ard
here because they express and paint to the life the chief cause which
from the end of the tenth century led to so many insurrections amongst
the rural as well as urban populations, and brought about the
establishment of so many communes.

We say the chief cause only, because oppression and insurrection were not
the sole origin of the communes. Evil, moral and material, abounds in
human communities, but it never has the sole dominion there; force never
drives justice into utter banishment, and the ruffianly violence of the
strong never stifles in all hearts every sympathy for the weak. Two
causes, quite distinct from feudal oppression, viz., Roman traditions and
Christian sentiments, had their share in the formation of the communes
and in the beneficial results thereof.

The Roman municipal regimen, which is described in M. Guizot's _L'Essais
sur l'Histoire de France_ (1st Essay, pp. 1-44), did not everywhere
perish with the empire; it kept its footing in a great number of towns,
especially in those of Southern Gaul, Marseilles, Arles, Nismes,
Narbonne, Toulouse, &c. At Arles the municipality actually bore the name
of commune (_communitas_), Toulouse gave her municipal magistrates the
name of _Capitouls,_ after the Capitol of Rome, and in the greater part
of the other towns in the south they were called Consuls. After the
great invasion of barbarians from the seventh to the end of the eleventh
century, the existence of these Roman municipalities appears but rarely
and confusedly in history; but in this there is nothing peculiar to the
towns and the municipal regimen, for confusion and obscurity were at that
time universal, and the nascent feudal system was plunged therein as well
as the dying little municipal systems were. Many Roman municipalities
were still subsisting without influencing any event of at all a general
kind, and without leaving any trace; and as the feudal system grew and
grew they still went on in the midst of universal darkness and anarchy.
They had penetrated into the north of Gaul in fewer numbers and with a
weaker organization than in the south, but still keeping their footing
and vaunting themselves on their Roman origin in the face of their
barbaric conquerors. The inhabitants of Rheims remembered with pride
that their municipal magistracy and its jurisdiction were anterior to
Clovis, dating as they did from before the days of St. Remigius, the
apostle of the Franks. The burghers of Me