over the whole
territory; but it would be one huge lie; for most frequently, in the
majority of places, these magistracies were utterly powerless and
themselves in complete disorder. The efforts of Charlemagne, either to
establish them on a firm footing or to make them act with regularity,
were continual, but unavailing. In spite of the fixity of his purpose
and the energy of his action, the disorder around him was measureless and
insurmountable. He might check it for a moment at one point; but the
evil existed wherever his terrible will did not reach, and wherever it
did the evil broke out again so soon as it had been withdrawn. How could
it be otherwise? Charlemagne had not to grapple with one single nation
or with one single system of institutions; he had to deal with different
nations, without cohesion, and foreign one to another. The authority
belonged, at one and the same time, to assemblies of free men, to
landholders over the dwellers on their domains, and to the king over the
"leudes" and their following. These three powers appeared and acted side
by side in every locality as well as in the totality of the State. Their
relations and their prerogatives were not governed by any generally-
recognized principle, and none of the three was invested with sufficient
might to prevail habitually against the independence or resistance of its
rivals. Force alone, varying according to circumstances and always
uncertain decided matters between them. Such was France at the accession
of the second line. The co-existence of and the struggle between the
three systems of institutions and the three powers just alluded to had as
yet had no other result. Out of this chaos Charlemagne caused to issue a
monarchy, strong through him alone and so long as he was by, but
powerless and gone like a shadow when the man was lost to the
institution.

Whoever is astonished either at this triumph of absolute monarchy through
the personal movement of Charlemagne, or at the speedy fall of the fabric
on the disappearance of the moving spirit, understands neither what can
be done by a great man, when without him society sees itself given over
to deadly peril, nor how unsubstantial and frail is absolute power when
the great man is no longer by, or when society has no longer need of him.

It has just been shown how Charlemagne by his wars, which had for their
object and result permanent and well-secured conquests, had stopped the
fresh in