legend, how inestimable in
value, when, under the universal reign of brute force, to endure this
life it was necessary to imagine another, and to render the second as
visible to the spiritual eye as the first was to the physical eye. The
clergy thus nourished men for more than twelve centuries, and in the
grandeur of its recompense we can estimate the depth of their gratitude.
Its popes, for two hundred years, were the dictators of Europe. It
organized crusades, dethroned monarchs, and distributed kingdoms. Its
bishops and abbots became here, sovereign princes, and there, veritable
founders of dynasties. It held in its grasp a third of the territory,
one-half of the revenue, and two-thirds of the capital of Europe. Let us
not believe that Man counterfeits gratitude, or that he gives without a
valid motive; he is too selfish and too envious for that. Whatever may
be the institution, ecclesiastic or secular, whatever may be the clergy,
Buddhist or Christian, the contemporaries who observe it for forty
generations are not bad judges. They surrender to it their will and
their possessions, just in proportion to its services, and the excess of
their devotion may measure the immensity of its benefaction.

II. Services and Recompenses of the Nobles.

Up to this point no aid is found against the power of the sword and
the battle-ax except in persuasion and in patience. Those States
which, imitating the old empire, attempted to rise up into compact
organizations, and to interpose a barrier against constant invasion,
obtained no hold on the shifting soil; after Charlemagne everything
melts away. There are no more soldiers after the battle of Fontanet;
during half a century bands of four or five hundred outlaws sweep over
the country, killing, burning, and devastating with impunity. But, by
way of compensation, the dissolution of the State raises up at this very
time a military generation. Each petty chieftain has planted his feet
firmly on the domain he occupies, or which he withholds; he no longer
keeps it in trust, or for use, but as property, and an inheritance. It
is his own manor, his own village, his own earldom; it no longer belongs
to the king; he contends for it in his own right. The benefactor, the
conservator at this time is the man capable of fighting, of defending
others, and such really is the character of the newly established class.
The noble, in the language of the day, is the man of war, the soldier
(miles