of certain historians who have represented the Germans as
the true regenerators of society in Europe. The two sources of modern
civilisation are indisputably Pagan antiquity and Christianity.

After the fall of the Merovingian kings great progress was made in the
political and social state of nations. These kings, who were but chiefs of
undisciplined bands, were unable to assume a regal character, properly so
called. Their authority was more personal than territorial, for incessant
changes were made in the boundaries of their conquered dominions. It was
therefore with good reason that they styled themselves kings of the
Franks, and not kings of France.

Charlemagne was the first who recognised that social union, so admirable
an example of which was furnished by Roman organization, and who was able,
with the very elements of confusion and disorder to which he succeeded, to
unite, direct, and consolidate diverging and opposite forces, to establish
and regulate public administrations, to found and build towns, and to
form and reconstruct almost a new world (Fig. 8). We hear of him assigning
to each his place, creating for all a common interest, making of a crowd
of small and scattered peoples a great and powerful nation; in a word,
rekindling the beacon of ancient civilisation. When he died, after a most
active and glorious reign of forty-five years, he left an immense empire
in the most perfect state of peace (Fig. 9). But this magnificent
inheritance was unfortunately destined to pass into unworthy or impotent
hands, so that society soon fell back into anarchy and confusion. The
nobles, in their turn invested with power, were continually at war, and
gradually weakened the royal authority--the power of the kingdom--by their
endless disputes with the Crown and with one another.

[Illustration: Fig. 8.--Charles, eldest Son of King Pepin, receives the
News of the Death of his Father and the Great Feudalists offer him the
Crown.--Costumes of the Court of Burgundy in the Fifteenth
Century.--Fac-simile of a Miniature of the "History of the Emperors"
(Library of the Arsenal).]

[Illustration: Fig. 9. Portrait of Charlemagne, whom the Song of Roland
names the King with the Grizzly Beard.--Fac-simile of an Engraving of the
End of the Sixteenth Century.]

The revolution in society which took place under the Carlovingian dynasty
had for its especial object that of rendering territorial what was
formerly personal, and, as it were