis IX. The Sorbonne was founded; the bourgeoisie derived habits of anti-feudal independence in the very disorders of the university, and the corporations or brotherhoods imparted to them the power of political organisation.

The reign of Henry X. was marked by the memorable affranchisement of the serfs. Philip V. carried out further administrative reforms, more especially expelling the too-powerful bishops from parliament. Under Jean, son of Philip VI., the parliament first assumed an attitude of independence, and opposed the fiscal demands of the court. The court then endeavoured to raise taxes, without reference to the parliament, but the people refused. Paris revolted under Marcel, the provost of the merchants. But Paris was ultimately obliged to give way, many deputies were executed, Marcel was slain, and the power of the court was reestablished. The first Parisian revolt was a fiscal one-t -the last has been a social one.

Charles V. never re-assembled the states-general. He could not forget the opposition they had presented to the wishes of the court. Philosophers have blamed Charles as a prince who was opposed to the liberty of the people. But it is the inevitable tendency of royalty to wish to strengthen its authority, the most reasonable aristocrats ever desire an increase of influence or of privileges, as the most moral and intellectual people allow themselves to be carried to excesses when they endeavour to repair the injustices of the social state and the inequalities of fortune by force: good laws alone are incorruptible and incapable of the abuses of passions suddenly aroused. The progress of mind at this period was slow but steady. The universities were increasing in number, although their teaching was confined to theology and dialectics. The monks, however, were busy translating Sallust, Cæsar, and other works into French, The monks, at least, assisted the progress of the human mind as librarians and copyists, and oftentimes as sensible and ingenious commentators.

a

In the time of Charles VI. the Parisians again revolted, and refused to

pay taxes. The government intimidated, pretended to suppress them by an ordinance, and convoked the states-general. The latter granted supplies the court wished to obtain others in an arbitrary manner,-the people slew the collectors. The king entered Paris at the head of an army, the suburbs were delivered over to plunder, many rich citizens were put to death, and the city only escaped by paying a large sum. During the same unfortunate reign, Jean sans peur, Duke of Burgundy, obtained the ascendency in Paris, by siding with the people; there was only the Count of Armagnac and the young Duke of Orleans to oppose him, and Paris was delivered over to the factions of the Armagnacs and the Bourguignons, and civil war paved the way for the occupation of the metropolis by Henry V. of England. This was not till after those frightful massacres known to history as the Septembrisades, when 3500 persons were put to death during three days in the prisons, and the streets and the court of the palace were bathed with blood. There seems to be something fatal in the period of three days in the history of Parisian revolts. Either that is about the term that the excitement of the people can be kept up at the insurrectionary point, or resistance cannot be prolonged to a greater period. This time it was the nobles and men-atarms who presided at the internecine struggle, and the Luxembourgs, the D'Harcourts, the Chevreuses, enriched themselves with the spoils of their victims.

Under the English, the parliament which was before named for a year became permanent, and the counsellors obtained the right of presenting to the king the new members for election. The power of this body dated from this time, but it was a power which they were not long in abusing. The university kept up the spirit of disorder, by its numerous and turbulent young spirits, who, by an absurd privilege, characteristic of the times, were held unamenable to the civil authority.

John Huss, and Jerome of Prague, the precursors of Luther, had been burnt by the Council of Constance. Religious exaltation attained its acmé, in the influence produced by the Maid of Orleans. Jacques Cœur opened to France the commerce of distant countries, for which he was repaid by exile and spoliation. A gendarmerie, or permanent cavalry, and a body of foot archers were instituted and provided for without consulting either the people or their representatives. An assembly of the clergy at Bourges enacted a charter of independence for the Gallican church.

Louis XI., having manifested a wish to discard the nobility, the latter formed a league against him, which, after the model of all other factions, was called that of the public good. Louis protected the citizens, stimulated industry, and established a post. In the minority of the eighth Charles, the parliament decided the question of the regency, decreed a diminution of taxation by two-thirds of its former amount, and declared the sovereign power to reside with the people. The human mind was now making gigantic progress. Columbus had discovered a new world: Vasco Gama had doubled the Cape of Good Hope. But, above all, a German had, by the discovery of printing, rendered the greatest service to humanity. By facilitating the diffusion of sound doctrine, barbarism, fanaticism, and despotism must one day be expelled from the world. People dispute yet, and will for a long time continue to do so. From

age to age, nations will continue to fight for questions of policy, religion, or opinion. But with the progress of time, the sum of observations and of experiences will keep increasing, doctrines will become less imperious, creeds will become less exclusive, and men will think more of their real destination on earth: that they must work to produce, and that they must understand in order to enjoy. The determination of some few social problems may be hastened by revolutions; but the union of all to produce the greatest amount of liberty and happiness among the greatest number, can only be retarded by events which are neither more nor less than great social and political catastrophes.

The states-general were only once assembled during the reign of Louis XII., but parliament kept despotism in check by its legal forms. Louis was, nevertheless, a popular king, he kept the nobility in control, and diminished taxation. During the next reign, that of Francis I., the religious schism, at the head of which was the great Luther, gave a new impetus to the progress of the human mind. Francis burnt the Protestants by a slow fire to amuse his courtiers. This, and the massacres in Provence, only added fanaticism to reform. Calvin suppressed the ceremonies of the church, and opened up the Holy Writ to the intellect of man. Erasmus at the same period loaded the dogmatism of theologians with ridicule. The progress of the human mind was now attested not only in matters of religion, but also in that of the letters and the arts. Constitutional liberty had peopled Venice, Genoa, and Florence with great men. The Medicis tastefully seconded the movement. Dante, Petrarch, Boccacio are great names. England had also its Chaucer, Gower, Littleton, and Caxton. Paris by no means occupied, at this period, a position on an intellectual par with its neighbours. Froissart

and Monstrelet are among those who gave most lustre to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. But Francis was at the same time substituting an assembly of courtiers for the states-general, and loading the people with unjust taxes.

The

Charles V. was the most powerful sovereign in Europe during the reign of Francis. Philip II., of Spain, was equally so during the reign of Henry II. Philip Augustus had surrounded Paris with wails. wars with the English had caused these to be strengthened and extended. In the reign of Charles V., ditches were dug, and the Bastile was erected. Francis I. contributed much to the embellishment of the capital, which, under Henry II., was additionally fortified to resist the allpowerful Spaniards. Under the same reign, woman began to play that important part at court, which has so often been fatal to the French monarchy. The influence of Diana of Poitiers over both father and son afforded food for merriment to the clever but unpolished pens of Brantôme and Rabelais.

Under Francis II. those terrible civil wars began between the Catholics and the Huguenots, which so long devastated France. It was in vain that L'Hopital, a good man and a philosopher, attempted to bring back the public mind to a sense of moderation. Civil war was waged on the succession of Charles IX. from one end of the country to the other. Paris was for ever tarnished by the events of the eve of St. Bartholomew. The results of persecution are always the same. Martyrs only give strength to proselytism. The Duke of Anjou, afterwards Henry III.,