ad never ceased to exist, and the elegance of customs
re-flourished amidst the ruins. There, a sort of urban aristocracy always
continued, as a balance against the nobles, and the counsel of elected
_prud'hommes_, the syndics, jurors or _capitouls_, who in the towns
replaced the Roman _honorati_ and _curiales_, still were considered by
kings and princes as holding some position in the state. The municipal
body, larger, more open than the old "ward," no longer formed a
corporation of unwilling aristocrats enchained to privileges which ruined
them. The principal cities on the Italian coast had already amassed
enormous wealth by commerce, and displayed the most remarkable ardour,
activity, and power. The Eternal City, which was disputed by emperors,
popes, and barons of the Roman States, bestirred itself at times to snatch
at the ancient phantom of republicanism; and this phantom was destined
soon to change into reality, and another Rome, or rather a new Carthage,
the lovely Venice, arose free and independent from the waves of the
Adriatic (Fig. 34).

In Lombardy, so thickly colonised by the German conquerors, feudalism, on
the contrary, weighed heavily; but there, too, the cities were populous
and energetic, and the struggle for supremacy continued for centuries in
an uncompromising manner between the people and the nobles, between the
Guelphs and the Ghibellines.

In the north and east of the Gallic territory, the instinct of resistance
did not exist any the less, though perhaps it was more intermittent. In
fact, in these regions we find ambitious nobles forestalling the action of
the King, and in order to attach towns to themselves and their houses,
suppressing the most obnoxious of the taxes, and at the same time
granting legal guarantees. For this the Counts of Flanders became
celebrated, and the famous Heribert de Vermandois was noted for being so
exacting in his demands with the great, and yet so popular with the small.

[Illustration: Fig. 34.--View of St. Mark's Place, Venice, Sixteenth
Century, after Cesare Vecellio.]

The eleventh century, during which feudal power rose to its height, was
also the period when a reaction set in of the townspeople against the
nobility. The spirit of the city revived with that of the bourgeois (a
name derived from the Teutonic word _burg_, habitation) and infused a
feeling of opposition to the system which followed the conquest of the
Teutons. "But," says M. Henri Martin, "what