humbler classes are irrelevant to those of the
privileged orders. We go further still. What is above all sought for in
historical works nowadays is the physiognomy, the inmost character of past
generations. "How did our fathers live?" is a daily question. "What
institutions had they? What were their political rights? Can you not
place before us their pastimes, their hunting parties, their meals, and
all sorts of scenes, sad or gay, which composed their home life? We should
like to follow them in public and private occupations, and to know their
manner of living hourly, as we know our own."

In a high order of ideas, what great facts serve as a foundation to our
history and that of the modern world! We have first royalty, which, weak
and debased under the Merovingians, rises and establishes itself
energetically under Pepin and Charlemagne, to degenerate under Louis le
Debonnaire and Charles le Chauve. After having dared a second time to
found the Empire of the Caesars, it quickly sees its sovereignty replaced
by feudal rights, and all its rights usurped by the nobles, and has to
struggle for many centuries to recover its rights one by one.

Feudalism, evidently of Germanic origin, will also attract our attention,
and we shall draw a rapid outline of this legislation, which, barbarian at
the onset, becomes by degrees subject to the rules of moral progress. We
shall ascertain that military service is the essence itself of the "fief,"
and that thence springs feudal right. On our way we shall protest against
civil wars, and shall welcome emancipation and the formation of the
communes. Following the thousand details of the life of the people, we
shall see the slave become serf, and the serf become peasant. We shall
assist at the dispensation of justice by royalty and nobility, at the
solemn sittings of parliaments, and we shall see the complicated details
of a strict ceremonial, which formed an integral part of the law, develop
themselves before us. The counters of dealers, fairs and markets,
manufactures, commerce, and industry, also merit our attention; we must
search deeply into corporations of workmen and tradesmen, examining their
statutes, and initiating ourselves into their business. Fashion and dress
are also a manifestation of public and private customs; for that reason we
must give them particular attention.

And to accomplish the work we have undertaken, we are lucky to have the
conscientious studies of our old as