nce of Christianity, its
proper and natural course, producing disruption into different local
communities and bold struggles for individual liberties, either one with
another, or against whosoever tried to become their master.

As for the second fact, the formation of the three kingdoms which were
the issue of the treaty of Verdun, various explanations have been given
of it. This distribution of certain peoples of Western Europe into three
distinct and independent groups, Italians, Germans, and French, has been
attributed at one time to a diversity of histories and manners; at
another to geographical causes and to what is called the rule of natural
frontiers; and oftener still to a spirit of nationality and to
differences of language. Let none of these causes be gainsaid; they
all exercised some sort of influence, but they are all incomplete in
themselves and far too redolent of theoretical system. It is true that
Germany, France, and Italy began, at that time, to emerge from the chaos
into which they had been plunged by barbaric invasion and the conquests
of Charlemagne, and to form themselves into quite distinct nations; but
there were in each of the kingdoms of Lothaire, of Louis the Germanic,
and of Charles the Bald, populations widely differing in race, language,
manners, and geographical affinity, and it required many great events and
the lapse of many centuries to bring about the degree of national unity
they now possess. To say nothing touching the agency of individual and
independent forces, which is always considerable, although so many men of
intellect ignore it in the present day, what would have happened, had any
one of the three new kings, Lothaire, or Louis the Germanic, or Charles
the Bald, been a second Charlemagne, as Charlemagne had been a second
Charles Martel? Who can say that, in such a case, the three kingdoms
would have taken the form they took in 843?

Happily or unhappily, it was not so; none of Charlemagne's successors was
capable of exercising on the events of his time, by virtue of his brain
and his own will, any notable influence. Not that they were all
unintelligent, or timid, or indolent. It has been seen that Louis the
Debonnair did not lack virtues and good intentions; and Charles the Bald
was clear-sighted, dexterous, and energetic; he had a taste for
information and intellectual distinction; he liked and sheltered men of
learning and letters, and to such purpose that, instead o